The thesis has explored the influence of both perceived and actual mispronunciation upon comprehension of a spoken message. An eight-item short-answer test measured the dependent variable, comprehension. A set of three point scales including distractors measured perception of mispronunciation.In addition, the thesis indicates the value of replicating studies using different samples and different degrees of mispronunciation. It was found that there is a difference in perception of mispronunciations by foreign and American graduate students. It was also found that there is no difference in the way foreign and American graduate students score on comprehension tests, and there is no significant relationship between level of mispronunciation and comprehension on an immediate posttest.

This dissertation, which takes the form of a creative project as is sanctioned by the Doctor of Arts Curricular Program, is a self-instructional course in solo singers' English diction. It is designed for Freshman-level voice majors and no prior knowledge of diction is assumed. The course attempts to achieve three basic goals: to serve as an introduction to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), to alleviate the often overburdened Sophomore-level diction course, and to raise the concerns of English diction to a level comparable with those of Italian, German and French.The course falls naturally into three main divisions:Chapters III-VIan introduction to the IPA, the identification of allvowel and consonant sounds in English, the correctIPA symbols for those sounds, and simple transcriptionof English words into IPA;Chapters VII-Xa detailed analysis of the rules of English dictionand the IPA, including linkage, poetical and musicalstress, and declamation;Chapter XIthe preparation of complete song texts, applyingall the knowledge and skills learned in the course.Each chapter has accompanying exercises which require the student to use information contained in that particular chapter; self-tests for each chapter are provided at the end of the course. Answers for all accompanying exercises and all self-tests are included in the Appendixes. The Appendixes also include a listing of the sources for the extensive musical examples, a pitch nomenclature chart, and a quick-reference guide to the IPA symbols as well as the vocabulary introduced in the course. / School of Music

The primary object of this thesis is the analysis of responses to the phonological section of the Linguistic Survey of B.C.: Postal Questionnaire (PQ3) which was designed by James Poison and Dr. R. J. Gregg at the University of B.C. In analysing the responses to the questionnaire, major emphasis has been placed on the distribution of variants in the province as a whole, on the shifting distribution of variants from older to younger generation speakers and on the isolation of dialect areas within the province. With regard to the isolation of dialect areas, the overall area distribution is the focus of attention; discussion of regional age variations is of necessity brief since sample sizes in age/area categories are for the most part too small to allow a definitive analysis. In addition to the analysis of PQ3 data, correlations have been made with data from other B.C. dialect surveys at both provincial and regional levels. Responses to other surveys at the provincial level are for the most part in agreement with those of PQ3> however, for some items significant variations occur. Comparison of responses at the regional level is difficult due to small and/or disparate sample sizes. The analysis of PQ3 data and the comparison of the results of this survey with those of other B.C. surveys indicates the necessity of a more concentrated study of B.C. speech. To this end, some alternative approaches to the study of British Columbia dialect have been suggested. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

Technological advancements in the recent past have provided new methods for learning to speak English as a second language (ESL). The majority of accent reduction training regimes nowadays involve the use of different media as teaching and learning cues such as video or audio signals. However, few such programs have been proven to actually provide efficient and useful feed back to ESL learners, and few offers evidence proving that such multisensory approach of accent reduction is superior to traditional unisensory (auditory-only) approach. The present study intended to design and assess the effectiveness and efficacy of a multisensory, acoustics-based accent reduction training system that is capable of training foreign speakers to correctly produce English vowels by providing instantaneous auditory and visual feedback to the users. The study also validated the system against traditional accent modification regimes by objectively comparing the efficacy of such system with traditional accent reduction training. Results indicate that multimedia-based training with instantaneous visual and auditory feedback yielded significant improvement in accent reduction. / published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

toc / English Studies and Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Arts

University of Macau / Faculty of Arts and Humanities. / Department of English

No description available.

This research investigated how the characteristics of two Computer Assisted Langauge Learning (CALL) programs assisted Taiwanese students learning English pronunciation, how the different types of feedback in the program helped them to learn English pronunciation effectively, and how teachers may effectively integrate such computer software into their teaching. The purpose of the study was to define directions for pedagogy and research in CALL in Taiwan, drawing on the perceptions of Taiwanese college students and their teacher in regard to the effectiveness of the selected programs and their feedback functions. This research sought to explore ways to develop and improve English pronunciation learning in Taiwan by using another tool in addition to teacher-directed learning. It is anticipated that the research will provide Taiwanese language teachers with information about how to supplement their teacher directed language teaching, and about what learning tools are effective for this. In all, one teacher/researcher and 153 college students across four classes took part in this research project, and the setting was in an Institute of Technology in Taiwan. The students all used the two computer software programs separately in a computer laboratory for several weeks, and their perspectives about the effectiveness of the programs and the feedback they gave were gathered. The research methodology was action research, and it used an open-ended questionnaire and participant observation for collecting data, as well as content analysis for the interpretation of the data. In addition, the students wrote learning sheets which aimed to focus their learning. The results showed that the students preferred the program with explicit correction feedback, and with repetition and other specific functions, as well as the facility for selfpaced and self-directed learning. The key finding of the study was that in Taiwan, when used alongside the traditional classroom teaching, CALL is a tool which has the potential to address some of the issues English pronunciation teachers face, such as low student motivation and low English pronunciation proficiency. A number of recommendations are made for the effective use of CALL. Students gave several detailed suggestions in regard to the computer software functions which could help them to learn more effectively, and the teacher also addressed some issues which need to be considered when using CALL computer software to assist students’ learning.