DOCSLIB.ORG

A Phonetic Analysis of the English Spoken by Mexican Children in the Elementary Schools of Arizona

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Phonetic Analysis of the English Spoken by Mexican Children in the Elementary Schools of Arizona Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1940 A Phonetic Analysis of the English Spoken by Mexican Children in the Elementary Schools of Arizona. Klonda Lynn Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Part of the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Recommended Citation Lynn, Klonda, "A Phonetic Analysis of the English Spoken by Mexican Children in the Elementary Schools of Arizona." (1940). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 7832. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/7832 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MANUSCRIPT THESES Unpublished theses submitted for the master’s and doctor’s degrees and deposited in the Louisiana State University Library are available for inspection* Use of any thesis is limited by the rights of the author* Bibliographical references may be noted, but passage^ may not be copied unless the author has given permission# Credit must be given in subsequent written or published work# A library which borrows this thesis for use by its clientele l®t|tideted to make sure that the borrower is aware of the above LOUISIANA. STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY A PHONETIC ANALYSIS OF THE ENGLISH spoken by Mexican children in THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF ARIZONA A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Speech *>y Klonda Lynn B.A., North Dakota, 1920. M.A., Boston University, 1920. 1940 UMI Number: DP69210 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI Dissertation PublisNng UMI DP69210 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ACKN OtLEDQMENTS The need for a phonetic analysis of the English spoken toy the Mexican school children of Arizona became apparent to the writer after several years of work with class-room teachers. Many of their urgent questions had to go unanswered, The writer hopes that the answers to their problems, as set forth in this study, will express her gratitude to these teachers, not only for their assistance in obtaining the recordings necessary for the analysis, tout for their continued interest and eager in­ quiry* It Is Impossible to express proper acknowledgment to all those who have made this study possible. Perhaps It should never have been attempted If it had not been for the encouragement of Dr. Mary A. Hill, head of the depart­ ment of English, State Teachers College, Flagstaff, Arizona, Also, the writer Is under personal obligation to a former student, Mr, Neal Hatoogliatti of Globe, Arizona, for the many hours spent In assisting with the recordings. Finally, a deep debt of gratitude is expressed to Dr. C. M. Wise, head of the department of Speech, Louisiana State University, for his sound counsel and advice, an indebtedness not compensated by this formal recognition* o<JL TABLE OP CONTENTS Page LIST OP TABLES ................................... iv LIST OP ILLU3TRATIONS ..... .................... v ABSTRACT ...................................... vi INTRODUCTION ........................ 2 Chapter I. THE PROBLEM OF MEXICAN-ENGLISH ............ 15 II. THE PHONETIC STRUCTURE OP CASTILIAN-SPANISH. 29 III. THE PHONETIC STRUCTURE OF MEXICAN-SPANISH . 74 IV. ANALYSIS OP THE HEXICAN-ENGLISIi DIALECT . 87 Consonants ........ ........... 87 Vowels ................. 143 Modifications................. 162 Remedial Suggestions ........... 168 CONCLUSION .................................... 189 APPENDICES I. TRANSCRIPTION OF HEXICAN-SPANISH ............ 194 II. TRANSCRIPTIONS OF MEXICAN-ENGLISH .......... 197 III. SAMPLE RECORDING OP MEXICAN-ENGLISH ........ 302 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................... 304 BIOGRAPHY ...................................... 307 111 LIST OP TABLES Table Page 1. Enrollment of* Mexican Pupils in Elementary Schools of Arizona, 1937-58 • * 22 2* Distribution of Mexican and English Children in 19 Elementary Schools . 23 3* Incidence of the (t*V) in the Transcribed Word Lists *•«*••••»••**•*.*»•* 100 4. Incidence of Substitutions for (<^) ♦ . « . * 124 5. Incidence of Substitutions of (t£) for ($) . • 137 6. Incidence of Substitutions of ($) for (#) • • 137 7. Incidence of Substitutions for (^) . • • . * 141 8* Incidence of Substitutions for (£5 ) . • * • • 141 iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Locations of Recordings • 5 2. Spanish Vowels 33 3* Spanish Consonants 34 4* General American Consonants ....••••• 92 5# General American Vowels and Diphthongs . 93 6* Aspiration in English 96 7* Non-aspiration In Spanish .......... 97 8. Non-aspiration in English .......... 104 9* Aspiration in Spanish . .......... 104 10* English and Spanish Vowels ...••••*• 146 11. English and Spanish _i Sounds ............ 147 12. English and Spanish js Sounds 150 13. English and Spanish Low Vowels •••••.. 153 14. English and Spanish o Sounds ........ 155 15* English and Spanish u Sounds 156 16. Spanish and English Diphthongs ....... 