DOCSLIB.ORG

The Slaying of Lady Mondegreen, Being a Study of French Tonal Association and Alignment and Their Role in Speech Segmentation

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Slaying of Lady Mondegreen, Being a Study of French Tonal Association and Alignment and Their Role in Speech Segmentation THE SLAYING OF LADY MONDEGREEN, BEING A STUDY OF FRENCH TONAL ASSOCIATION AND ALIGNMENT AND THEIR ROLE IN SPEECH SEGMENTATION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Pauline Susan Welby, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Mary E. Beckman, Adviser Professor Christopher H. Brew Adviser Dr. H´el`ene Lœvenbruck Department of Linguistics Professor Shari R. Speer c Copyright by Pauline Susan Welby 2003 ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates French intonational structure and the role of language- specific intonational cues to speech segmentation, the listener’s task of determining where words begin and end. The Lady Mondegreen of the title never existed: she was created in the imagination of a young child who missegmented a line from one of her favorite poems. French intonation is characterized by an obligatory fundamental frequency (f 0) rise on the last syllable of a phrase (1a) and an optional early rise near the beginning (1b). (1) a. Les gamins sages jardinaient. ‘The good kids were gardening.’ b. Les gamins sages jardinaient. A production experiment examined the text-to-tune alignment of these rises, the timing of f 0 peaks and valleys with respect to segmental landmarks. The low starting point of the early rise was consistently located at the function word-content word boundary (e.g., the determiner-noun boundary in les | gamins sages). There was also sometimes an f 0 inflection or elbow at that boundary, even where there was no early rise. The evidence supports a model in which the early rise is a bitonal phrase accent and the late rise a bitonal pitch accent. Three perception experiments examined whether the early rise and f 0 elbow serve as cues to content word beginnings. Natural speech was recorded and f 0 manipulated ii through resynthesis. In Experiment 1, participants listened to noise-masked minimal and near-minimal pairs of phrases differing only in segmentation and presence versus absence of an early rise (e.g., le niveau de m´ec´enat ‘the level of patronage’/ le niveau de mes s´enats ‘the level of my senates’) and indicated what they heard. Listeners in- terpreted an early rise as a marker of a content word beginning. In Experiment 2, the timing of the early rise was manipulated in minimal pairs of nonwords. Sequences like £Çº Ò ÑºÐºÑ were perceived as two words (mes lamondines ‘my lamondines’) when the early rise started at the second syllable ([Ð]) and as a single word (m´elamondine) when it started at the first syllable ( Ñ ). Using a similar paradigm, Experiment 3 showed that not only early rises, but also simple f 0 elbows, cued content word begin- nings. iii to my niece Charlotte Jane Ward my sister Lenore Christine Welby my mother Evelyn Louise Major Welby and to the memory of my grandmother Mary Anne Sweeney Welby iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The moment I first saw the red-brick gables and tower of Oxley Hall, home to Ohio State’s linguists, I thought to myself, “I am going to love coming to work here every day.” And I have. I start by thanking my committee members, Mary Beckman, Chris Brew, H´el`ene Lœvenbruck, and Shari Speer, each of whom has contributed to the dissertation and to my growth as a linguist. I am very grateful to my adviser, Mary Beckman, for sparking my interest in phonetics and intonation and for her constant support and confidence in me and my work throughout my graduate career. Mary’s patience and guidance helped me find a dissertation topic that truly excited me, and her advice along the way was essential in v completing the dissertation. I have enjoyed and immensely benefited from our years of discussions, and I appreciate that her door is always open for her students. My work on French intonation began as part of a Prosody and Processing seminar co-taught by Mary Beckman and Shari Speer in the summer of 2001. That seminar and Shari’s own work on prosody and ambiguity in English helped me understand the importance of examining production and perception together. Shari also provided valuable input on the design of the perception experiments and gave many helpful comments on the manuscript. Chris Brew also gave valuable feedback on the manuscript, as well as guidance on the analysis of the production data and on the corpus search in Chapter 5. Through- out the dissertation, I have used tools I learned auditing Chris’s winter 2000 compu- tational linguistics seminar. H´el`ene Lœvenbruck, of the Institut de la Communication Parl´ee in Grenoble, gave invaluable advice and assistance at every stage of the dissertation, from encouraging my nascent interest in French intonation, to helping me hammer out experiment details, to inviting me to ICP to run my experiments, to providing thoughtful, detailed comments on the final manuscript. I am grateful for her innumerable contributions to the dissertation, her generosity with her time, and her enthusiasm for my work. I have had the good fortune to be part of the Ohio State Department of Linguistics. I thank the chair, Peter Culicover, and the former chair, Brian Joseph, for fostering a department culture that is both intellectually challenging and supportive. I would like to thank a number of my professors at Ohio State for their contribu- tions to my dissertation research: Keith Johnson, who always has time for his students and who gave me a great deal of advice on phonetics, statistics, and scripting; Julie vi Boland, now at the