Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 325-335).

Recent work has shown that preschoolers track informants’ past reliability concerning familiar information and labels, and they use this information to judge the correctness of novel information and labels they provide. But linguistic factors also sway children’s choices for social interaction, for which native-accented speakers are preferred. The present study uses the selective trust paradigm to consider how accentedness interacts with speaker reliability with native- and foreign-accented informants. The results show that speaker reliability and accentedness affect four-year-olds’ choices, but the impact of these factors differed by response type. Preschoolers preferred to ask the native-accented speaker for information, regardless of his reliability. However, in choosing which label to learn, preschoolers selected the reliable speaker’s label, regardless of accent, and correctly identified the unreliable speaker. This study provides evidence suggesting that young children separate their social biases from their objective assessment of novel information. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

Dans notre mémoire nous présentons une description théorique des accents français et lituaniens. Nous définissons la notion de l’accentuation, analysons les types d’accents, leurs places et leurs fonctions dans la chaîne parlée de deux langues cibles. Le but du chapitre théorique est de décrire et de comparer les deux systèmes d’accentuation car le nombre de travaux scientifiques consacrés à leur comparaison, est très restreint. Pourtant, l’analyse de ce sujet est importante puisque les différents auteurs qui étudient l’accent ne partagent pas les mêmes idées. De plus, le but du chapitre pratique est de vérifier si la langue lituanienne influence l’accentuation en apprenant le français et à quel point. / Šio darbo pirmoje teorinėje dalyje aprašomuoju metodu siekiama apibrėžti kirtį kaip prozodijos elementą prancūzų ir lietuvių kalbose. Remiantis skirtingais lietuvių ir prancūzų lingvistų darbais buvo aprašomi kirčio tipai, kirčio vieta žodyje bei kirčio funkcijos abiejose kalbose. Kiekvieno poskyrio pabaigoje lyginamuoju metodu atskleidžiami skirtumai ir panašumai, kurie esti tarp dviejų kalbų. Pagrindinė antroje darbo dalyje iškeliama užduotis – išsiaiškinti, ar gimtosios lietuvių kalbos kirčiavimo sistema turi įtakos mokantis prancūzų kalbos. Šiai praktinei daliai buvo pasirinktas anketos metodas. / We are presenting a description of the Lithuanian and French accents. We define the notion of accentuation, analyse the types of accents, their places and the functions in the speech chain of two languages​.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

As international student enrollment has increased at US universities since late 1950s and early 1960s (Taylor & Angelis, 2008), international students at the graduate levels have taught an increasing number of undergraduate courses. As Bailey (1983) recognized early on, a "foreign TA problem" has developed due to various misunderstanding in the accent and culture of International Teaching Assistants (ITAs). This so called "problem" has led to numerous studies on the subject. The main focus of this study was to investigate undergraduate students' perceptions and attitudes toward the foreign accentedness of ITAs. Different from previous research which largely studied the perspectives from North American undergraduates, this study examines data from two groups of participants: 34 native (18 male; 16 female) and 32 nonnative (18 male; 14 female) English-speaking undergraduates. In order to examine this complex topic fully, three research foci were generated, including undergraduate' overall perceptions and attitudes to ITAs, their evaluations of the comprehensibility and intelligibility of ITAs' foreign accents, and their awareness and appreciation of the value of intercultural communication. The research instrument was a survey questionnaire that inquired into participants' answers to the aforementioned research foci. In addition to the general demographic information, participants had to circle or mark their answers to 20 statements, presented in 5-point Likert scales, and to write down their responses to 2 open-ended questions listed in the end of the questionnaire. This was a study of mixed-design which included quantitative and qualitative data analyses. For the quantitative part, the data gathered from 5-point Likert scales were analyzed through univariate analyses of variance (ANOVAs) and correlation analyses. The data of written responses from 2 open-ended questions were analyzed through content analyses as the qualitative part of this study. The results of this study shed a positive light on the research of ITAs. From the quantitative analyses, neither nationality nor gender showed statistically significant differences, but both groups of participants revealed moderate-high positive attitudes/perceptions to ITAs, evaluated ITAs' foreign accents slightly lower but still positively, and displayed moderate-high positive awareness/appreciation of the value of intercultural communication. Moreover, it was found that participants with higher awareness of intercultural communication showed more positive attitudes and rated ITAs' foreign accents higher. Both consistent and intriguing findings were discovered from analyzing participants written responses. In a similar manner, both groups of participants responded with more positive than negative comments to describe their personal experiences with ITAs. In contrast, more negative reports were written when the participants described their classmates' reactions toward ITAs. This inconsistency might have resulted from the conflict between avowal and ascription of participants; ethnocentrism was also revealed from the comments of some participants. The results of this study provide insights for ITA training programs when evaluating and screening ITAs' competence in spoken English and they also serve as a reference for ITAs in preparation for future teaching assignments at US institutions.