161 v ABSTRACT Thirty-four per cent of the total elementary school population of Arizona is Spanish-speaking, or Mexican. The age-grade distribution in this state shows that approximately thirty-five per cent of the pupils in the elementary schools are over-age for their grade. The Fima County Survey in­ dicates that a large percentage of this over-ageness is ac­ counted for by the presence of Mexican pupils. The present consensus of opinion is that much of the existing retardation of the Mexican children can be attributed, directly or in­ directly, to language defects. The effort to Americanize and assimilate our foreign- speaking peoples in the Southwest has given us a generation of children of Mexican parentage who are dependent upon the home for the Spanish they speak and upon the school for the English. The child, as a native Spanish speaker, has had time to learn but little of his native tongue before he is faced with the fact that he must, for the purpose of social and economic adjustment, learn a new set of symbols. Fhonetlc substitution is the result. The primary purpose of this study is to make a com­ parative analysis of the phonetic variants of the English language spoken by native Spanish-speaking children in the vi elementary schools of the state of Arizona. The analysis has been made from a collection of one hundred fifty re­ corded examples of the speech of Mexican children enrolled In grades three to eight inclusive. By means of a detailed analysis of the phonetic transcription of this "loaded" material, and by constant reference to and comparison with the Castilian, Mexican-Spanish and English phonetic usage, a study of the substitutions made by the Mexican child In Mexican-Engllsh was made. The discussion of these substitu­ tions and the reasons for their existence forms the substance of this study. General and special remedial suggestions are offered also. The findings of the analysis of the phonetic structure of the Mexlcan-English dialect can be summarized briefly as follows: (1) there is a direct substitution of a Spanish sound for an English sound; (2) there is a difference in the way in which sounds similar in both languages are produced; (3) there Is a confusion of sounds with spelling; (4) there Is insufficient glide between the sounds of connected speech; (5) there is an appreciable shortness characteristic of all vowels of the Mexican-English as compared with the corres­ ponding American vowels; (6) there is an unnatural stressing of the unstressed sounds. On the whole, the Incidence of the variants does not decrease to any noticeable degree with the Increased age and skill of the speaker. Certain of the variant forms seem to persist throughout the school period. vii The factors which contribute to the use of the variant pronunciations of Mexican-EnglI sh are: (1) the use of the native tongue, Mexican-Spanish, from babyhood until entrance Into the American school; (2) the learning of the new symbols of the English language at an early age. This thrusts upon the child an additional conditioning of the speech mechanism to new habits of speech before the old are well established. Three general conclusions may be drawn from the study: (1) there is a need for a more scientific approach toward the teaching of the new set of symbols, based upon an exact knowledge of the phonetic structure of both Spanish and English. (2) there is a need for a course of study, planned for oral English, which takes into account the normal develop­ ment of the language habits of the child. Such a course of study would provide the child with such re-conditioning of the sensory, motor, and auditory
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Perceptions of Different Accent
    Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Hana Richterová Perceptions of Different Accents of English Bachelor ’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: PhDr. Kate řina Tomková, Ph. D. 2013 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature I would like to thank all of my American respondents who took the time and effort to take part in my research, and all of those who helped me contact them via Facebook, especially Karolina Schmid. My greatest thanks go to Mrs. Kate řina Tomková for her continuous support, willingness and inspirational remarks, which were at the very root of this thesis outline. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 2. Theory ........................................................................................................................... 5 2.1 The definition of accent .......................................................................................... 5 2.2 Development of accents of English......................................................................... 6 2.3 Differences between British and American accents ................................................ 8 2.3.1 The separation of the accents ........................................................................... 8 2.3.2 Pronunciation differences ..............................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Standardization in Early English Orthography
    Standardization in Early English Orthography Over thirty years ago Fred Brengelman pointed out that since at least 1909 and George Krapp’s Modern English: Its Growth and Present Use, it was widely assumed that English printers played the major role in the standardization of English spelling.1 Brengelman demonstrated convincingly that the role of the printers was at best minimal and that much more important was the work done in the late 16th and 17th centuries by early English orthoepists and spelling reformers – people like Richard Mulcaster, John Cheke, Thomas Smith, John Hart, William Bullokar, Alexander Gil, and Richard Hodges.2 Brengelman’s argument is completely convincing, but it concentrates on developments rather late in the history of English orthography – developments that were external to the system itself and basically top-down. It necessarily ignores the extent to which much standardization occurred naturally and internally during the 11th through 16th centuries. This early standardization was not a top-down process, but rather bottom-up, arising from the communication acts of individual spellers and their readers – many small actions by many agents. In what follows I argue that English orthography is an evolving system, and that this evolution produced a degree of standardization upon which the 16th and 17th century orthoepists could base their work, work that not only further rationalized and standardized our orthography, as Brengelman has shown, but also marked the beginning of the essentially top-down system that we have today. English Orthography as an Evolving Complex System. English orthography is not just an evolving system; it is an evolving complex system – adaptive, self-regulating, and self-organizing.