University of Michigan, who introduced me to psycholinguistics; Beth Hume, who gave me valuable comments and a phonologist’s perspective on my first paper on French intonation; and Christiane Laeufer, who provided helpful input as a member of my generals exam committee. Outside of the classroom, I have benefited from the department’s very active Speakers Series and discussion groups. I have learned a lot from my work as a research associate on various projects, and I thank the professors who supported me on their grants: Mary Beckman and Chris Brew, and Jan Edwards, Marios Fourakis, and Rob Fox of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science. I have also greatly benefited from the opportunity to teach undergraduate linguistics. My years at Ohio State have been shared with many fun, smart, and kind people. I have fond memories of: hikes, late-night study sessions, trips to the movies and the symphony and the ballpark, practice talks, rotation ping pong, airport runs, conver- sations about linguistics and everything else, potlucks, World Cup 2002 matches at 3am on the big screens at Crew Stadium, lunches around the lab table, OSU football games, summer Ultimate, tea breaks, juggling, dinners at the Blue Nile.... I thank my friends for the fun times and for their support in many ways big and small that helped me to stay the course. My thanks go especially to: Mike Calcagno, Nick Cipollone, Kordula De Kuthy, Robin Dautricourt, Robin Dodsworth, Anna Feldman, Janice Fon, Craig Hilts, Erhard Hinrichs and family, Tsan Huang, Kiwa Ito, Stefanie Jannedy, Sun-Hee Lee, Soyoung Kang, Matt Makashay, Julie McGory, Grant McGuire, Detmar Meurers, Amanda vii Miller-Ockhuizen, Youn Noh, Bill Raymond, Anton Rytting, Liz Strand, Tom Stew- art, Giorgos Tserdanelis, Shravan Vasishth, Jennifer Venditti, David White, Neal Whitman, Steve Winters, Peggy Wong, and Kiyoko Yoneyama. And to Allison Blodgett, who has been a devoted friend since the early years of endless problem sets and labs and who is always there to talk through a data analysis problem or to convince me to pack up work for the day and go to the movies, as appropriate. To Mariapaola D’Imperio, Svetlana Godjevac, and Rebecca Herman, who from the very beginnings of my graduate career have inspired me by their example as meticulous and energetic researchers who always make time for important things like good food and friends. To Vanessa Metcalf, who helped ease the pressures of my final year in Columbus with many tasty salads and bad TV shows. I miss sitting on our front porch in Clintonville, sipping ice tea and watching the tomatoes and basil grow. To Laurie Maynell, who is always ready to listen and offer a word of encouragement or a joke. To Jen Muller, who makes me laugh and pumpkin pie. To Ben Munson, who I can always count on to be there for me, personally and professionally. I thank him for his comments on an early version of Chapter 4 and his input on the title of the dissertation. The working title was something deadly boring about “French rises” and speech segmentation. But in an e-mailed comment typical of his trademark wit, Benobservedthat“‘Frenchrises’couldmeananything...Frenchpeoplegettingup in the morning, political revolts in France....” So, thanks to him, the title is now less boring (though still deadly). I would also like to thank my running buddy, Beth Hume. Our early morning runs and our races with the other members of the Binary Feet, the department running viii club, were a great source of stress relief for me. And training to run a half-marathon gave me a lot of confidence in what I could do if I worked hard. I have had a number of rewarding opportunities to spend time outside of my home department. I thank Julie Boland for inviting me to be a visiting student in her lab at the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science in the spring of 1999. I thank Monique and Pierre Philit for generously giving me a place to stay while I was taking classes in Lyon in the summer of 2000.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Prosody and Intonation in Non-Bantu Niger-Congo Languages: an Annotated Bibliography
    Electronic Journal of Africana Bibliography Volume 11 Prosody and Intonation in Non- Bantu Niger-Congo Languages: An Annotated Article 1 Bibliography 2009 Prosody and Intonation in Non-Bantu Niger-Congo Languages: An Annotated Bibliography Christopher R. Green Indiana University Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/ejab Part of the African History Commons, and the African Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Green, Christopher R. (2009) "Prosody and Intonation in Non-Bantu Niger-Congo Languages: An Annotated Bibliography," Electronic Journal of Africana Bibliography: Vol. 11 , Article 1. https://doi.org/10.17077/1092-9576.1010 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Journal of Africana Bibliography by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Volume 11 (2009) Prosody and Intonation in Non-Bantu Niger-Congo Languages: An Annotated Bibliography Christopher R. Green, Indiana University Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 Atlantic – Ijoid 4 Volta – Congo North 6 Kwa 15 Kru 19 Dogon 20 Benue – Congo Cross River 21 Defoid 23 Edoid 25 Igboid 27 Jukunoid 28 Mande 28 Reference Materials 33 Author Index 40 Prosody and Intonation in Non-Bantu Niger-Congo Languages Introduction Most linguists are well aware of the fact that data pertaining to languages spoken in Africa are often less readily available than information on languages spoken in Europe and some parts of Asia. This simple fact is one of the first and largest challenges facing Africanist linguists in their pursuit of preliminary data and references on which to base their research.
