Language and Speech最新文献

Sources of Intelligibility of Distant Languages: An Empirical Study. 遥远语言可理解性的来源：一个实证研究。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2025-07-11 DOI: 10.1177/00238309251345952

Jiří Milička, Anna Marklová, Michal Láznička, Vojtěch Diatka, Hana Bednářová, Jiří Matela, Michal Škrabal

{"title":"Sources of Intelligibility of Distant Languages: An Empirical Study.","authors":"Jiří Milička, Anna Marklová, Michal Láznička, Vojtěch Diatka, Hana Bednářová, Jiří Matela, Michal Škrabal","doi":"10.1177/00238309251345952","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309251345952","url":null,"abstract":"Research into iconicity, systematicity, and sound-symbolism has revealed that the connection between linguistic form and meaning is not completely arbitrary. In the present study, native Czech speakers, unfamiliar with Hindi, were presented with a task in which they had to match Hindi words with their corresponding Czech translations. The words were randomly selected from a Hindi corpus. Despite the considerable linguistic gap between the two languages, the analysis showed that the Czech participants were able to accurately discern the meanings of approximately 60% of the Hindi word pairs, surpassing the 50% success rate that would be expected by random guessing alone. This experiment was subsequently replicated using Turkish, Japanese, and Latvian words, demonstrating the robustness of this phenomenon across different languages. In the case of a closer language like Latvian, the success rate reached 80%. However, even a distant language such as Japanese reached the 60% success level. Furthermore, the study explored potential factors influencing intelligibility. Data collected from a total of 1,128 participants found that the phonological similarity of Czech words and their translation, word length alignment, presence of cognates, and the way the trials were presented had a significant effect on the success rate of guessing the correct translation across all four languages. In addition, language-specific effects were identified.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309251345952"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144621054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Exploring the Relationship Between Mental Boundary Strength and Phonetic Accommodation. 心理边界强度与语音适应关系的探讨。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2025-06-28 DOI: 10.1177/00238309251341895

Iona Gessinger, Nicolas Becker, Benjamin R Cowan

{"title":"Exploring the Relationship Between Mental Boundary Strength and Phonetic Accommodation.","authors":"Iona Gessinger, Nicolas Becker, Benjamin R Cowan","doi":"10.1177/00238309251341895","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00238309251341895","url":null,"abstract":"We motivate a possible relationship between the psychological concept of mental boundaries and the linguistic phenomenon of phonetic accommodation, proposing that thinner boundaries may indicate a greater disposition to phonetically adapt to an interlocutor. To enable research on this relationship with German speakers, we translated the English short version of the Boundary Questionnaire (BQ-Sh), an established instrument for measuring the strength of mental boundaries, and demonstrated that the resulting German adaptation (BQ-Sh-G) can be used equivalently to the BQ-Sh. As the Big Five personality traits have previously been considered in research on both mental boundaries and phonetic accommodation, we explored the relationship between the BQ-Sh-G and the NEO-Five Factor Inventory. Consistent with previous literature, the BQ-Sh-G score correlated positively with Neuroticism and Openness, as well as negatively with Conscientiousness. We collected BQ-Sh-G scores from participants of an experiment on phonetic accommodation in a human-computer interaction context, specifically investigating the realization of the word ending 〈-ig〉 and the intonation of wh-questions in German. The analysis revealed a tendency for thicker mental boundaries to correspond with more convergence to 〈-ig〉 variants. Taking into account the results of previous work exploring the influence of the Big Five on the same data, we conclude that speakers may accommodate to different types of phonetic features depending on different personality traits. We encourage future work to investigate this further, while also exploring the predictive potential of the boundary construct with respect to a general disposition to phonetic accommodation, that is, examining a large number of phonetic features simultaneously.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309251341895"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144531003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Perceived Gender in Clear and Conversational Speech. 清晰对话式言语中的感知性别。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2025-06-08 DOI: 10.1177/00238309251336781

