Susan Guion-Anderson

Relational Timing in the Production and Perception of Japanese Singleton and Geminate Stops

This work examines the production and perception of the Japanese singleton versus geminate stop contrast in order to investigate properties that distinguish the contrast in the face of variability due to speech rate. The acoustic study found two local relational durations, the ratio of the stop to the preceding mora and the ratio of the stop to the following vowel, to be stable across speaking rates and to accurately classify singleton and geminate productions. However, the subsequent perception study demonstrated an influential role of the preceding mora duration and a marginal role of the following vowel duration on listeners’ categorization. These results demonstrate that Japanese listeners can take advantage of relative duration in the perception of the stop length contrast, and that relative strength of simultaneously available acoustic cues does not necessarily translate into equal perceptual importance.

Prosodic Realization of Focus in Bilingual Production of Southern Min and Mandarin

Previously post-focus compression (PFC) - the lowering of fundamental frequency (F0) and intensity of post-focal words to below those of the same words in identical sentences with neutral focus - was found in Beijing Mandarin but not in Taiwan Southern Min and Taiwan Mandarin. This study investigated whether the presence of PFC would vary with age and language use of societal bilinguals of Southern Min and Mandarin. Three groups of bilingual speakers of Quanzhou Southern Min and Mandarin, age around 20, 40 and 60, were examined for their prosodic realization of focus. All the speakers acquired Southern Min first, followed by Mandarin in childhood, but the younger speakers used more Mandarin than the older speakers. Comparisons of duration, intensity and F0 in focused, prefocus and post-focus words indicated that all groups produced Taiwan-like focus, i.e., without PFC, in Southern Min, but the youngest group produced Beijing-like PFC in Mandarin. These findings reveal that increased language experience, such as greater amount of second language (L2) use, correlates with increased ability to produce native-like PFC in L2, suggesting that PFC can be used as an indicator in assessing L2 speech acquisition.

Using the lens of phonetic experience to resolve phonological forms

This special issue of the Journal contains a selection of papers developed from original presentations at the 2nd ASA Special Workshop on Speech with the theme of Cross-Language Speech Perception and Variations in Linguistics Experience. The papers represent major theoretical and empirical contributions that converge upon the common theme of how our perception of phonological forms is guided and constrained by our experience with the phonetic details of the language(s) we have learned. Several of the papers presented here offer key theoretical advances and lay out novel or newly expanded frameworks that increase our understanding of speech perception as shaped by universal, first language acquisition abilities, general learning mechanisms, and language-specific perceptual tuning. Others offer careful empirical investigations of language learning by simultaneous bilinguals, as well as by later second language learners, and discuss their new findings in light of the theoretical proposals. The work presented here will provide a stimulating and thoughtful impetus toward further progress on the fundamentally significant issue of understanding of how language experience shapes our perception of phonetic details and phonological structure in spoken language.

Comparing weights of cues with different numbers of levels.

Cue weighting is a useful methodological tool in speech perception research: it allows to access within‐group and between‐group biases in sound categorization. Examination of cue weighting may also have major implications for phonological theory. For instance, significant individual variation in reliance on cues to a phonemic contrast within a speech community challenges the traditional assumption of the language‐specific feature system. Morrison argued that logistic regression coefficients in identification tasks provide good estimates of cue weights [Studies in Second Lang. Acquisition 597–606 (2005)]. Unfortunately, coefficient estimates vary with the number of levels a cue has, which makes it impossible to directly compare weights of cues with different numbers of levels, a serious limitation. The present paper shows that, using a null hypothesis of zero cue weight and a fixed sample size, one can employ Monte Carlo techniques to estimate the effect of the number of levels on observed cue weights (reg...

