Literacy is widespread, but little is known about its effect on cognitive processes. Research suggests that learning to read is beneficial because it fosters awareness of the structure of language, and orthographic images of words and letters may provide memory anchors for speech. The general hypothesis of this thesis is that orthographic images aid oral language activities. Adults who are illiterate perform poorly on initial phoneme manipulation tasks, suggesting that learning to read fosters phonemic knowledge. However, literate adults may use orthographic images to aid phoneme manipulation, so this conclusion may be false. In the 11 experiments reported in this thesis, literate English speakers performed phoneme deletion/addition tasks with word and non word items - half had orthographically matched stimuli and responses (wage-age), and half were mismatched (worth-earth). Longer reaction times were expected for orthographically mismatched than matched items. The results of experiments are discussed in some detail. Future experiments are suggested to validate the models, and to investigate further the role of orthographic images in oral language activities. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005. / Bibliography: leaves 78-81.

The relationship between word form and word meaning has been debated since early Greek philosophy. Conventionally, the relationship is held to be arbitrary: that there is no natural connection between a word and what it represents (de Saussure 1959). In contrast, examples of sound symbolism undermine this linguistic tenet by demonstrating non-arbitrary word meanings conveyed in details of the acoustic signal of the words themselves. The Affect Induction model of animal communication offers a natural explanation for some forms of sound symbolism in language. According to the Affect Induction model, the physical properties of signals influence receiver affect and behavior in specific ways through relatively direct effects on core sensory, psychological and affective processes. To investigate the possible implications of this model for sound symbolism in human language, a set of studies was conducted on the classic “bouba-kiki” phenomenon. An analysis was subsequently undertaken to extend the results of experiments to several corpuses of real words classically associated with divergent affective themes. Results suggest that the Affect Induction model might account for some forms of sound symbolism, as instantiated in real word usage. / viii, 89 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [100]-111).

The ability of students to segment the speech stream into phonemic units and to analyze (make judgments as to same or different) beginning consonant phonemes was assessed at grades kindergarten through third from both high and low socioeconomic groups. Segmentation ability was assessed by the use of a test of actual words in a match-to-sample task, a test of synthetic words requiring a same-different judgment and a task which required deletion of a phoneme from a known word to form a new word. Three prerequisite abilities were also assessed: auditory acuity and understanding of the concepts "same" and "different" with regard to sounds, and "beginning" with regard to sequence of sounds.

This study is an investigation into the nature of the vowel phonemes of Bahasa Indonesia in monosyllabic words, under primary stress, and consisting of a consonant followed by vowel followed by a consonant. Bahasa Indonesia is the national language of the Republic of Indonesia. All of the material in the literature relating to the vowel quality of this language is highly impressionistic. Some of the descriptions are comparisons with vowels in various modern Indo-European languages rather than scientific descriptions of strictly Indonesian vowel quality.

Research regarding children's instrumental articulation development has provided the speech clinician with schedules of speech sound development. These developmental tables list ages when specific phonemes are mastered by normal children. Such schedules tend to give the impression that certain sounds must be developed before others can occur. Menyuk (1972) has expressed a similar point of view regarding phonemes /t/ and /k/. She has hypothesized: that phoneme /t/ must develop before phoneme /k/; and that sound element initial /t/ is mastered at an earlier age than initial /k/. The present investigation was designed to operationally test the validity of Menyuk's observations. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the ages at which phonemes /t/ and /k/ are mastered by normally developing children, thereby obtaining the order in which these phonemes are learned. A secondary purpose was to present an alternative to the concept of mastery of speech sounds by determining the ages at which children acquire phonemes /t/ and /k/. Four specific questions were posed by this study: Is phoneme /t/ mastered before phoneme /k/? Is sound element initial [t} mastered before initial [k]? What is the order of mastery of the remaining two sound elements of each phoneme? What is the order of acquisition of the two phonemes?

Fifty native English speakers (ages: 3, 9, 11 and adults) were asked to discriminate and pronounce Spanish words. The Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test was administered to the subjects to assess their discrimination abilities in their native language. A training session using English pairs of words showed that five-year-olds improved in their discrimination abilities after training but three-year-olds did not. Pronunciation was scored by two native Spanish speakers. Analyses revealed that older subjects pronounced the Spanish words significantly better than did younger subjects. Similar results were obtained for the analyses of Spanish phoneme pronunciation. Moreover, analyses of discrimination abilities on the Wepman Test also showed that the older subjects discriminated better than did the three-year-olds but discrimination appeared to remain constant after the five-year-old level. Finally, discrimination abilities for the Spanish words improved as a function of age. Older subjects discriminated better than did younger ones; however, this improvement was seen only up to the nine-year-old level after which performance remained constant.

One of the most common articulation errors made by children is on the phoneme Ir I. Treatment techniques for this sound have varied and have included the stimulus approach (Van Riper, 1972), phonetic placement techniques (Scripture, 1923), the sensory-motor approach (McDonald, 1964), the motokinesthetics approach (Young & Hawk, 1938), and sequential programming approach (Shriberg, 1975; Wood, 1988), to name a few. An integral part of many of these treatment methods is the use of the auditory stimulation. An innovative technique using a prosthetic device to facilitate the production of Ir I was used by Leonti, Blakeley, and Louis (1975), in the treatment of a 9.8 year old male. A follow-up study was conducted by Clark, Schwarz, and Blakeley, (1993) in which a prosthetic device, the R-appliance, was used to facilitate the production of Ir I at the word level. The results of the study indicated that the appliance facilitated the production of Ir I in isolation, in words, and in spontaneous speech. The present study investigated the use of the R-stick appliance as a facilitative device for the production of the Ir/ phoneme at the word level. It was hypothesized that the experimental group (R-stick) would have higher mean scores at the word level than the control group (no R-stick). This hypothesis was not supported by the data. Both groups showed significant improvements in their Ir I word productions, but no difference was shown between the two treatment approaches. There are several possible reasons for these results: (a) insufficient training with the use of the R-stick and the treatment protocol, (b) lack of probes during the course of the study, (c) length of treatment, (d) the small number of subjects participating in the study, and (e) the R-stick appliance is a clinician-manipulated tool.

[by] Thomas P. Barnwell III. / Also issued as a Ph.D. thesis in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, 1970. / Bibliography: p.114-115. / Contract DA 28-043-AMC-02536(E).