Jaime A Booz, Sarah Hargus Ferguson, Brett R Myers

{"title":"Perceived Gender in Clear and Conversational Speech.","authors":"Jaime A Booz, Sarah Hargus Ferguson, Brett R Myers","doi":"10.1177/00238309251336781","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309251336781","url":null,"abstract":"Clear speech is a speaking style adopted by talkers who perceive a barrier to effective communication. Clear speech has been reported to have acoustic characteristics that are similar to those of speech perceived as feminine (e.g., expanded vowel space, longer vowel duration, and increased fundamental frequency compared with conversational speech). The present study therefore explored whether clear speech is indeed perceived as more feminine than conversational speech by naïve listeners. Clear and conversational sentences produced by 20 male and 21 female talkers were presented to 17 young adults with normal hearing, who used a visual analog scale with \"masculine\" and \"feminine\" endpoints to rate the talkers' gender. Results showed that clear speech was rated significantly more feminine than conversational speech for male talkers but not female talkers (β = -4.273, t = -7.407, p < .001). Perceived femininity was significantly correlated with median fundamental frequency for female (r = .55, p < .001) and male talkers (r = .54, p < .001) and with vowel space perimeter for male talkers (r = .49, p < .001). Perceived femininity was more weakly correlated with fundamental frequency interquartile range (r = .24, p < .001) and speaking rate (r = -.16, p < .001). These results suggest that adopting a clear speaking style may increase perceived femininity. Although using clear speech alone may not suffice for a talker to be perceived as female, it could be used as one of many tools to help talkers achieve more \"feminine\" speech.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"238309251336781"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144250747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Aspiring to Aspirate: L2 Acquisition of English Word-Initial /p/ Over 10 Years. 向往向往：英语单词首字母/p/的第二语言习得，历时10年。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2025-06-01 Epub Date: 2024-07-31 DOI: 10.1177/00238309241264296

Murray J Munro, Tracey M Derwing, Kazuya Saito

{"title":"Aspiring to Aspirate: L2 Acquisition of English Word-Initial /p/ Over 10 Years.","authors":"Murray J Munro, Tracey M Derwing, Kazuya Saito","doi":"10.1177/00238309241264296","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00238309241264296","url":null,"abstract":"This short report describes a longitudinal examination of the acquisition of English-aspirated stops by an initial cohort of 24 adult Slavic-language (Russian, Ukrainian, and Croatian) speakers. All had arrived in Canada with low oral English proficiency, and all were enrolled in the same language instruction program at the outset. Initial bilabial stops in CVCs were recorded at eight testing times: six during the first year of the study, again at year 7, and finally at year 10. Intelligibility was evaluated through a blind listening assessment of the stop productions from the first seven testing times. Voice onset times (VOT) were measured for /p/ from all eight times. Mean /p/ intelligibility improved-mainly during a proposed Window of Maximal Opportunity for L2 speech acquisition-but remained below 100%, even after 7 years. For some speakers, early /p/ productions were minimally aspirated, with VOT increasing over time but remaining intermediate between L1 English and L1 Slavic-Language values at 10 years. However, inter-speaker variability was dramatic, with some speakers showing full intelligibility throughout the study and others showing many unintelligible productions at all times. Individual learning trajectories tended to be non-linear and often non-cumulative. Overall, these findings point to a developmental process that varies considerably from one learner to another. It also demonstrates the serious drawbacks of relying on group means to characterize the process of L2 segmental learning.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"247-261"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12106929/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141857093","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Incidental Learning of Collocations Under Different Input Modes and the Mediating Role of Perceptual Learning Style. 不同输入模式下的关联词偶发学习及感知学习风格的中介作用

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2025-06-01 Epub Date: 2024-07-29 DOI: 10.1177/00238309241266864

Xin Yuan, Jing Tang

引用次数: 0

Segmental Influences on the Perception of High Pitch Accent Scaling in American English. 音段对美式英语高音重音缩放感知的影响。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2025-06-01 Epub Date: 2024-08-07 DOI: 10.1177/00238309241255319

Jonathan Barnes, Alejna Brugos, Nanette Veilleux, Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel

{"title":"Segmental Influences on the Perception of High Pitch Accent Scaling in American English.","authors":"Jonathan Barnes, Alejna Brugos, Nanette Veilleux, Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel","doi":"10.1177/00238309241255319","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00238309241255319","url":null,"abstract":"Researchers investigating a broad array of questions in spoken language prosody routinely base their arguments on measurements taken from the F0 contours of representative speech samples. These analyses, however, frequently involve abstracting F0 contours away from the segmental strings that bear them, potentially overlooking in the process the role played by segmental qualities such as sonority or periodicity in the realization of F0 patterns by speakers and their interpretation by listeners. This paper reports the results of two experiments investigating how perception of F0 contours is affected by the segmental string over which those contours are realized. The first focuses on gaps in F0 contours created by voiceless obstruents such as stops and fricatives, while the second investigates F0 intervals spanning lower-sonority voiced segments, such as nasals and voiced fricatives. While these two scenarios might at first seem unrelated, we argue that listeners treat both with a single mechanism in perception, namely, by reducing (potentially to zero) the amount of weight accorded to those portions of the contour for determination of the speaker's intended F0 scaling level. We present an account of both effects within a unified model of F0 scaling perception called TCoG-F, with discussion of its implications for phonetic and phonological intonation research going forward.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"278-312"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141903521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Pronunciation of Vowel Digraphs in Nonwords: A Replication and Extension. 非词中元音数词的发音：重复与扩展》。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2025-06-01 Epub Date: 2024-09-30 DOI: 10.1177/00238309241276008

Eda Naz Gokdemir, Margaret Burkhart, Laurel Semprebon, Jianjun Hua, Donna Coch

{"title":"Pronunciation of Vowel Digraphs in Nonwords: A Replication and Extension.","authors":"Eda Naz Gokdemir, Margaret Burkhart, Laurel Semprebon, Jianjun Hua, Donna Coch","doi":"10.1177/00238309241276008","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00238309241276008","url":null,"abstract":"In English, the pronunciation of a vowel digraph can vary; for example, ea is pronounced /ɛ/ in bread but /i/ in beach and /eɪ/ in break. We investigated participant-level effects on the pronunciation of ambiguous vowel digraphs in nonwords (e.g., yeath) using standardized test measures of six reading-related skills in 80 young adults. We employed both an established written task and set of nonword stimuli and a spoken version of the task with the same stimuli. We largely replicated the previously reported pattern of preferred nonword pronunciations in both the written and spoken versions of the task. Generalized linear mixed-effects model analyses revealed that individual differences in phonological memory, spelling knowledge, and word reading efficiency contributed to pronunciation choice beyond item-level effects. Overall, taken together with the results of item-level analyses, our findings are consistent with models and theories in which specific reading-related skills, intralexical context, and interlexical pronunciation knowledge influence ambiguous vowel digraph pronunciation in nonword reading in fluently reading young adults.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"413-436"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142331985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Aptitude, Anxiety, and Success in L2 Speech Development: A Longitudinal Study of Chinese EFL College-Level Learners. 第二语言语音发展中的能力、焦虑和成功：中国 EFL 大学水平学习者的纵向研究。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2025-06-01 Epub Date: 2024-10-23 DOI: 10.1177/00238309241281741

Yang Zhou

{"title":"Aptitude, Anxiety, and Success in L2 Speech Development: A Longitudinal Study of Chinese EFL College-Level Learners.","authors":"Yang Zhou","doi":"10.1177/00238309241281741","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00238309241281741","url":null,"abstract":"This study examined the second language (L2) speech development of a group of Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) college-level learners (N = 83) and the association between their aptitude, anxiety, and L2 speech development. The performance of the participants' L2 speech, including speech comprehensibility and accentedness, was evaluated using a sentence reading task and a pair of picture description tasks (pre- and post-test). In addition, students completed the LLAMA tests (language learning and aptitude measurement in adults) and the Second Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (SLSAS). The t-test revealed that after one semester of English speaking and pronunciation instruction, the EFL students in the study demonstrated significant gains in their L2 speech performance in terms of accentedness and comprehensibility in both controlled and impromptu tasks. Regression analyses revealed that phonemic coding ability positively predicted gains in comprehensibility but negatively predicted gains in accentedness during sentence reading. In addition, associative memory was positively associated with comprehensibility gains in the picture description task. Anxiety appeared to be a strong predictor of participants' gains in speech comprehensibility and accentedness during the picture description task.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"437-459"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142512655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The Case for a Quantitative Approach to the Study of Nonnative Accent Features. 采用定量方法研究非母语口音特征的理由。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2025-06-01 Epub Date: 2024-08-07 DOI: 10.1177/00238309241256653