    [Show full text]
  • Downstep and Recursive Phonological Phrases in Bàsàá (Bantu A43) Fatima Hamlaoui ZAS, Berlin; University of Toronto Emmanuel-Moselly Makasso ZAS, Berlin
    Chapter 9 Downstep and recursive phonological phrases in Bàsàá (Bantu A43) Fatima Hamlaoui ZAS, Berlin; University of Toronto Emmanuel-Moselly Makasso ZAS, Berlin This paper identifies contexts in which a downstep is realized between consecu- tive H tones in absence of an intervening L tone in Bàsàá (Bantu A43, Cameroon). Based on evidence from simple sentences, we propose that this type of downstep is indicative of recursive prosodic phrasing. In particular, we propose that a down- step occurs between the phonological phrases that are immediately dominated by a maximal phonological phrase (휙max). 1 Introduction In their book on the relation between tone and intonation in African languages, Downing & Rialland (2016) describe the study of downtrends as almost being a field in itself in the field of prosody. In line with the considerable literature on the topic, they offer the following decomposition of downtrends: 1. Declination 2. Downdrift (or ‘automatic downstep’) 3. Downstep (or ‘non-automatic downstep’) 4. Final lowering 5. Register compression/expansion or register lowering/raising Fatima Hamlaoui & Emmanuel-Moselly Makasso. 2019. Downstep and recursive phonological phrases in Bàsàá (Bantu A43). In Emily Clem, Peter Jenks & Hannah Sande (eds.), Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 155–175. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3367136 Fatima Hamlaoui & Emmanuel-Moselly Makasso In the present paper, which concentrates on Bàsàá, a Narrow Bantu language (A43 in Guthrie’s classification) spoken in the Centre and Littoral regions of Cameroon by approx. 300,000 speakers (Lewis et al. 2015), we will first briefly define and discuss declination and downdrift, as the language displays bothphe- nomena.
    [Show full text]
  • Prosody – Introductory
    THE PHONOLOGY OF RHONDDA VALLEYS ENGLISH. (Rod Walters, University of Glamorgan, 2006) 4. PROSODY – INTRODUCTORY (Readers unfamiliar with the prosodic terms used will find explanations in the Glossary.) 4.1 Aims of RVE Research Prosody (stress, rhythm, intonation etc) contributes strongly towards the ‘melody’ of Welsh English accents. Chapter 5 will attempt to describe the main features of RVE prosody. Like t'Hart, Collier, and Cohen of the Institute for Perception Research in Eindhoven (1990: 2-6), the approach will be primarily ‘from the phonetic level of observation’.35 Comments will be made concerning the functions / meanings of the prosodic forms identified, but the researcher is very aware that the links between meaning and prosody are seldom straightforward: (1) discerning the meaning of an utterance is a matter of pragmatic interpretation in which many factors beside prosody need to be taken into account (propositional content of the lexis-grammar, full context of the situation, speakers’ body language etc) (2) several prosodic features, e.g. voice quality, loudness and intonation, may be operative at the same time and therefore difficult to disentangle (3) the same prosodic feature may be involved in ‘doing’ more than one thing at the same time – for example a given pitch movement may be simultaneously involved in accentuation and demarcation (4) nearly all prosodic features – including pitch level – are subject to gradient variation and can be used to carry signals that many analysts would consider paralinguistic rather than linguistic (cf discussion in Ladd 1996: 33-41). Due to such factors, suggestions as to the meanings of RVE prosodic forms will be tentative and restricted to discourse functions such as the segmenting, structuring and highlighting of information.
    [Show full text]
  • The Norse Element in the Orkney Dialect Donna Heddle
    The Norse element in the Orkney dialect Donna Heddle 1. Introduction The Orkney and Shetland Islands, along with Caithness on the Scottish mainland, are identified primarily in terms of their Norse cultural heritage. Linguistically, in particular, such a focus is an imperative for maintaining cultural identity in the Northern Isles. This paper will focus on placing the rise and fall of Orkney Norn in its geographical, social, and historical context and will attempt to examine the remnants of the Norn substrate in the modern dialect. Cultural affiliation and conflict is what ultimately drives most issues of identity politics in the modern world. Nowhere are these issues more overtly stated than in language politics. We cannot study language in isolation; we must look at context and acculturation. An interdisciplinary study of language in context is fundamental to the understanding of cultural identity. This politicising of language involves issues of cultural inheritance: acculturation is therefore central to our understanding of identity, its internal diversity, and the porousness or otherwise of a language or language variant‘s cultural borders with its linguistic neighbours. Although elements within Lowland Scotland postulated a Germanic origin myth for itself in the nineteenth century, Highlands and Islands Scottish cultural identity has traditionally allied itself to the Celtic origin myth. This is diametrically opposed to the cultural heritage of Scotland‘s most northerly island communities. 2. History For almost a thousand years the language of the Orkney Islands was a variant of Norse known as Norroena or Norn. The distinctive and culturally unique qualities of the Orkney dialect spoken in the islands today derive from this West Norse based sister language of Faroese, which Hansen, Jacobsen and Weyhe note also developed from Norse brought in by settlers in the ninth century and from early Icelandic (2003: 157).
    [Show full text]
  • Hypertext Semiotics in the Commercialized Internet
    Hypertext Semiotics in the Commercialized Internet Moritz Neumüller Wien, Oktober 2001 DOKTORAT DER SOZIAL- UND WIRTSCHAFTSWISSENSCHAFTEN 1. Beurteiler: Univ. Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Wolfgang Panny, Institut für Informationsver- arbeitung und Informationswirtschaft der Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Abteilung für Angewandte Informatik. 2. Beurteiler: Univ. Prof. Dr. Herbert Hrachovec, Institut für Philosophie der Universität Wien. Betreuer: Gastprofessor Univ. Doz. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Veith Risak Eingereicht am: Hypertext Semiotics in the Commercialized Internet Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien eingereicht bei 1. Beurteiler: Univ. Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Panny, Institut für Informationsverarbeitung und Informationswirtschaft der Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Abteilung für Angewandte Informatik 2. Beurteiler: Univ. Prof. Dr. Herbert Hrachovec, Institut für Philosophie der Universität Wien Betreuer: Gastprofessor Univ. Doz. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Veith Risak Fachgebiet: Informationswirtschaft von MMag. Moritz Neumüller Wien, im Oktober 2001 Ich versichere: 1. daß ich die Dissertation selbständig verfaßt, andere als die angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel nicht benutzt und mich auch sonst keiner unerlaubten Hilfe bedient habe. 2. daß ich diese Dissertation bisher weder im In- noch im Ausland (einer Beurteilerin / einem Beurteiler zur Begutachtung) in irgendeiner Form als Prüfungsarbeit vorgelegt habe. 3. daß dieses Exemplar mit der beurteilten Arbeit überein
    [Show full text]
  • Language Acquisition, Processing and Bilingualism
    Language Acquisition, Processing and Bilingualism Language Acquisition, Processing and Bilingualism: Selected Papers from the Romance Turn VII Edited by Anna Cardinaletti, Chiara Branchini, Giuliana Giusti and Francesca Volpato Language Acquisition, Processing and Bilingualism: Selected Papers from the Romance Turn VII Edited by Anna Cardinaletti, Chiara Branchini, Giuliana Giusti and Francesca Volpato This book first published 2020 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2020 by Anna Cardinaletti, Chiara Branchini, Giuliana Giusti, Francesca Volpato and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-5065-6 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-5065-0 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................... vii Anna Cardinaletti, Chiara Branchini, Giuliana Giusti and Francesca Volpato PART I: LANGUAGE PROCESSING IN ACQUISITION Chapter One ................................................................................................. 2 Rhythm and L2 Acquisition Marina Nespor and Alan Langus Chapter Two .............................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • K&L Newsletter Template Full Color 2010