The Effect of Age of Acquisition and Second-Language Experience on Segments and Prosody: A Cross-Sectional Study of Korean Bilinguals' English and Korean Production

The effect of age of acquisition and amount of experience on the segmental and prosodic production of the first‐(L1) and second‐language (L2) was investigated. Forty Korean learners of English varying in age (adult versus child) and amount of experience (6 months versus 6 years) as well as 20 age‐matched native English speaking adults and children participated. In the segmental domain, spectral quality and duration of eight English and seven Korean vowels were compared. In order to examine prosodic aspects of production, English words containing stressed and unstressed syllables and Korean four‐syllable phrases were elicited. Results for adult groups revealed that the production of Korean vowels, but not English vowels, was influenced by the L2 experience, indicating plasticity in the L1. For prosody, small effects of experience on English production were found. As for the children, production of both English and Korean vowels and prosody varied by group. The 6‐year‐experience child group was native‐like in English vowels but not in unstressed syllables. The results suggest that there is a dynamic interaction between L1 and L2 in segments as well as in prosody.

Contents Vol. 71, 2014

William J. Barry, Sindlesham-Wokingham (United Kingdom) Ann Bradlow, Evanston, Ill. (USA) Sonia Frota, Lisbon (Portugal) Wentao Gu, Nanjing (China) Sarah Hawkins, Cambridge (United Kingdom) Allard Jongman, Lawrence, Kans. (USA) Ineke Mennen, Graz (Austria) Richard Ogden, York (United Kingdom) Daniel Recasens, Barcelona (Spain) Rachel Walker, Los Angeles, Calif. (USA) Patrick C.M. Wong, Hong Kong (China)

English and Russian listeners perceive cues to lexical pitch accent differently.

This study examines the difference in perception of the fundamental acoustic cue to Japanese lexical pitch‐accent—a sharp F0 fall following the F0 maximum—by native listeners of two stress languages, English and Russian. In both languages, F0 fall is not a cue to stress, but intonational high‐low pitch accents exist. Previous work showed that English listeners were sensitive to the F0 fall in a discrimination task; however, they did not use the F0 fall information in a pitch pattern categorization task [Shport and Guion‐Anderson, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127, 2024 (2010)]. Similar results were expected for native Russian listeners. Preliminary data suggest that Russian and English listeners differ in their perception of Japanese pitch patterns. Russian listeners are slightly less sensitive to the F0 fall in a discrimination task than English listeners; however, they appear to employ this acoustic cue for pattern categorization. Specifically, patterns without the F0 fall tend to be perceived as having a promine...

Perceptual confusability of final nasals in Southern Min.

The three syllable‐final nasals /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/ in old Chinese have merged into two (/n, ŋ/) or only one (/ŋ/) nasal in modern Chinese languages. The perceptual confusability of place of articulation was investigated with speakers of Southern Min, a Chinese language which preserves all three final nasals. Three experiments of forced‐choice nasal‐identification were conducted: (1) complete CVN syllables embedded in noise, (2) CV‐truncations of the CVN syllables, and (3) the excised nasal murmur, −N. The first experiment revealed that /m/ was the most and /n/ was the least confusable. Responses were highly accurate in the second experiment (above 85%) and around chance in the third experiment (below 40%), which indicated that listeners relied on the information in the vowel rather than the nasal murmur to identify final nasals. The vowel /i/ resulted in the most and /a/ the least misidentification of final nasals among /i, ə, a/. Low‐level and falling tones resulted in more misidentification of final nasa...

Are apical trills associated with raised fundamental frequency

Previous work has suggested that apical trill production may condition a raised F0, affecting the vowel after onset consonants. This effect has been suggested as the impetus for the reanalysis of a falling‐rising tone replacing an onset trill [r] in Khmer [Wayland and Guion, Mon‐Khmer Studies 35, 55–82 (2005)]. However, it has not been established whether this increase in F0 is a natural correlate of apical trill production. If so, it should be found in other languages. A raised F0 has been found for trill production in Thai, but preliminary data examining Finnish and Spanish onset trills found no such pattern. Some speakers produced higher F0 after [r] and others did not. The questions of whether there may be aerodynamic constraints associated with trill production that affect F0 or whether language‐specific phonetic knowledge, perhaps unconditioned by articulatory constraints, is the source of the F0 patterns are discussed. As part of this discussion, the variation in trills, from multiple cycles to app...