The present study examines the acoustic and articulatory features of English onset and coda /l/s as produced by native English and Mandarin Chinese speakers in the vowel contexts of /i/, /ɪ/, /e/, / ɛ/, /u/, /ʊ/, /o/, /ɔ/, /ɑ/, /ʌ/, /ɚ/, and /æ/, and via the elicitation tasks of word list and mini dialogue. Four Mandarin Chinese speakers who had lived in Canada for at least one year by the time of the experiment and four Canadian English speakers who were born and raised on west coast of Canada participated in the research. Both groups of speakers were the graduate students studying at the University of Victoria. The experiment took place at the Phonetics Laboratory in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Victoria. An ultrasound machine together with a synchronized microphone was used to record the speech data for analysis. The results showed that for onset /l/, the tongue position of the Mandarin Chinese speakers was more front than that of the English speakers. For coda /l/s, Mandarin Chinese speakers had lower and more retracted tongue position than their English counterparts. ANOVA tests showed that vowel contexts and task formality had limited impact on the acoustic qualities of the onset and coda /l/s produced by both groups of speakers. The results and conclusions from the present study will contribute to a better understanding of the articulatory features of the English /l/s. Mandarin Chinese learners may also benefit from this study in that they could potentially improve their pronunciations and reduce accent. / Graduate

If an individual speaks more than one language, there are always at least two ways of verbalising any thought to be expressed. The bilingual speaker must then have a means of ensuring that their utterances are produced in the desired language. However, prominent models of speech production are based almost exclusively on monolingual considerations and require substantial modification to account for bilingual production. A particularly important feature to be explained is the way bilinguals control the language of speech production: for instance, preventing interference from the unintended language, and switching from one language to another. One recent model draws a parallel between bilinguals??? control of their linguistic system and the control of cognitive tasks more generally. The first two experiments reported in this thesis explore the validity of this model by comparing bilingual language switching with a monolingual switching task, as well as to the broader task-switching literature. Switch costs did not conform to the predictions of the task-set inhibition hypothesis in either experiment, as the ???paradoxical??? asymmetry of switch costs was not replicated and some conditions showed benefits, rather than costs, for switching between languages or tasks. Further experiments combined picture naming with negative priming and semantic competitor priming paradigms to examine the role of inhibitory and competitive processes in bilingual lexical selection. Each experiment was also conducted in a parallel monolingual version. Very little negative priming was evident when speaking the second language, but the effects of interlingual cognate status were pronounced. There were some indications of cross-language competition at the level of lexical selection: participants appeared unable to suppress the irrelevant language, even when doing so would make the task easier. Across all the experiments, there was no evidence for global inhibition of the language-not-in-use during speech production. Overall results were characterised by a remarkable flexibility in the mechanisms of bilingual control. A striking dissociation emerged between the patterns of results for cognate and non-cognate items, which was reflected throughout the series of experiments and implicates qualitative differences in the way these lexical items are represented and interconnected.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 63-70).

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, May 4, 2001." Also available in print.

The current dissertation represents one of the first systematic studies of the distribution of speech errors within supralexical prosodic units. Four experiments were conducted to gain insight into the specific role of these units in speech planning and production. The first experiment focused on errors in adult English. These were found to be systematically distributed within the highest-level supralexical prosodic unit, the Intonational Phrase (IP), providing evidence for its psychological reality. The specific distribution of errors--fewest in unit-initial position, with a gradual increase in errors across the unit--was interpreted to suggest that the IP functions as a planning domain: the unit is activated as a whole, and activation gradually decays with time leading to an increase in errors. The second experiment was motivated by the idea that a decrease in IP activation is best understood in the context of working memory processes. Children's speech was examined in preference to adult speech because it is less automatized and so likely more influenced by working memory. The findings were that children with better working memories produced shorter IPs and relatively more anticipatory errors than children with poorer working memories. The results provided further evidence for the role of IPs in planning. The third and fourth experiments extended the investigation to another language, Korean, and examined the role of a mid-level prosodic unit, the Accentual Phrase (AP), in planning and production. The results indicated the same pattern of error distribution in the Korean IP as in the English IP. In contrast, more errors occurred in AP-initial position than in the second half of the unit, and the elicited errors tended to preserve AP-internal structure. The results were interpreted to suggest that the AP provides a structural frame within which elements are slotted for production. Overall, the results are consistent with the idea that these units play a critical role in the planning and production process. The results also suggest that different units within the prosodic hierarchy function differently: the IP functions as a planning domain, and mid-level units (i.e., AP) provide the structure needed to accomplish serial ordering in speech. This dissertation includes previously published co-authored material.