    KLWines.com September 1, 2012 800.247.5987 WINE News SEPTEMBER is harvest time here in Calfornia. While growers are picking the fruit for the new vintage, we’re getting an abundance of new wines from across the state, especially the Central Coast. Find some of our favorites inside... Melville Vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills. Rita Sta. the in Vineyards Melville A TRIP TO SANTA BARBARA COUNTY Our Los Angeles-based domestic wine team just got back from a preview two new releases, the 2011 Foxen “Ernesto Wickenden” Santa few long days of tasting all over Santa Barbara’s wine growing Maria Valley Chenin Blanc ($24.99) and the 2011 Foxen “Bien region. Considering I live about two hours from many of the places we Nacido Vineyard Block UU” Santa Maria Valley Chardonnay visited, it is a shame I don’t get up there more often. It seems less busy ($31.99). The Chenin Blanc is the perfect shellfish wine: crisp, bright and than Napa, and it is quite a bit cheaper. It’s also much more laid back and loaded with mineral flavors. The Chardonnay has a rich, lush texture that relaxed—no suit and tie required! (I would compare visiting Napa to is creamy and round on the palate. The finish is still bright and fresh. visiting Bordeaux and Santa Barbara to the Rhône Valley.) On day two of our trip we spent some time with Chad Melville, who calls As far as the wine goes, I was very impressed with the quality. We focused himself a winegrower, not a winemaker, first tasting his Samsara wines in mostly on the 2010s and 2011s, two growing seasons that were filled with the Lompoc “Wine Ghetto.” Our three highlights from this tasting challenges.
    [Show full text]
  • Morphological Sources of Phonological Length
    Morphological Sources of Phonological Length by Anne Pycha B.A. (Brown University) 1993 M.A. (University of California, Berkeley) 2004 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Sharon Inkelas (chair) Professor Larry Hyman Professor Keith Johnson Professor Johanna Nichols Spring 2008 Abstract Morphological Sources of Phonological Length by Anne Pycha Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Professor Sharon Inkelas, Chair This study presents and defends Resizing Theory, whose claim is that the overall size of a morpheme can serve as a basic unit of analysis for phonological alternations. Morphemes can increase their size by any number of strategies -- epenthesizing new segments, for example, or devoicing an existing segment (and thereby increasing its phonetic duration) -- but it is the fact of an increase, and not the particular strategy used to implement it, which is linguistically significant. Resizing Theory has some overlap with theories of fortition and lenition, but differs in that it uses the independently- verifiable parameter of size in place of an ad-hoc concept of “strength” and thereby encompasses a much greater range of phonological alternations. The theory makes three major predictions, each of which is supported with cross-linguistic evidence. First, seemingly disparate phonological alternations can achieve identical morphological effects, but only if they trigger the same direction of change in a morpheme’s size. Second, morpheme interactions can take complete control over phonological outputs, determining surface outputs when traditional features and segments fail to do so.
    [Show full text]
  • View of Race and Culture, Winter, 1957
    71-27,438 BOSTICK, Herman Franklin, 1929- THE INTRODUCTION OF AFRO-FRENCH LITERATURE AND CULTURE IN THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL . CURRICULUM: A TEACHER'S GUIDE. I The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1971 Education, curriculum development. I i ( University Microfilms, A XEROKCompany, Ann Arbor, Michigan ©Copyright by Herman Franklin Bostick 1971 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED THE INTRODUCTION OF AFRO-FRENCH LITERATURE AND CULTURE IN THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM; A TEACHER'S GUIDE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Herman Franklin Bostick, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University Approved by College of Education DEDICATION To the memory of my mother, Mrs. Leola Brown Bostick who, from my earliest introduction to formal study to the time of her death, was a constant source of encouragement and assistance; and who instilled in me the faith to persevere in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, I solemnly dedicate this volume. H.F.B. 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To list all of the people who contributed in no small measure to the completion of this study would be impossible in the limited space generally reserved to acknowledgements in studies of this kind. Therefore, I shall have to be content with expressing to this nameless host my deepest appreciation. However, there are a few who went beyond the "call of duty" in their assistance and encouragement, not only in the preparation of this dissertation but throughout my years of study toward the Doctor of Philosophy Degree, whose names deserve to be mentioned here and to whom a special tribute of thanks must be paid.