Mónica Anna Wagner, Mirjam Broersma, James M McQueen, Roeland van Hout, Kristin Lemhöfer

{"title":"The Case for a Quantitative Approach to the Study of Nonnative Accent Features.","authors":"Mónica Anna Wagner, Mirjam Broersma, James M McQueen, Roeland van Hout, Kristin Lemhöfer","doi":"10.1177/00238309241256653","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00238309241256653","url":null,"abstract":"Research with nonnative speech spans many different linguistic branches and topics. Most studies include one or a few well-known features of a particular accent. However, due to a lack of empirical studies, little is known about how common these features are among nonnative speakers or how uncommon they are among native speakers. Moreover, it remains to be seen whether findings from such studies generalize to lesser-known features. Here, we demonstrate a quantitative approach to study nonnative accent features using Dutch-accented English as an example. By analyzing the phonetic distances between transcriptions of speech samples, this approach can identify the features that best distinguish nonnative from native speech. In addition, we describe a method to test hypotheses about accent features by checking whether the prevalence of the features overall varies between native and nonnative speakers. Furthermore, we include English speakers from the United States and United Kingdom and native Dutch speakers from Belgium and The Netherlands to address the issue of regional accent variability in both the native and target language. We discuss the results concerning three observed features. Overall, the results provide empirical support for some well-known features of Dutch-accented English, but suggest that others may be infrequent among nonnatives or in fact frequent among natives. In addition, the findings reveal potentially new accent features, and factors that may modulate the expression of known features. Our study demonstrates a fruitful approach to study nonnative accent features that has the potential to expand our understanding of the phenomenon of accent.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"313-343"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12106924/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141898936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Perceptually Easy Second-Language Phones Are Not Always Easy: The Role of Orthography and Phonology in Schwa Realization in Second-Language French. 感知上容易的第二语言电话并不总是容易的：正字法和音系在第二语言法语弱读音实现中的作用。

IF 1.1 2区文学

Language and Speech Pub Date : 2025-06-01 Epub Date: 2024-12-12 DOI: 10.1177/00238309241277995

Elisabeth Heiszenberger, Eva Reinisch, Frederik Hartmann, Elizabeth Brown, Elissa Pustka

{"title":"Perceptually Easy Second-Language Phones Are Not Always Easy: The Role of Orthography and Phonology in Schwa Realization in Second-Language French.","authors":"Elisabeth Heiszenberger, Eva Reinisch, Frederik Hartmann, Elizabeth Brown, Elissa Pustka","doi":"10.1177/00238309241277995","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00238309241277995","url":null,"abstract":"Encoding and establishing a new second-language (L2) phonological category is notoriously difficult. This is particularly true for phonological contrasts that do not exist in the learners' native language (L1). Phonological categories that also exist in the L1 do not seem to pose any problems. However, foreign-language learners are not only presented with oral input. Instructed L2 learning often involves heavy reliance on written forms of the target language. The present study investigates the contribution of orthography to the quality of phonolexical encoding by examining the acoustics of French schwa by Austrian German learners-a perceptually and articulatorily easy L2 phone with incongruent grapheme-phoneme correspondences between the L1 and L2. We compared production patterns in an auditory word-repetition task (without orthographic input) with those in a word-reading task. We analyzed the formant values (F1, F2, F3) of the schwa realizations of two groups of Austrian high-school students who had been learning French for 1 and 6 years. The results show that production patterns are more likely to be affected by L1 grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences when orthographic input is present. However, orthography does not appear to play the dominant role, as L2 development patterns are strongly determined by both the speaker and especially the lexical item, suggesting a highly complex interaction of multiple internal and external factors in the establishment of L2 phonological categories beyond orthography and phonology.","PeriodicalId":51255,"journal":{"name":"Language and Speech","volume":" ","pages":"460-491"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12106934/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142815006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0