The pioneers and settlers of the Oregon Territory were not of one ilk. They came from various places and brought their separate speech patterns with them. This study sought to identify which major North American English dialect was present in the first half of the 20th century in Oregon. Analysis relied on the descriptions for the Southern, Northern, Midlands, and Western dialects. Some dialect features have acoustic measurements attached to their descriptions, and others do not. The analytical process was based on acoustic measurements for vowel classes and individual tokens, as well as global observations about the place of a particular class means within the larger vowel system. Findings indicate weak presence of Southern and Western speech patterns. The Northern and Midlands dialects were present, but they were not advanced. No single dialect predominated. Part of the process attempted to find a dialect diagnosis to help determine a one-step indicator as to which dialect may be present. Observations implied that the front/back relation of /e/ and /o/ is a reliable dialect indicator.

Prosody is the flow of speech created by controlling elements such as pitch, rate, loudness, and stress (Tiffany and Carrell, 1977). Prosody is vital to intelligibility of speech and also communicates meaning. Despite the importance of prosody, however, few tests for the adequacy of prosodic ability in young children have been published (Koike and Asp, 1981a). To remedy this paucity of tools, Koike and Asp published the Tennessee Test of Rhythm and Intonation Patterns (T-TRIP). The clinical usefulness of the T-TRIP has been limited by a lack of normative data against which to compare individual children's performance. The purpose of this study was to collect normative data on the T-TRIP scores of normal four and six-year-olds. The question this study asked was: What are the means and standard deviations of T-TRIP scores from the samples of four and six-year-olds? A secondary question was: Are differences between the means of the two age groups statistically significant?

This study focuses on how Middle Chinese zhi and zhao initials are reflected in Modern Mandarin and Wu dialects. Also, the topic of sound change is incorporated based on the results from the study.

In this thesis, I investigate a decades-old problem found in the stop system of Proto-Indo-European (PIE). More specifically, I will be investigating the paucity of */b/ in the forms reconstructed for the ancient, hypothetical language. As cross-linguistic evidence and phonological theory alone have fallen short of providing a satisfactory answer, herein will I employ modern empirical methods of linguistic investigation, namely laboratory phonology experiments and computational database analysis. Following Byrd 2015, I advocate for an examination of synchronic phenomena and behavior as a method for investigating diachronic change. In Chapter 1, I present an overview of the various proposed phonological systems of PIE and some of the explanations previously given for the enigmatic rarity of PIE */b/. Chapter 2 presents a detailed account of three lab phonology experiments I conducted in order to investigate perceptual confusability as a motivator of asymmetric merger within a system of stop consonants. Chapter 3 presents the preliminary form and findings of a computational database of reconstructed forms in PIE that I created and have named the Database of Etymological Reconstructions Beginnning in Proto-Indo-European (DERBiPIE). The final chapter, Chapter 4, offers a summary of the work presented herein and conclusions that may be drawn, offering suggestions for continued work on the topic and others like it.

This thesis investigates issues of intelligibility through the lens and focus of prosody when the Bostonian and Los Angeles-based accents are heard in casually occurring conversation by native and non-native speakers. Over the spring and summer of 2017, six native speakers and 11 non-native speakers of English were interviewed from having listened to two 2.5 minute audio sample clips of speakers who have these accents. Respondents were asked questions such as what was difficult or easy or whether they could summarize the recordings for me. Findings indicate that while the native speakers often had difficulty with vocabulary due to context, non-native English speakers frequently found the same recordings to sound continuous, blended or merged together when the Boston and Los Angeles audios were played to them. Native English speakers, by contrast, did not seem to face the same prosodic challenges of intelligibility as their non-native English-speaking counterparts when these two accents were heard in informal conversation. It has been found that L2 learners have a strong desire to learn English from their teachers through more naturally or informally occurring conversation. The argument is made that the teaching, practice and engagement of informal conversation is woefully inadequate for non-native speakers of English. Within this thesis the core subsets of the perceptions of prosody are analyzed between native and non-native speakers of English. The purpose of doing so is to pedagogically improve learning in EFL and ESL contexts.

This dissertation examines the relationship between phonetic sound and content in Latin poetry, with a focus on Books 1-3 of Horace's Odes. The central argument is that a relationship exists between sound and content in poetry, that this can be analysed and described more thoroughly and systematically than is usually the case, and that the appreciation of poetry can be enhanced by doing so. Part 1 presents a scheme for describing the sound-content relationship, and argues that this accurately reflects the perceptions of poetic audiences and is psychologically valid. The scheme begins with the concept of the 'sonance', defined as any set of sounds that renders a passage sonically noteworthy. Sonances that relate to content are classified either as 'harmonic sonances', which relate to content due to the properties of the relevant sounds, or 'repetitive sonances', which relate to content purely due to the repetition (including patterning or contrasting) of sounds, regardless of their properties. Harmonic sonances, it is argued, may relate to content through four 'harmonies', depending on whether acoustic or articulatory properties are involved and whether the relationship is one of similarity between property and content or a more distant 'metaphor'. Repetitive sonances may relate to content by several different means, or 'modes of repetition'. Part 2 presents a simple method of numerical analysis which may be applied to the text by computer to extract passages that are relatively likely to contain a sonance, and briefly discusses the process of assessing these results, identifying further sonances by more natural means, and relating each sonance to the relevant content. As an essential preliminary to such matters, Latin phonetics and phonology are also discussed in detail. Parts 3 and 4 present the results of applying these resources of assessment and description to the text, to demonstrate the type of poetic appreciation which may thus be gained. Part 3 consists of two catalogues of harmonic and repetitive sonances taken from the whole of Odes 1-3. Part 4 is a specific examination of two entire odes in much greater detail. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Humanities, 2004.

LIMA JÚNIOR, Ronaldo Mangueira. Pronunciar para comunicar: uma investigação do efeito do ensino explícito da pronúncia na sala de aula de LE. 2008. 243f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade de Brasília, Programa de Mestrado em Linguística Aplicada, Brasília (DF), 2008. / Submitted by anizia almeida (aniziaalmeida80@gmail.com) on 2016-06-23T12:20:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_rmlimajr.pdf: 3211739 bytes, checksum: 52f93705e746f46fb3e140662fee9ec4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-06-27T21:14:18Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_rmlimajr.pdf: 3211739 bytes, checksum: 52f93705e746f46fb3e140662fee9ec4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-27T21:14:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_rmlimajr.pdf: 3211739 bytes, checksum: 52f93705e746f46fb3e140662fee9ec4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / This study aimed at investigating the effects of explicit instruction, as well as the durability of such effects, in foreign language teaching. It is believed pronunciation instruction ought to be planned taking into consideration the specif difficulties that leaners' native language imposes, especially in Brasilian teaching context in which this research was carried out, since most foreign language classrooms in Brazil have homogeneity concerning the students' monthe tongue. Therefore, the approach chosen was the interventionist aqction research, which had as participants two classes of basic level, teenager learners of english as a foreign language at a binational center, where students have english classes as an extra-curricular activity. In one of the classes there was intervention of weekly explicit lessons of pronunciation for one semester. All participants were recorded once before and twice after the intervenions, one shortly after, so that both the immediate and the long-term effects of the explicit instruction could be assessed. All recordings were phonetically transcribed an analyzed having as basic second language acquisition and phenetics and phonology theories. The results indicate that, among other conclusions, there are positive effcts of explicit pronunciation teaching and that these effects are durable. / O presente estudo visou a investigar os efeitos, assim como a durabilidade desses efeitos, do ensino explicito dos aspectos fonético-fonológicos em aulas de língua estrangeira. Partiu do pressuposto de que a aula de pronúncia deve ser planejada considerando-se as dificuldades específicas que a língua nativa dos aprendizes, dispõem, principalmente no contexto brasileiro, no qual a presente pesquisa foi conduzida, visto que a maioria das salas de aula de língua estrangeira no Brasil apresenta uniformidade quanto a língua mãe dos aprendizes. Foi conduzida, portanto, uma pesquisa-ação intervencionista que teve como participantes de pesquisa duas turmas de aprendizes pré-adolescentes de nível básico de um centro binacional, onde os alunos tem aula de inglês como atividade extra-curricular. Em uma das turmas houve intervenção de aulas explícitas de pronúncias semanais durante o semestre. Todos os participantes foi gravando uma vez antes e duas vezes após as intervenções, uma logo em seguida e outra 11 meses depois , para que pudessem ser avaliados os efeitos imediatos e de longo prazo da instrução explicita conduzida. Todas as gravações foram transcritas foneticamente e analisadas a luz de teorias de Aquisição de segunda língua e de Fonética e Fonologia. Os resultados indicam, entre outras conclusões, que há efeitos positivos na instrução explicita da pronúncia e que esses efeitos são duráveis.