    [Show full text]
  • Postmodern Test Theory
    Postmodern Test Theory ____________ Robert J. Mislevy Educational Testing Service ____________ (Reprinted with permission from Transitions in Work and Learning: Implications for Assessment, 1997, by the National Academy of Sciences, Courtesy of the National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.) Postmodern Test Theory Robert J. Mislevy Good heavens! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it. Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme INTRODUCTION Molière’s Monsieur Jourdan was astonished to learn that he had been speaking prose all his life. I know how he felt. For years I have just been doing my job— trying to improve educational assessment by applying ideas from statistics and psychology. Come to find out, I’ve been advancing “neopragmatic postmodernist test theory” without ever intending to do so. This paper tries to convey some sense of what this rather unwieldy phrase means and offers some thoughts about what it implies for educational assessment, present and future. The goods news is that we can foresee some real improvements: assessments that are more open and flexible, better connected with students’ learning, and more educationally useful. The bad news is that we must stop expecting drop-in-from-the-sky assessment to tell us, in 2 hours and for $10, the truth, plus or minus two standard errors. Gary Minda’s (1995) Postmodern Legal Movements inspired the structure of what follows. Almost every page of his book evokes parallels between issues and new directions in jurisprudence on the one hand and the debates and new developments in educational assessment on the other. Excerpts from Minda’s book frame the sections of this paper.
    [Show full text]
  • Poststructuralism, Cultural Studies, and the Composition Classroom: Postmodern Theory in Practice Author(S): James A
    Poststructuralism, Cultural Studies, and the Composition Classroom: Postmodern Theory in Practice Author(s): James A. Berlin Source: Rhetoric Review, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 16-33 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/465877 Accessed: 13-02-2019 19:20 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/465877?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Rhetoric Review This content downloaded from 146.111.138.234 on Wed, 13 Feb 2019 19:20:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms JAMES A. BERLIN - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~Purdue University Poststructuralism, Cultural Studies, and the Composition Classroom: Postmodern Theory in Practice The uses of postmodern theory in rhetoric and composition studies have been the object of considerable abuse of late. Figures of some repute in the field-the likes of Maxine Hairston and Peter Elbow-as well as anonymous voices from the Burkean Parlor section of Rhetoric Review-most recently, TS, a graduate student, and KF, a voice speaking for "a general English teacher audience" (192)-have joined the chorus of protest.
    [Show full text]
  • 49 Stress-Timed Vs. Syllable- Timed Languages
    TBC_049.qxd 7/13/10 19:21 Page 1 49 Stress-timed vs. Syllable- timed Languages Marina Nespor Mohinish Shukla Jacques Mehler 1Introduction Rhythm characterizes most natural phenomena: heartbeats have a rhythmic organization, and so do the waves of the sea, the alternation of day and night, and bird songs. Language is yet another natural phenomenon that is charac- terized by rhythm. What is rhythm? Is it possible to give a general enough definition of rhythm to include all the phenomena we just mentioned? The origin of the word rhythm is the Greek word osh[óp, derived from the verb oeí, which means ‘to flow’. We could say that rhythm determines the flow of different phenomena. Plato (The Laws, book II: 93) gave a very general – and in our opinion the most beautiful – definition of rhythm: “rhythm is order in movement.” In order to under- stand how rhythm is instantiated in different natural phenomena, including language, it is necessary to discover the elements responsible for it in each single case. Thus the question we address is: which elements establish order in linguistic rhythm, i.e. in the flow of speech? 2The rhythmic hierarchy: Rhythm as alternation Rhythm is hierarchical in nature in language, as it is in music. According to the metrical grid theory, i.e. the representation of linguistic rhythm within Generative Grammar (cf., amongst others, Liberman & Prince 1977; Prince 1983; Nespor & Vogel 1989; chapter 43: representations of word stress), the element that “establishes order” in the flow of speech is stress: universally, stressed and unstressed positions alternate at different levels of the hierarchy (see chapter 40: stress: phonotactic and phonetic evidence).
    [Show full text]