    [Show full text]
  • An Analysis of Vowels Across Word Boundaries in Veracruz, Mexican Spanish
    An Analysis of Vowels across Word Boundaries in Veracruz, Mexican Spanish Janet M. Smith, Tanya L. Flores, Michael S. Gradoville Indiana University Bloomington Abstract This project examines vowels in hiatus across word boundaries in Spanish. Our findings are based on a corpus of seven female speakers of the Veracruz variety of Mexican Spanish. Previous research on vowel transitions has proposed several possible outcomes for vowel combinations across word boundaries in Spanish: hiatus, diphthong, reduction or deletion of one vowel, or creation of a new vowel. The purpose of this project was to investigate the conditions under which these outcomes actually occur in running speech using spectrographic analysis. In terms of hiatus, our results support those of a study conducted on the Spanish of northern New Mexico/Southern Colorado by Alba (2006), which concluded that maintaining hiatus was not the preferred outcome. Likewise, in the present study, 94% of our 148 tokens showed non-maintenance of hiatus. Our data did not clearly reveal a single preferred outcome among the non-maintenance tokens, but rather a mixture of tendencies. These varied widely by vowel combination and speaker. Another surprising outcome that deserves attention is centralization. Centralization was present in all four vowel combinations, occurring more frequently than anticipated, given that it is thought not to occur in Spanish. 1. Introduction Our project1 examines vowels in hiatus across word boundaries in the Spanish of seven female speakers of the Veracruz variety of Mexican Spanish. Studies that examine this topic are rare, especially within the realm of laboratory phonology using spectrographic analysis. Prior experiments on the topic have utilized aural perceptions to distinguish vowel sequences in hiatus from those that are diphthongs and it is only recently that 1 We are very grateful to Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • ELL101: Intro to Linguistics Week 1 Phonetics &
    ELL101: Intro to Linguistics Week 1 Phonetics & IPA Tomonori Nagano <[email protected]> Education and Language Acquisition Dept. LaGuardia Community College August 16, 2017 . Tomonori Nagano <[email protected]> Edu&Lang Acq. Dept., LaGuardia CC 1/41 Fields of linguistics • Week 1-2: Phonetics (physical sound properties) • Week 2-3: Phonology (speech sound rules) • Week 4: Morphology (word parts) • Week 5-6: Syntax (structure) • Week 7-8: Semantics (meaning) • Week 7-8: Pragmatics (conversation & convention) • Week 9: First & Second language acquisition • Week 10-12: Historical linguistics (history of language) • Week 10-12: Socio-linguistics (language in society) • Week 10-12: Neuro-linguistics (the brain and language) • Week 10-12: Computational linguistics (computer and language) • Week 10-12: Evolutional linguistics (how language evolved in human history) . Tomonori Nagano <[email protected]> Edu&Lang Acq. Dept., LaGuardia CC 2/41 Overview Phonetics Phonetics is a study of the characteristics of the speech sound (p.30; Yule (2010)) Branches of phonetics • Articulatory phonetics • how speech sounds are made • Acoustic phonetics • physical properties of speech sounds • Auditory phonetics • how speech sounds are perceived • See some examples of phonetics research: • Speech visualization (acoustic / auditory phonetics) • ”McGurk effect” (auditory phonetics) . Tomonori Nagano <[email protected]> Edu&Lang Acq. Dept., LaGuardia CC 3/41 Acoustic phonetics (example) • The speech wave (spectorogram) of ”[a] (as in above), [ɛ] (as in bed), and [ɪ] (as in bit)” 5000 ) z H ( y c n e u q e r F 0 0 . .0.3799. Time (s) . Tomonori Nagano <[email protected]> Edu&Lang Acq. Dept., LaGuardia CC 4/41 Acoustic phonetics (example) • The speech wave (spectorogram) of ”Was that a good movie you saw?” 5000 ) z H ( y c n e u q e r F 0 0 2.926 Time (s) .