Cette thèse s'intéresse à l'imitation dans la parole, c'est à dire à la tendance pour un locuteur de parler de façon plus similaire à son interlocuteur. Beaucoup d'entre nous font l'expérience de ce phénomène lorsque que nous conversons avec une personne qui possède un accent différent. Certaines caractéristiques de notre propre parole peuvent changer, pour se rapprocher de celle de notre interlocuteur. L'imitation dans la parole a fait l'objet de récentes études. Notre contribution à ce type de recherches est d'étudier l'imitation au niveau allophonique, c'est à dire au niveau des réalisations phonétiques possibles d'un phonème. Nous voulons savoir si l'imitation d'un son phonétique pour un phonème donné, dans une position de mot donnée, peut influencer les autres réalisations de ce phonème, dans la même position de mot. Nous voulons également savoir si l'imitation d'un son phonétique pour un phonème donné, dans une position de mot donnée, peut influencer la réalisation d'autres allophones de ce phonème, dans une position de mot différente. / This dissertation investigates imitation in speech, which is the general tendency shown by a speaker to become more similar to another speaker in the way they speak. Many of us have experienced this while talking to someone who is speaking the same language but with a different accent. Conversing with such a person can affect some characteristics of our speech, so that we come to sound more like them. Imitation in speech has been very extensively studied, especially over recent years. To contribute to this line of research we provide an account of imitation in speech at the allophonic level, that is at the level of the possible phonetic realisations of a phoneme. We are interested in whether imitation of the sound of a given phoneme in a particular word position can influence the other possible realisations of that phoneme in the same word position. We are also interested in determining whether imitation of a speech sound in a particular word position for a given phoneme can affect the realisations of that phoneme in a different word position.

<p>Neural responses to anticipatory coarticulatory cues were investigated across systematically varying phonological conditions. Congruent or incongruent subphonemic information was placed between an initial consonant and a vowel in a consonant-vowel- consonant (CVC) spoken word (Archibald & Joanisse, 2011). Due to physical and temporal differences across sound classes, the objective was to investigate whether coarticulatory information would be processed differently across controlled manipulations of onset (fricative vs. stop) and vowel type (height vs. backness). Event- related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a printed-word/spoken-word matching paradigm, in which participants indicated whether a visual prime stimulus and a spoken word matched/mismatched. The “Phonological Mapping Negativity” (PMN) component provides strong evidence that the use of coarticulatory information in speech recognition varies in strength and timing as a function of onset type (fricative vs. stop) and vowel height (high vs. low). Coarticulatory cues were more readily perceived in spoken word beginning with fricatives than with stops. Similarly, subphonemic variations were more easily detected in low vowels than in high vowels. Observed perceptual and temporal differences are interpreted to reflect variations in subphonemic and phonological processing.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

Writing center tutors work in a field with a long tradition of fostering meaningful interaction between tutor and tutee. However, as university demographics change and more and more international students and second language users utilize writing centers, our long-held notions of meaningful interaction have been called into question as tutors struggle to reckon the needs of students with the implicit demands of their field. Using data taken from real writing center sessions, I use qualitative and quantitative methods to explore how tutors negotiate this necessarily changing paradigm, looking in particular at the way these changes manifest themselves in who reads a text aloud, how that influences session content, and who talks and when. Based on the data and analysis, I make suggestions for tutor practice, education, and further research.