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Wed-Ses1-P3:
First and second language acquisition
This is the final program for this session. For oral sessions, the timing on the left is the current presentation order, but this may still change, so please check at the conference itself.
| Time: | Wednesday 10:00 | Place: | International Conference Room C | Type: | Poster |
| Chair: | Benjamin Munson | ||||
| #1 | Cantonese tone word learning by tone and non-tone language speakers |
| (Simon Fraser University) (Simon Fraser University) | |
| Adult non-native perception is subject to influence from a variety of factors, including native language experience. The present research examines the effect of linguistic experience on non-native tone perception and tone word learning. Native Thai and English-speaking participants completed seven sessions of lexical identification training on words distinguished by Cantonese tones. A tone identification task was administered before and after training. Both groups had comparable tone identification accuracy; however, Thai listeners obtained greater tone word learning proficiency. The findings suggest that native language experience with employing pitch lexically facilitates the incorporation of non-native tones into novel lexical representations. | |
| #2 | Validation of a training method for L2 continuous-speech segmentation |
| (MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney, NSW 1797, Australia) (MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney, NSW 1797, Australia) | |
| Recognising continuous speech in a second language is often unexpectedly difficult, as the operation of segmenting speech is so attuned to native-language structure. We report the initial steps in development of a novel training method for second-language listening, focusing on speech segmentation and employing a task designed for studying this: word-spotting. Listeners detect real words in sequences consisting of a word plus a minimal context. The present validation study shows that learners from varying non-English backgrounds successfully perform a version of this task in English, and display appropriate sensitivity to structural factors that also affect segmentation by native English listeners. | |
| #3 | Linguistic Rhythm in Foreign Accent |
| (University of Pennsylvania) | |
| This study investigates the influence of L1 on L2 with respect to linguistic rhythm. The L2 English of French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish speakers is compared with L1 English. The results show that the linguistic rhythm of L1 transfers to L2. Compared to L1 English, L2 English has shorter stressed vowels but longer reduced vowel. Stressed vowels in the L2 English of stress-timed languages have a higher pitch contour than those in the L2 English of syllable-timed languages. Index Terms: Foreign Accent, rhythm, duration, pitch | |
| #4 | The effect of a word embedded in a sentence and speaking-rate variation on the perceptual training of geminate and singleton consonant distinction |
| (Waseda University) (Hosei University) (NICT/ ATR) (Waseda University) | |
| Aiming at effective perceptual training of second language learning, we carried out training experiments on Japanese geminate consonants. Native Korean learners were trained to identify geminate and singleton stop of Japanese. Since Korean language has no phonemic contrast between long and short consonants, learners have tried to learn their differences based on their categorical perception through training. To test the training efficiency and find generalization of temporal discrimination, we investigated the perceptual training with a word embedded in sentences and single/multiple speaking rate. Training experiments showed the superiority with a word embedded in sentences and multiple speaking rates. These results suggest that perceptual training which was trained by multiple speaking rates could be effective to perceive temporal discrimination of length contrast of Japanese. However, under the training stimuli was single speaking rate condition, perceptual training have generalized to the limited extent. These results suggest that context factors including speaking rate would affect to identify the length contrast of Japanese to L2 learners. | |
| #5 | Foreign accent matters most when timing is wrong |
| (Griffith University) | |
| This study aims to investigate native speakers’ perception of prosodic variation of Japanese utterances. The pitch contour above the word level is hard to determine due to individual variation or pragmatic and para-linguistic factors. Nevertheless, native speakers’ intonation is relatively consistent as long as the context and intention of the utterance is predetermined. On the other hand, L2 speakers’ intonation contains some prosodic deviation from the native speakers’ model, and yet some deviations are treated as non-native production and some are not. By identifying the prosodic deviations that are tolerated by native listeners, we will have better understanding of crucial points necessary for the improvement of Japanese pronunciation and the reference for computer-based assessment tools. The study suggests that pitch errors affect the performance score, but not as significantly as do timing errors. | |
| #6 | Effects of Korean Learners’ Consonant Cluster Reduction Strategies on English Speech Recognition Performance |
| (Department of Linguistics, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea) (Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea) (Department of Linguistics, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea) | |
| This paper examines how the strategies for L2 production utilized by foreign language learners affect the performance of non-native speech recognition. Producing English consonant clusters are the most problematic for Korean learners of English because of difference between Korean and English phonotactics. The strategies of Korean learners in producing English consonant clusters entail a large amount of speech recognition errors. We have analyzed these problems based on phonetic and phonological knowledge of both languages and proposed two models focusing on vowel epenthesis and consonant deletion, respectively. These models reflect Korean learners’ cluster reduction strategies. Experimental results show that the vowel epenthesis model improves the speech recognition performance compared to the baseline; however, the consonant deletion model deteriorates the speech recognition performance. It is noteworthy that these experimental results are consistent with previous linguistic studies, which have claimed that L2 learners are more likely to avoid producing clusters by vowel epenthesis rather than by consonant deletion. | |
| #7 | The effects of EMA-based augmented visual feedback on the English speakers' acquisition of the Japanese flap: a perceptual study |
| (Texas Woman's University) (The University of Texas at Dallas) | |
| Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) was used to provide augmented visual feedback in the learning of non-native speech sounds. Eight adult native speakers of English were randomly assigned to one of the two training conditions: (1) conventional L2 speech production training or (2) conventional L2 speech production training with EMA-based kinematic feedback. The participants’ speech was perceptually judged by six native speakers of Japanese. The results indicate that kinematic feedback with EMA facilitates the acquisition and maintenance of the Japanese flap consonant, providing superior acquisition and maintenance. The findings suggest augmented visual feedback may play an important role in adults’ L2 learning. | |
| #8 | Perception of voiceless fricatives by Japanese listeners of advanced and intermediate level English proficiency |
| (Graduate School of Science and Technology, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan) (Graduate School of Science and Technology, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan) | |
| Numerous research has investigated how first language influences the perception of foreign sounds. The present study focuses on the perception of voiceless English fricatives by Japanese listeners with advanced and intermediate level English proficiency, and compares their results with that of English native listeners. Listeners identified consonants embedded in /a __ a/ in quiet, multi-speaker babble and white noise (SNR=0 dB). Results revealed that intermediate level learners scored the lowest among all listener groups, and /th/-/s/ confusions were unique to Japanese listeners. Confusions of /th/-/f/ were observed among all listener groups, which suggest that those phoneme confusions may be universal. | |
| #9 | Perception of Estonian vowel category boundaries by native and non-native speakers |
| (Institute of Cybernetics at Tallinn University of Technology) (Institute of Cybernetics at Tallinn University of Technology) | |
| The aim of the paper is to study the perception of Estonian vowel categories by L2 learners of Estonian whose L1 is Russian. Estonian vowel system includes nine vowels whereas Russian has six. Five of Estonian vowels have counterparts in Russian: /i/, /e/, /u/, /o/ and /a/, the new vowel categories for L2 speakers are /ü/, /ö/, /ä/, and partly /õ/. For the perceptual experiments four-formant vowel stimuli were synthesized including nine Estonian prototype vowels and the intermediate steps between prototypes; the stimuli set covered 14 vowel category boundaries. The experiments involving native Estonian and non-native (Russian as L1) subjects showed that (1) Estonian vowels /i/, /e/, /u/ and /o/ assimilate well with their Russian counterparts; (2) Estonian /a/ and /ä/ assimilate with the allophones of Russian /a/; (3) Estonian /ü/, /ö/ and /õ/ assimilate partly with Russian /ɨ/; due to the close phonetic distance L2 subjects' ability to discriminate these categories is poor. | |
| #10 | SPOKEN ENGLISH ASSESSMENT SYSTEM FOR NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS USING ACOUSTIC AND PROSODIC FEATURES |
| (IBM China Research Center) (Tsinghua University) (IBM China Research Center) (IBM T. J. Watson Research Center) (Tsinghua University) | |
| The absence of real-time and targeted feedback is often critical in spoken foreign language learning. Computer-assisted language assessment systems are playing an ever more important role in this domain. This work considers the idiosyncratic pronunciation patterns of Chinese English speakers and uses both acoustic and prosody features to capture pronunciation, word stress, and rhythm information. The proposed system uses a. automatic speech recognition and alignment for pronunciation assessment, b. a set of special features with appropriate normalization for word stress detection, and c. a prosody phrase prediction model for rhythm assessment; and is shown to give immediate and accurate analyses to speakers to improve learning efficiency. | |
| #11 | Russian Infants and Children’s Sounds and Speech Corpuses for Language Acquisition Studies |
| (Saint-Petersburg State University) (Saint-Petersburg State University) (Saint-Petersburg State University) (Saint-Petersburg State University) | |
| «INFANTRU» and «CHILDRU» are the first Russian child speech database. The corpus «INFANTRU» contains longitudinal vocalizations and speech records (n=2967) of 99 children from 3 mos to 36 mos by long utterances sequences and separate utterances in different psychoemotional state of the child. The database “CHILDRU” contains the records (n=28079, 13956Mb) of 150 children’s speech at the age from 4 to 7 years. Speech material are presented by the following situations: spontaneous speech, answers to questions, reading, poetry or retelling a tale, count and alphabet, play. Speech files format is Windows PCM, 22050 Hz, 16 bit. | |
| #12 | LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC INFLUENCE ON PHONEME DEVELOPMENT: FRENCH AND DREHU DATA |
| (1. CNEP, Université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, 2. Département Parole et Cognition, GIPSA-lab) (Département Parole et Cognition, GIPSA-lab) | |
| This study extends a cross-linguistic collaboration on phonological development, which aims at comparing production of word-initial sequences of consonant-vowel (CVs) across sets of languages which have comparable phonemes that differ in overall frequency. By comparing across languages, the influence of language-specific distributional patterns on phoneme mastery can be disentangled from the effects of more general phonetic constraints on development. We made word and non-word repetition experiments with French- and Drehu-acquiring 2-year-old to 5-year-old children. We first analysed production in words according to frequency data in French and Drehu. Results show that productions of word-initial consonants are correlated with frequency, especially in younger children. Then we compared the non-word production scores of French- and Drehu-acquiring children. French and Drehu learners have similar mean scores but show different patterns for specific phonemes that differ in frequency. | |
| #13 | Did you say susi or shushi? Measuring the emergence of robust fricative contrasts in English- and Japanese-acquiring children |
| (Ohio State University) (Ohio State University) (Ohio State University) | |
| While the English sibilant fricatives can be well-differentiated by the centroid frequency of the frication noise alone, the Japanese sibilant fricatives cannot be. Measures of perceived spectral peak frequency and shape developed for stop bursts were adapted to describe sibilant fricative contrasts in English- and Japanese-speaking adults and children. These measures captured both the cross-language differences and more subtle inter-individual differences related to language-specific marking of gender. They could also be used in deriving a measure of robustness of contrast that captured cross-language differences in fricative development. |