Submitted by Lidia Mauricio da Silva null (lidiamau_u@hotmail.com) on 2017-05-27T21:44:05Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO_DEFESA_pdf .pdf: 1196024 bytes, checksum: 98d43d8f5817e28a58c9769670c2ebc5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luiz Galeffi (luizgaleffi@gmail.com) on 2017-05-31T14:42:49Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_lm_me_mar.pdf: 1196024 bytes, checksum: 98d43d8f5817e28a58c9769670c2ebc5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-31T14:42:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_lm_me_mar.pdf: 1196024 bytes, checksum: 98d43d8f5817e28a58c9769670c2ebc5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-04-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Objetivo: O objetivo desse estudo foi propor parâmetros ultrassonográficos quantitativos que pudessem apreender diferenças de modo e ponto de articulação entre os 14 fonemas linguais do Português Brasileiro (doravante PB), buscando estimar valores de referência e um padrão de variabilidade quanto ao contorno de superfície de língua na produção de fala típica. Métodos: Foram selecionados 20 sujeitos com produção típica de fala, de 20-30 anos, de ambos os gêneros. Os estímulos selecionados contemplaram os 14 fonemas consonantais linguais do PB no contexto da vogal /a/. Os dados foram coletados e analisados com o uso do ultrassom e dos softwares AAA (Articulate Assistant Advanced) e Ultra- CATS (The Ultrasonographic Contour Analyzer for Tongue Surfaces). Para análise dos dados, um índice ultrassonográfico (US) foi selecionado da literatura já existente: índice de anterioridade (IA), enquanto outros dois foram desenvolvidos no presente estudo: média global (MG) e índice de anterioridade normalizado (IAN). Os dados foram submetidos à análise estatística. Resultados: A ANOVA mostrou efeito significante para os índices IAN e MG, sendo que o IAN diferenciou os fonemas quanto ao ponto (alveolar, pré-palatal, palatal e velar) e modo de articulação (fricativa, nasal e oclusiva), enquanto o MG diferenciou os fonemas somente quanto ao ponto de articulação (alveolar, pré-palatal e velar). Conclusão: Não houve um único índice US que pudesse diferenciar todos os pontos e modos de articulação simultaneamente. A aplicação clínica para análise das alterações da produção da fala requer o uso de pelo menos dois índices ultrassonográficos: um para distinguir o ponto e outro para distinguir o modo de articulação. Por fim, tendo por princípio que os fonemas consonantais apresentam variabilidade fonêmica e que exigem a produção concomitante e coordenada de diferentes gestos articulatórios, incluindo o movimento do véu palatino, direcionando o fluxo de ar no trato vocal, novas medidas em plano coronal da língua poderiam oferecer subsídio para complementar a caracterização ultrassonográfica dos fonemas nasais e líquidos. / Objective: The aim of this study was to propose quantitative ultrasonographic parameters that could detect differences in the manner and place of articulation among the 14 Brazilian Portuguese phonemes (hereinafter BP), seeking to estimate reference values and a pattern of variability regarding the surface contour of the tongue in typical speech production. Methods: We selected 20 subjects with typical speech production, aged between 20-30 years, of both genders. The selected stimuli include the 14 lingual consonant BP phonemes in the intervocalic context of [a]. Data were collected and analyzed with the use of ultrasound and the AAA (Articulate Assistant Advanced) and the Ultra-CATS (The Ultrasonographic Contour Analyzer for Tongue Surfaces) softwares. For the analysis of the data, an ultrasonographic index (UI) was selected from the existing literature: the index of anteriority (IA), while two others were developed in the present study: the global average (GA) and the index of normalized anteriority (INA). The data were submitted to statistical analysis. Results: ANOVA showed a significant effect on the indexes INA and GA, and the INA index differentiated phonemes as the place (alveolar, pre-palatal, palatal and velar) and manner of articulation (fricative, nasal and occlusive); GA differentiate phonemes only as the place of articulation (alveolar, pre-palatal and velar). Conclusion: There was no UI index that could differentiate all places and manners of articulation simultaneously. The clinical application for analysis of speech production disorders require the use of at least two ultrasound indexes: one to distinguish the place and another to distinguish the manner of articulation. Finally, considering that consonant phonemes present phonemic variability and require the concomitant and coordinated production of different articulatory gestures, including the movement of the palatine veil directing the airflow in the vocal tract, new measures in the coronal plane of the tongue could offer support to complement the ultrasound characterization of nasal and liquid phonemes.

<p dir="ltr">The present dissertation addresses the gap of how the three contextual variables (power, distance, and imposition) affect the use and perception of pitch range and final pitch contours in Central Peninsular Spanish polar questions. The methodological approach in this dissertation combines a production experiment in the form of a contextualized sentence-reading task (e.g., Brown et al., 2014; Henriksen, 2013) and a perception experiment using a pragmatic judgment task (e.g., Nadeu & Prieto, 2011). Both tasks systematically incorporated a set of situations that included the contextual variables of power, distance, and imposition. Thus, this dissertation provides a systematic analysis of power, distance, and imposition to investigate their influence on the use and perception of pitch range and pitch contours. To analyze pitch in the production experiment, a categorical analysis of final pitch contours (e.g., low-rising contour) and a quantitative analysis of prosodic features (i.e., pitch range and its conversion into semitones) were conducted. For the perception experiment, analyses included the comparison of linear mixed models to examine the perceived degree of politeness.</p><p dir="ltr">The findings presented in this dissertation support the Frequency Code Hypothesis in that they showed the relevance of pitch for signaling and perceiving politeness in requests in Spanish. The results from the production experiment suggested there are no effects of power, distance, and imposition on the selection of final intonational contours. Regarding the analysis of pitch range, the results from the production experiment indicated that the use of greater pitch range was associated with an increase in the social distance between the speakers. In the perception experiment, the results indicated that an increase in pitch range was directly associated with an increase in the perceived degree of politeness. Furthermore, the findings from this dissertation provided evidence for including a systematic analysis of the contextual variables of power, distance, and imposition to conduct analyses within the politeness framework instead of analyzing the formal/informal dimension in isolation The overall results of this dissertation contribute to the understanding of how suprasegmental features are employed in showing and perceivicing politeness.</p>

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This dissertation examines how age affects the ability to produce intelligibility- enhancing speaking style adaptations in response to environment-related difficulties (noise-adapted speech) and in response to listeners’ perceptual difficulties (clear speech). Materials consisted of conversational and clear speech sentences produced in quiet and in response to noise by children (11-13 years), young adults (18-29 years), and older adults (60-84 years). Acoustic measures of global, segmental, and voice characteristics were obtained. Young adult listeners participated in word-recognition-in-noise and perceived age tasks. The study also examined relative talker intelligibility as well as the relationship between the acoustic measurements and intelligibility results. Several age-related differences in speaking style adaptation strategies were found. Children increased mean F0 and F1 more than adults in response to noise, and exhibited greater changes to voice quality when producing clear speech (increased HNR, decreased shimmer). Older adults lengthened pause duration more in clear speech compared to younger talkers. Word recognition in noise results revealed no age-related differences in the intelligibility of conversational speech. Noise-adapted and clear speech modifications increased intelligibility for all talker groups. However, the acoustic changes implemented by children when producing noise-adapted and clear speech were less efficient in enhancing intelligibility compared to the young adult talkers. Children were also less intelligible than older adults for speech produced in quiet. Results confirmed that the talkers formed 3 perceptually-distinct age groups. Correlation analyses revealed that relative talker intelligibility was consistent for conversational and clear speech in quiet. However, relative talker intelligibility was found to be more variable with the inclusion of additional speaking style adaptations. 1-3 kHz energy, speaking rate, vowel and pause durations all emerged as significant acoustic-phonetic predictors of intelligibility. This is the first study to investigate how clear speech and noise-adapted speech benefits interact with each other across multiple talker groups. The findings enhance our understanding of intelligibility variation across the lifespan and have implications for a number of applied realms, from audiologic rehabilitation to speech synthesis. / text

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology has facilitated capturing the dynamics of speech production at fine temporal and spatial resolutions, thus generating substantial quantities of images to be analysed. Manual processing of large MRI databases is labour intensive and time consuming. Hence, to study articulation on large scale, techniques for automatic feature extraction are needed. This thesis investigates approaches for automatic information extraction from an MRI database of dynamic articulation. We first study the articulation by observing the pixel intensity variations in image sequences. The correspondence between acoustic segments and images is established by forced alignment of speech signals recorded during the articulation. We obtain speaker-specific typical phoneme articulations that represent general articulatory configurations in running speech. Articulation dynamics are parametrised by measuring the magnitude of change in intensities over time. We demonstrate a direct correlation between the dynamics of articulation thus measured and the energy of the generated acoustic signals. For more sophisticated applications, a parametric description of vocal tract shape is desired. We investigate different shape extraction techniques and present a framework that can automatically identify and extract the vocal tract shapes. The framework incorporates shape prior information and intensity features in recognising and delineating the shape. The new framework is a promising new tool for automatic identification of vocal tract boundaries in large MRI databases, as demonstrated through extensive assessments. The segmentation framework proposed in this thesis is, to the best of our knowledge, novel in the field of speech production. The methods investigated in this thesis facilitate automatic information extraction from images, either for studying the dynamics of articulation or for vocal tract shape modelling. This thesis advances the state-of-the-art by bringing new perspectives to studying articulation, and introducing a segmentation framework that is automatic, does not require extensive initialisation, and reports a minimum number of failures.