No description available.

This is a psychoacoustic study investigating experimentally the role of intonation as indicative of the human phenomenon of emotion in both Arabic and English. Itstudies both the acoustic properties of emotion in speech and their impact on intonational contours.Utterances representing five emotions (anger, fear, happiness, sadness, and neutral) in both the declarative and interrogative modes were collected from the speech of eight professional actors (4 Arabic, and 4 English) as they performed roles in movies and drama series. Two types of judges were used: viewers and listeners. The former watched the clips carrying the utterances and identified their emotional content. Their responses determined which utterances were included in the acoustic analysis. The listeners listened only to the utterances chosen by the viewers, and their responses were used to determine the acoustic clues for emotions. The acoustic analysis involved measuring the parameters of fundamental frequency (FO), intensity, and duration of four units of analysis: utterance as a whole unit, the initial and the final syllables of the utterance, and the syllable with the highest FO value (the peak).The ANOVA statistical test was run on the acoustic data. The listeners' responses were used in the Kappa test to determine their emotion recognition accuracy.The results showed that no single parameter can be taken as the sole marker or clue to a certain emotion. Rather, the expression of emotion is viewed as a complicated process involving the three parameters combined. Profiles for each emotion involving the levels of the three parameters at both the utterance and syllable levels are provided. The data analysis did not show emotion to have an impact on international contours. The KAPPA test showed a high degree of emotion recognition accuracy in both languages. The comparison of Arabic and English showed differences in the three parameters between the two languages. The most remarkable feature distinguishing the people of the two languages speech is intensity, with Arabic speakers showing higher decibel levels. / Department of English

Cette thèse en sociophonétique anglaise combine les approches de la sociolinguistique variationniste et de la phonétique expérimentale pour étudier les rhotiques et la rhoticité en Écosse en anglais écossais standard. Grâce aux analyses auditives de 147 locuteurs écossais et aux analyses acoustiques fines de locuteurs de Dundee et de Kinross, l'extrême variabilité de /r/ a été confirmée dans cette variété d'anglais, y compris pour des locuteurs de la classe moyenne en style de discours contrôlé. Les rôles respectifs des facteurs linguistiques et extralinguistiques ont également été évalués. L'origine géographique et l'environnement phonologique notamment sont des facteurs déterminants pour la réalisation phonétique de /r/, et dans une moindre mesure les facteurs de l'âge et du genre des locuteurs. Ces résultats confirment que la variation est structurée et que le changement phonétique est en cours, avec une réduction progressive des rhotiques en anglais écossais. / This thesis in English sociophonetics combines the approaches of variationist sociolinguistics and experimental phonetics to study rhotics and rhoticity in Standard Scottish English. With auditory analysis of 14 7 Scottish speakers and fine acoustic analyses of speakers of Dundee and Kinross,the extreme variability of /r/ was confirmed in this variety of English, including for middle-class speakers in controlled speech. The respective roles of linguistic and non-linguistic factors were also evaluated. The geographical origin and phonological environment in particular are decisive factors for the phonetic realization of /r/ and to a lesser extent the factors of the age and gender of the speakers. These results confirm that the variation is structured and that sound change is underway, with a graduai reduction of Scottish English rhotics.

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy