published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. / Bibliography: leaves 246-253. / by Janet Breckenridge Pierrehumbert. / Ph.D.

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Law, Wai Ling. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-180). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Title Page --- p.i / Abstract --- p.ii / 摘要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Table of Contents --- p.v-vii / Chapter 1 Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- The focus of this thesis --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- The structure of this thesis --- p.4 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1 --- A changing scene: The use of English worldwide --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Some old pictures and present fallacies --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1.1.1 --- Fallacy one - Native English(es) as the starting point and the end point --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1.1.2 --- Fallacy two - The stability of native models --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1.1.3 --- Fallacy three - The unarguable definite intelligibility of native varieties --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- English as an international language - The legitimacy of New Englishes --- p.15 / Chapter 2.2 --- Theoretical frameworks and research findings on HKE --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Approaches in describing the systems of non-native varieties --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- The phonology of HKE --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.2.1 --- The significance of L1 transfer from Cantonese --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.2.2 --- HKE as an independent phonological system --- p.26 / Chapter 2.2.2.3 --- The importance of scrutiny of phonological factors --- p.32 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- The need for a variation analysis of HKE in bridging the gap --- p.37 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Pilot studies --- p.45 / Chapter 2.3 --- English and Cantonese Phonologies --- p.48 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- English phonology --- p.48 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Cantonese phonology --- p.51 / Chapter 2.4 --- Research questions --- p.60 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Methodology --- p.65 / Chapter 3.1 --- Research setting & selection of participants --- p.65 / Chapter 3.2 --- The participants --- p.69 / Chapter 3.3 --- Research design --- p.71 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Data collection --- p.71 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Procedures --- p.73 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Data processing --- p.74 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Data analysis --- p.76 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Results --- p.85 / Chapter 4.1 --- Description of the analysis --- p.85 / Chapter 4.2 --- Independent variables - Effects of factor groups on vowel productions --- p.97 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Proficiency --- p.97 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Speaker --- p.98 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Stress --- p.101 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Number of syllables --- p.102 / Chapter 4.2.5 --- Preceding phonological environment --- p.103 / Chapter 4.2.6 --- Following phonological environment --- p.113 / Chapter 4.3 --- Dependent variables - The effects of interactions of factor groups on vowel realizations --- p.116 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Long vowels --- p.116 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Diphthongs --- p.118 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Short vowels --- p.120 / Chapter 4.4 --- A comparison of behaviour of long vowels，diphthongs and short vowels --- p.123 / Chapter Chapter --- 5 Discussion --- p.129 / Chapter 5.1 --- Addressing the research questions --- p.130 / Chapter 5.2 --- Following phonological environment --- p.133 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- L1 transfer from Cantonese --- p.133 / Chapter 5.2.1.1 --- Transfer of Cantonese phonological rules and phonotactic constraints --- p.134 / Chapter 5.2.1.2 --- Effect of sonority distance --- p.140 / Chapter 5.2.1.3 --- Further evidence on interaction of Cantonese and English phonology --- p.146 / Chapter 5.3 --- Preceding phonological environment --- p.147 / Chapter 5.4 --- Stress --- p.151 / Chapter 5.5 --- Number of syllables --- p.153 / Chapter 5.6 --- Ranking of constraints in HKE phonology --- p.154 / Chapter 5.7 --- Implications of insignificance of proficiency and speaker --- p.156 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- "Implications, Limitations，Directions of Future Research and Conclusion" --- p.159 / Chapter 6.1 --- Implications --- p.159 / Chapter 6.1.1 --- Future investigations into New Englishes --- p.160 / Chapter 6.1.2 --- Language planning --- p.162 / Chapter 6.2 --- Limitations of the present study --- p.165 / Chapter 6.3 --- Directions of future research --- p.167 / Chapter 6.4 --- Conclusion --- p.169 / References --- p.170 / Appendix 1 Questionnaire of personal information --- p.181 / Appendix 2 Conversational interview prompting questions --- p.182

This study was part of the Portland Language Development Project, a longitudinal study of early expressive language delay. Its purpose was twofold. The first was to examine phonological and reading abilities in second grade children with a history of language delay. The second purpose was to examine the relationship between phonological processing abi1ities and reading skills in these children. Second grade children were assigned to one of three groups, based on their history and current Development Sentence Score (DSS) score: (a) normal language (NL), those with more than 50 words at 20-34 months and above the tenth percentile on the DSS; (b) history of delay, but currently normal expressive language (HX), those with fewer than 50 words at 20-34 months and above the tenth percentile on the DSS; and (c) history of delay with continued performance below normal (ELD), those with fewer than 50 words at 20-34 months and below the tenth percentile on the DSS. The children were evaluated by means of the Reading Recognition and Reading Comprehension subtests of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (Dunn & Mackwardt, 1970), three complex phonological production tasks, and the Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization Test (LAC) (Lindamood & Lindamood, 1979), which assesses phonological awareness. This study compared the reading and phonologica1 scores of the three groups to determine if there are any significant differences. The results showed no significant differences in reading abilities. There were significant differences on the complex phonological task of naming pictures, between the NL and HX group, and there were significant differences on the LAC, between the NL group and the ELD group, and between the HX group and the ELD group. Reading and phonological scores of the children with a history of late talking were correlated, using a regression analysis to determine whether reading recognition and reading comprehension could be predicted from the phonological production and LAC tasks. The LAC was the only variable that correlated with the Reading Recognition or Reading Comprehension subtests. The LAC accounted for 39% of variance of the Reading Recognition score, and 27% of the variance of the Reading Comprehension score.

Language delay and phonological delay have been shown to coexist. Because they so often co-occur, it is possible that they may interact, sharing a relationship during the child's development. A group of children who were "late talkers" as toddlers, achieved normal development in their syntactic ability by the preschool period. Because their language abilities are known to have increased rapidly, data on their phonological development could provide information on the relationship between phonological and syntactic development. The purpose of this study was to compare the percentage of phonological process usage of the eight most commonly used simplification processes in four-year-old expressive language delayed (ELD) children, children with a history of slow expressive language development (HX), and normally developing (ND) children. The questions this study sought to answer were: do ELD children exhibit a higher percentage of phonological process usage than ND children, and are HX children significantly different in their percentage of phonological process usage than ND and/or ELD children.

While there is general agreement among researchers in the field of language and learning disabilities upon the language hypothesis for reading failure, little research has been explored concerning the relationship between the phonological production skills of preschool children and the same children's prereading abilities in kindergarten. This study examined two aspects of phonological skill (a) the relationship of early phonological production errors and later success on phonological awareness and general prereading skill, and (b) determining if prereading deficits in a group of children with a history of lanquage delay reside specifically in the phonological awareness items or the prereading score in general. The subjects used for this study included 29 "normal" talkers and 30 "late talkers", as determined by the Language Development survey (Rescorla, 1989) when the subjects were between 20-34 months. When the subjects were three years old, a language sample was obtained and later phonemically transcribed from audio tape and entered into the PEPPER computer program to compute the percentage consonants correct (PCC) for each child. The subjects were later evaluated during their kindergarten year for reading readiness, using the Developmental Skills Checklist. This study found that Late Talkers have significantly lower PCCs than there normal talking peers at age three, but their PCCs do not predict their prereading or phonological awareness skills at kindergarten. Phonological awareness was further investigated in terms of supraseqmental and segmental levels of phonological awareness, there was no significant difference between the groups on either level of phonological awareness. However, there was a nonsignificant trend (p

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The purpose of this study was to examine non-English-speaking Brazilian adults' perception of American English vowels at various levels of English contact. Specifically, it addressed two two-vowel American English contrasts, /i/-/I/ and /u/-/[upsilon]/, that both occupy the vowel space of one Brazilian Portuguese category, /i/ and /u/, and one twovowel contrast, /e/-/[epsilon]/, that exists in both languages. For reliability purposes, the three contrasts were presented in two different orders to total six contrasts in all. Predictions, based on Flege, (1995) associated discrimination difficulties with this L1-L2 contrast pairing. However, previous discoveries of non-native speakers' sensitivity to subphonemic differences suggested the potential to overcome L1-related perceptual constraints (Wode, 1994). Five groups of ten participants each [aged 20-40] contributed data [N=50]. Three Austin, Texas-resident groups participated: (group A) native American English speakers, (group B) native Brazilian Portuguese speakers with high English contact, and (group C) native Brazilian Portuguese-speakers with medium English contact. Belo Horizonte, Brazil-resident groups numbered two, including native Brazilian Portuguese speakers with medium English contact (group D) and low English contact (group E.) Each participant took a same-different identification test in which the target vowels appeared within minimal and identical pairs. Within-group results for medium and low contact groups associated significantly greater difficulty with the /u/-/[upsilon]/ contrast. Between-group results found significant differences between high and low contact groups for /u/-/[upsilon]/, /[upsilon]/-/u/, and /I/-/i/; insignificant differences between high contact and native English groups appeared for the same contrasts. These overall trends suggested a degree of flexibility for non-native perception in three of four instances as well as a significant pair-wise order effect. These overall findings should not minimize the importance of individual differences. Discussion concluded with calls for greater focus on individual differences (also reflected in Bradlow et al., 1997) and greater awareness of individuals' potentials within language learning contexts.