Thesis (D.M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 122 p. : music. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 114-116).

Gay life ; Three baritone songs / David Del Tredici. / text

published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Listeners’ perceptions toward children with communication disorders as well as the interpersonal experience of these children have been studied extensively by speech and language field and psychology field in the western countries. However, little is known about peers’ attitudes and social acceptance toward children with voice problems in the Chinese population. The current study examined the attitudes of peers and teachers toward children with different severity levels of voice problems; and evaluated how such attitudes could impact on the social acceptance of these children. Specifically, peer acceptance and teacher preference were investigated. Eighteen speakers (nine children with voice problems and nine vocally healthy children as controls) and 60 listeners (30 children and 30 teachers) participated in the study. Listeners were asked to provide attitude and acceptance ratings after listening to the voice samples of the speakers. For both groups of listeners, children with dysphonic voices were given significantly lower scores (i.e., less favorable) than children with normal voices in all the attitude ratings and acceptance ratings (both groups ps < .001). Moreover, the more severe the voice problems, the less positive the attitude and acceptance ratings the speakers received from the listeners. The attitude ratings and acceptance ratings made by the children listeners and teacher listeners did not differ significantly from each other (ps > .05). The results suggested that children with dysphonic voices were not only perceived less favorably on all attitude ratings than children with normal voices. They were also less socially accepted by peers and teachers. These findings provided valuable information and insights to the parents, educators, and speech-language pathologists on the potential impacts of pediatric voice disorders on listeners’ perception and children’s interpersonal experience. / published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Master / Master of Philosophy

The study is an exploratory and illuminative case study of a principal’s leadership of a cross section of his students. It is situated within an11-18, comprehensive school in a semi- rural, coastal town in the southwest of England. This predominantly white British school, with above national average levels of economic and social deprivation, has a recent historical context of rapid and sustained improvement in examination results at all levels over the period just before and during the study: two Ofsted inspections during this time judged the school to be good with outstanding features, following a previous judgement of ‘satisfactory’ just before the arrival of the principal. The study offers an insider perspective in the field of principal effectiveness, which is more usually dominated by research from the outside, as the principal in question is also the researcher. Equally unusually in this field, the study explores the principal’s leadership from a student’s perspective by operating at the level of student voice and collecting their personal stories and opinions using six student focus groups. The groups were constructed and facilitated by a co researcher with the purpose of protecting students’ identity, aiding reliability and adding a collaborative level of interpretation. A social constructionist approach is adopted for the study which is situated in an interpretivist methodological paradigm. The data were analysed thematically and viewed from a socio cultural perspective. The research suggests that students are able to describe and recognise the concept of the principal’s student leadership. Some, more than others, place a value on this in terms of it having an instrumental effect on their school experience and many view it from a relational perspective. These data support the findings of another piece of research from a similar perspective that suggests students value personal affirmative and affiliative qualities and traits in the leadership they experience from the headteacher (Moos et al 1998). From the socio cultural perspective of this study and the definition of social capital as being “relationships matter” (Puttnam 2000) then it may be suggested that a principal’s student leadership is likely to contribute, either positively or negatively, to students’ social capital. Although it is not possible to suggest generalisablity from these findings, due to the very limited scope of the case study and small number of participant students, practitioners may nevertheless find the study of some value. This detailed and illuminative interrogation of the principal /researcher’s specific context, may provide reflective colleagues with examples of good practice, that can be applied to their own context, when seeking ways to ensure that all students feel valued and empowered.

Typically, the art song recital is a performance event of primary importance within the university environment; however, the career Heldentenor entering academia may find that the aggressiveness of timbre and the scale of loudness he has developed to sing Wagner's heavily orchestrated, very long roles are inappropriate for the performance of most art song repertoire. If the Heldentenor possesses an appropriate pitch structure, he can adapt his technique to sing as a baritone and develop the warmth of timbre and nuance of expression appropriate to the intimate qualities of recital performance. Art song recital performance conditions and those of some Wagnerian tenor roles are described and contrasted, emphasizing the acoustical challenges and demands upon stamina that drive the Heldentenor toward specialization. The acoustics of audibility and voice type are described. A method for adapting the Heldentenor to recital baritone is presented, incorporating exercises developed from the acoustical principles examined within this document. Examples are presented of power spectra and the application of these techniques to repertoire, documenting the efficacy of the author's method in adapting the Heldentenor from the least intimate of repertoires to the most refined.