    [Show full text]
  • Newsletter — February 2004
    Research Centre for Linguistic Typology Institute for Advanced Study VICTORIA 3086, AUSTRALIA FACSIMILE: +61 3 9467 3053 email: [email protected] http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt Newsletter — February 2004 The past year has again been attended by success, in terms of the excellence of Research Fellows, Visiting Fellows and Doctoral Students, both the quality and the quantity of the publications we produce, and the continuing grants and fellowships we attract. The International Workshops we host each year produce seminal volumes that are acknowledged as substantial contributions to the field. RCLT provides a relaxed but intense intellectual milieu which engenders research of the highest order. Who'll be at RCLT in 2004 Besides Professor R. M. W. (Bob) Dixon (Director), Professor Alexandra Y. (Sasha) Aikhenvald (Associate Director) and Ms Siew Peng Condon (Executive Officer), we'll have the following scholars with us this year: Research Fellows — Dr. Nicole Kruspe, on a three-year Research Fellowship, has undertaken a lengthy fieldtrip to work on Ceq Wong, a previously undescribed Northern Aslian language from Malaysia. She will continue writing a draft grammar of this language while working on Mah Meri, another Aslian language from Malaysia. — Dr. Catriona Hyslop, on a La Trobe University Postdoctoral Research Fellowship until February 2004, will then take up at RCLT her two year Individual Postgraduate Fellowship from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme. She will continue working on the documentation of the grammar, lexicon and oral tradition of the Vurës language of west Vanua Lava, Vanuatu. — Dr. Stephen Morey is a La Trobe University Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ideology of American English As Standard English in Taiwan
    Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume.7 Number.4 December, 2016 Pp. 80 - 96 The Ideology of American English as Standard English in Taiwan Jackie Chang English Department, National Pingtung University Pingtung City, Taiwan Abstract English language teaching and learning in Taiwan usually refers to American English teaching and learning. Taiwan views American English as Standard English. This is a strictly perceptual and ideological issue, as attested in the language school promotional materials that comprise the research data. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was employed to analyze data drawn from language school promotional materials. The results indicate that American English as Standard English (AESE) ideology is prevalent in Taiwan. American English is viewed as correct, superior and the proper English language version for Taiwanese people to compete globally. As a result, Taiwanese English language learners regard native English speakers with an American accent as having the greatest prestige and as model teachers deserving emulation. This ideology has resulted in racial and linguistic inequalities in contemporary Taiwanese society. AESE gives Taiwanese learners a restricted knowledge of English and its underlying culture. It is apparent that many Taiwanese people need tore-examine their taken-for-granted beliefs about AESE. Keywords: American English as Standard English (AESE),Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), ideology, inequalities 80 Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Vol.7. No. 4 December 2016 The Ideology of American English as Standard English in Taiwan Chang Introduction It is an undeniable fact that English has become the global lingua franca. However, as far as English teaching and learning are concerned, there is a prevailing belief that the world should be learning not just any English variety but rather what is termed Standard English.
    [Show full text]
  • Vowel Sounds Can Symbolise the Felt Heaviness of Obje
    CORRESPONDENCES AND SYMBOLISM Cross-Sensory Correspondences in Language: Vowel Sounds can Symbolise the Felt Heaviness of Objects Peter Walker1,2 & Caroline Regina Parameswaran2 1 Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK 2 Department of Psychology, Sunway University, Malaysia Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Peter Walker, Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK e-mail: [email protected] tel: +44 (0) 1524 593163 fax: +44 (0) 1524 593744 1 CORRESPONDENCES AND SYMBOLISM Abstract In sound symbolism, a word's sound induces expectations about the nature of a salient aspect of the word's referent. Walker (2016a) proposed that cross-sensory correspondences can be the source of these expectations and the present study assessed three implications flowing from this proposal. First, sound symbolism will embrace a wide range of referent features, including heaviness. Second, any feature of a word's sound able to symbolise one aspect of the word's referent will also be able to symbolise corresponding aspects of the referent (e.g., a sound feature symbolising visual pointiness will also symbolise lightness in weight). Third, sound symbolism will be independent of the sensory modality through which a word's referent is encoded (e.g., whether heaviness is felt or seen). Adults judged which of two contrasting novel words was most appropriate as a name for the heavier or lighter of two otherwise identical hidden novel objects they were holding in their hands. The alternative words contrasted in their vowels and/or consonants, one or both of which were known to symbolise visual pointiness. Though the plosive or continuant nature of the consonants did not influence the judged appropriateness of a word to symbolise the heaviness of its referent, back/open vowels, compared to front/close vowels, were judged to symbolise felt heaviness.
    [Show full text]
  • SSC: the Science of Talking
    SSC: The Science of Talking (for year 1 students of medicine) Week 3: Sounds of the World’s Languages (vowels and consonants) Michael Ashby, Senior Lecturer in Phonetics, UCL PLIN1101 Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology A Lecture 4 page 1 Vowel Description Essential reading: Ashby & Maidment, Chapter 5 4.1 Aim: To introduce the basics of vowel description and the main characteristics of the vowels of RP English. 4.2 Definition of vowel: Vowels are produced without any major obstruction of the airflow; the intra-oral pressure stays low, and vowels are therefore sonorant sounds. Vowels are normally voiced. Vowels are articulated by raising some part of the tongue body (that is the front or the back of the tongue notnot the tip or blade) towards the roof of the oral cavity (see Figure 1). 4.3 Front vowels are produced by raising the front of the tongue towards the hard palate. Back vowels are produced by raising the back of the tongue towards the soft palate. Central vowels are produced by raising the centre part of the tongue towards the junction of the hard and soft palates. 4.4 The height of a vowel refers to the degree of raising of the relevant part of the tongue. If the tongue is raised so as to be close to the roof of the oral cavity then a close or high vowel is produced. If the tongue is only slightly raised, so that there is a wide gap between its highest point and the roof of the oral cavity, then an open or lowlowlow vowel results.
    [Show full text]
  • Glossary of Key Terms
    Glossary of Key Terms accent: a pronunciation variety used by a specific group of people. allophone: different phonetic realizations of a phoneme. allophonic variation: variations in how a phoneme is pronounced which do not create a meaning difference in words. alveolar: a sound produced near or on the alveolar ridge. alveolar ridge: the small bony ridge behind the upper front teeth. approximants: obstruct the air flow so little that they could almost be classed as vowels if they were in a different context (e.g. /w/ or /j/). articulatory organs – (or articulators): are the different parts of the vocal tract that can change the shape of the air flow. articulatory settings or ‘voice quality’: refers to the characteristic or long-term positioning of articulators by individual or groups of speakers of a particular language. aspirated: phonemes involve an auditory plosion (‘puff of air’) where the air can be heard passing through the glottis after the release phase. assimilation: a process where one sound is influenced by the characteristics of an adjacent sound. back vowels: vowels where the back part of the tongue is raised (like ‘two’ and ‘tar’) bilabial: a sound that involves contact between the two lips. breathy voice: voice quality where whisper is combined with voicing. cardinal vowels: a set of phonetic vowels used as reference points which do not relate to any specific language. central vowels: vowels where the central part of the tongue is raised (like ‘fur’ and ‘sun’) centring diphthongs: glide towards /ə/. citation form: the way we say a word on its own. close vowel: where the tongue is raised as close as possible to the roof of the mouth.
    [Show full text]
  • A Phonetic, Phonological, and Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Mara Language
    San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks Master's Theses Master's Theses and Graduate Research Spring 2010 A Phonetic, Phonological, and Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Mara Language Michelle Arden San Jose State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses Recommended Citation Arden, Michelle, "A Phonetic, Phonological, and Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Mara Language" (2010). Master's Theses. 3744. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31979/etd.v36r-dk3u https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses/3744 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Master's Theses and Graduate Research at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A PHONETIC, PHONOLOGICAL, AND MORPHOSYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF THE MARA LANGUAGE A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Linguistics and Language Development San Jose State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Michelle J. Arden May 2010 © 2010 Michelle J. Arden ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Designated Thesis Committee Approves the Thesis Titled A PHONETIC, PHONOLOGICAL, AND MORPHOSYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF THE MARA LANGUAGE by Michelle J. Arden APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY May 2010 Dr. Daniel Silverman Department of Linguistics and Language Development Dr. Soteria Svorou Department of Linguistics and Language Development Dr. Kenneth VanBik Department of Linguistics and Language Development ABSTRACT A PHONETIC, PHONOLOGICAL, AND MORPHOSYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF THE MARA LANGUAGE by Michelle J. Arden This thesis presents a linguistic analysis of the Mara language, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in northwest Myanmar and in neighboring districts of India.
    [Show full text]
  • Learning [Voice]
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations Fall 2010 Learning [Voice] Joshua Ian Tauberer University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the First and Second Language Acquisition Commons Recommended Citation Tauberer, Joshua Ian, "Learning [Voice]" (2010). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 288. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/288 Please see my home page, http://razor.occams.info, for the data files and scripts that make this reproducible research. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/288 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Learning [Voice] Abstract The [voice] distinction between homorganic stops and fricatives is made by a number of acoustic correlates including voicing, segment duration, and preceding vowel duration. The present work looks at [voice] from a number of multidimensional perspectives. This dissertation's focus is a corpus study of the phonetic realization of [voice] in two English-learning infants aged 1;1--3;5. While preceding vowel duration has been studied before in infants, the other correlates of post-vocalic voicing investigated here --- preceding F1, consonant duration, and closure voicing intensity --- had not been measured before in infant speech. The study makes empirical contributions regarding the development of the production of [voice] in infants, not just from a surface- level perspective but also with implications for the phonetics-phonology interface in the adult and developing linguistic systems. Additionally, several methodological contributions will be made in the use of large sized corpora and data modeling techniques. The study revealed that even in infants, F1 at the midpoint of a vowel preceding a voiced consonant was lower by roughly 50 Hz compared to a vowel before a voiceless consonant, which is in line with the effect found in adults.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 English Spelling and Pronunciation
    ISSN: 2456-8104 http://www.jrspelt.com Issue 5, Vol. 2, 2018 English Spelling and Pronunciation - A Brief Study Prof. V. Chandra Sekhar Rao ([email protected] ) Professor in English, SITECH, Hyderabad Abstract The present paper aims at the correlation between spelling and pronunciation of English words. English spelling is almost divorced from its pronunciation and there is no perfect guide how to 1 learn the pronunciation of the words. The letters of alphabet used are always inadequate to represent the sounds. English alphabet contains only 26 letters but the sounds 44. IPA symbols are needed to understand the intelligibility of the pronunciation and the spelling-designed. Learners of English language have to understand that words from other languages may be adopted without being adapted to the spelling system. Most of the letters of English alphabet produce multiple pronunciations. English Pronouncing Dictionary is needed for better understanding of the spelling and pronunciation. Keywords: Spelling and Pronunciation, Orthography, Intelligibility, Phonetic Symbols Introduction "If we know the sounds of a word (in English) we can't know how to spell it; if we know the ` spelling, we can't know how to pronounce it." (Otto Jespersen, philologist, Essentials of English Grammar, 1905, page 11). "English spelling is almost divorced from its pronunciation and forms hardly any guide as to how words should be pronounced." (Mont Follick, The Case for Spelling Reform, 1964, page 87). English, as a global language of communication, is spoken, written and used widely for many different purposes - international diplomatic relations, business, science and technology. It is also called the library language and medium of instructions in higher education - science and technology, computer and software engineering, medicine and law, pharmacy and nursing, commerce and management, fashion technology and so on.
    [Show full text]