This empirical study investigates language use and collaborative learning in informal non-classroom settings by learners of German as a Foreign Language (GFL). I examine learner interactions resulting from a language course requirement for which small groups of students composed a role-play to be performed in front of the class. Bridging the two research traditions of activity theory and the socio-interactionist approach, my research starts with an analytical focus on speech events as they are embedded in an object-oriented educational activity. The activities are further analyzed using a conversation analytic (CA) approach within the socio-interactionist framework by focusing on the ways participants construct knowledge of the second language (L2) through word searches and the re-use of word search solutions. I also examine the role of voice when participants speak German, and the role of non-target languages in L2 learning. The video-recorded peer-to-peer interactions are the substantial part of the dataset for analysis. The data also include questionnaires, class observations and interviews, stimulated interviews, and in-class presentations that further inform the analysis. The data were gathered during the Fall 2007 semester with learners from two beginners courses of GFL. Two groups of three and two students, respectively, were chosen for closer analysis from among 31 students and 9 instructors participating in the study. This research found that students’ past individual and group histories serve as resources for the formation of the German role-play which becomes an analytical achievement based on shared understanding of the object at all phases of its construction, including the storyline and the formulation of the text in L2. Learners engage each other in learning, simultaneously displaying different kinds of expertise linked to task instructions, the circumstances of the context, speakers' biographies, and learning histories. The artifacts (e.g. textbook and dictionary) serve to support the authoritative knowledge when negotiating different types of expertises. Similarities in dealing with language problems could be observed in that participants learned lexical items by solving language problems, whereby the solution-word becomes a resource for further learning to produce the same item in different types of talk. Also, voices show up as the social facets of the construction of the knowledge in L2. Speaking voices gave learners the opportunity to practice varieties of vernacular German and to negotiate their discursive identities in the new language. Non-target languages provided cognitive support in solving problems with L2, serve social functions such as interpersonal work and expression of public self-image, and proved to be an essential tool enabling participants to work in the pursuit of the object of the activity as a collective achievement.

The human voice might have been shaped by sexual selection. Hence, voice fundamental (F0, or pitch) and formant frequencies (Fn, or timbre) are proposed to convey fitness cues germane to rivals and potential mates. First, I confirm the independent effects of F0 and Fn on listeners’ assessments of speaker size, masculinity, and attractiveness. Second, I quantify the just-noticeable differences in both vocal features and then place F0 and Fn cues in conflict by equally discriminable amounts to test their relative influence on such voice-based social judgments. Results revealed a greater relative role of Fn in listeners’ ratings of all three dimensions, suggesting that these dimensions might all be cued more reliably by Fn than F0. Alternatively, given post-hoc principal component analyses that revealed considerable overlap in ratings of size, masculinity, and attractiveness, listeners’ conceptions of these dimensions may not be independent despite a research tradition that assumes they are. / xi, 102 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm

My recent work as an artist is centred around a search for what Heidegger calls an “experience with language”—moments in which our awareness of language spikes and our relationship with it changes. Where I found the most potential is on the sound/sense continuum of the human voice, and it is an oscillation between the extremes of this continuum that defines my recent works. This paper examines these works and their underpinning ideas, but focuses on the culminating project of my thesis: Solo for Self-Talk Chamber. For this project, I spoke aloud to myself for fourteen hours, one hour at a time, in a purpose-built room. The process was documented and exhibited as a book work, a video and a performance, all of which are discussed in detail.

Cough is a motor act of the laryngeal and respiratory systems. Features of coughing have been considered in the examination of respiratory, swallowing and voice disorders. Although some voice disorders have been linked to excessive coughing, the precise relationship between cough and voice remains unknown. The present study examined the acoustic features of cough across sex and age; and its relationship to the perception of voice production. A total of 30 cough samples and 30 voice samples were collected from 15 healthy females and 15 healthy males; ranging from young age (17-25 years old), middle-aged (30-45 years old) and older-age (60 years old & above). Coughs containing three distinct phases were submitted to an acoustic analysis of the long-term average spectrum (LTAS) and cough duration. Both cough and voice samples were examined perceptually by a group of 20 speech-language pathologists. Results found a distinct three-phase pattern of cough that was remarkably stable across sex and age. Significant differences were found in the duration of each phase of cough. Perception of cough was not significantly related to acoustic features of cough. Perceptual judgment of sex was comparable for both cough and voice samples. However, the accuracy of age recognition was higher for voice samples compared to cough samples. In addition, voice was judged to be healthier and stronger than cough. Overall, the results partially support the previous acoustic findings on cough. A strong relationship between the acoustics of cough and the perception of cough was not evident. Listeners judged voice differently from cough, except for sex recognition. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed.