Thesis. 1975. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 454-462. / Ph.D.

The present study investigated the perceptions and attitudes of two groups each of ESL teachers and students in the United States regarding World Englishes (WE) pronunciations before and after watching a video on WE accents. Data gathered via online surveys were analyzed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The results show that the perceptions of the teachers in the study ranged from somewhat negative to mildly positive, both pre- and post-video, which is consistent with Brown's (1993) findings that teachers' perceptions changed little if at all after being briefly exposed to WE stimuli. The education of the teachers in this study did not seem to influence their responses, either. Both groups of teachers responded almost identically even though the Midwest (MW) teachers' education ranged from no TESOL training to MA TESOL and all the teachers in the Northwest (NW) had MA TESOL degrees. These teachers' exposure to WE topics also varied greatly from teacher to teacher. Although the results of the study could not establish a correlation between lack of WE exposure and lack of WE classroom implementation, the teacher responses were, again, consistent with the literature in that the advantages of WE implementation are often appreciated only after extensive training on the matter. Student results were slightly more encouraging than their teachers', as students were generally more enthusiastic about WE before and after stimuli. A majority of students surveyed expressed they would like their teachers to incorporate more WE materials into their lessons and, after watching the video, all but one student indicated they would take an Accents of the World class as they considered it "important to learn about the ways people in other parts of the world speak English."

This language attitudes study used a matched guise technique to compare participant reactions of American-accented English to Japanese-accented English. Participants (n = 40) were college educated adults living in the Portland area who completed an online survey which measured characteristics related to Status, Solidarity, and Dynamism using semantic differential Likert scales. Results showed that while Japanese-accented English received less favorable ratings on the Status and Solidarity dimensions on a statistically significant level, the small effect size may have indicated that the differences were negligible. Interpreting the results from the data through the World Englishes Kachruvian paradigm, it is argued that English learners and users would benefit by focusing more on achieving intelligibility than on attaining perfect control of an idealized variety of English.

Cette thèse se veut un essai de compréhension globale du parler d'une commune rurale, en l'occurrence, du breton de Malguénac. Afin d'établir ce parler, elle s'ouvre sur une description du système phonologique. Cette description laisse cependant de côté des aspects déjà bien documentés, pour se concentrer sur le système vocalique, beaucoup plus définitoire de cette communauté linguistique, ainsi que sur le système accentuel, jusqu'alors peu décrit par les celtisants dans cette région de la Basse-Bretagne. Ainsi dégagées les grandes lignes de ce parler dans ses aspects les plus pertinents, la démarche consiste à le replacer dans le contexte où il trouve sens. Ceci selon trois axes : spatial, temporel et socio-pragmatique. Sur le plan spatial, le parler de Malguénac est donc situé sur la matrice de la variation diatopique du breton, en particulier par l'analyse de ses schémas accentuels. D'autres observations permettent ensuite de le définir comme un parler haut-vannetais de transition. Sur l'axe temporel, l'évolution sociale et démographique de la population communale aux XIXe et XXe siècles est reconstituée de façon à dégager les implications linguistiques entraînées par les mutations qui ont alors cours. La cohésion de la société malguénacoise est le phénomène qui s'impose : cohésion face aux micro-communautés voisines, qui permet non seulement de maintenir une norme linguistique propre, mais même de l'affirmer à mesure que s'ouvre la commune. Cohésion également d'un monde rural bretonnant face au monde urbain francophone, qui finira en revanche par se diluer. L'axe sociolinguistique, après avoir mis au jour le fonctionnement de la langue dans l'interaction sociale grâce à l'analyse de la variation et des stratégies d'adaptation des locuteurs, examine donc le rapport dynamique entre breton et français. Faisant le constat d'un effondrement de la pratique du breton, se voit proposée une interprétation du contact de langue non en terme de diglossie mais de conflit linguistique

Orientador: Plinio Almeida Barbosa / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T02:43:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Arantes_Pablo_D.pdf: 1902260 bytes, checksum: b0403212f9866ec4db08be56aeb38836 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: Nesta tese são investigados dois temas: o acento secundário em português brasileiro e a integração entre a produção e a percepção do ritmo. Os dois temas são desenvolvidos tendo como pano de fundo o modelo dinâmico de produção do ritmo da fala de Barbosa (2006 e 2007). O fenômeno descrito como acento secundário é associado à ocorrência de proeminências na cadeia de sílabas pré-tônicas em palavras polissilábicas. O interesse pelo assunto decorre das disputas existentes na literatura sobre a natureza (e mesmo existência) destes acentos e os princípios que determinam sua distribuição e, ainda, da limitada quantidade disponível de dados experimentais para resolver essas disputas. Foram realizados dois experimentos de produção com o objetivo de descrever, em palavras polissilábicas com mais de duas pré-tônicas, os padrões apresentados por diversos parâmetros acústicos que são tradicionalmente associados à expressão do acento. Nos corpora dos experimentos foram manipuladas, entre outras variáveis, o tamanho da cadeia de pré-tônicas, a posição sintática e o status referencial das palavras-chave. Os parâmetros acústicos investigados foram duração, frequência fundamental, qualidade vocálica e ênfase espectral. Os resultados sugerem que há evidência para a manifestação de uma proeminência nas posições iniciais da cadeia de pré-tônicas. Essa proeminência, que tem um caráter opcional e dependente de falante, se manifesta acusticamente por meio do alongamento relativo gradiente das unidades de vogal a vogal em início de enunciado e de picos na curva de frequência fundamental alinhados às primeiras sílabas pré-tônicas da cadeia. O número de sílabas pré-tônicas é, dentre os fatores controlados nos corpora, o que mais tem influência sobre a manifestação da proeminência inicial. Simulações com o modelo dinâmico mostram que ele pode reproduzir os padrões de alongamento inicial observados nos dados coletados, o que pode ser tomado como evidência para a adequação de sua formulação corrente. Uma proposta de tratamento comum da produção e da percepção do ritmo em um modelo unificado que estende a noção de acoplamento entre osciladores para a relação entre a produção e a percepção foi investigada por meio de dois experimentos de percepção. Procurou-se obter por meio dos experimentos evidência comportamental para a proposição, implícita na proposta, segundo a qual a percepção da estruturação temporal pelo ouvinte é afetada pela maneira como a temporalidade foi produzida pelo falante. Nos experimentos, cliques foram inseridos junto aos onsets vocálicos ao longo de dois grupos acentuais consecutivos e a tarefa dada aos sujeitos era detectar os cliques. Os dados da latência de detecção dos cliques mostram que, ao longo do grupo acentuai, os tempos de reação diminuem, tendendo a aumentar nas imediações da fronteira do grupo acentuai, marcada por um pico no contorno de duração da frase. Análises de regressão indicam que as mudanças de duração e frequência fundamental ao longo do grupo acentuai explicam em torno de 50% da variabilidade dos tempos de reação. Os resultados constituem evidência para a proposta de integração delineada dado que a relação encontrada nos dados pode ser interpretada como o resultado de acoplamento entre temporalidade produzida e percebida / Abstract: The thesis investigates two main subjects: secondary stress in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and the link between rhythm production and rhythm perception. Both subject matters are developed in light of Barbosa's (2006, 2007) coupled-oscillator model of rhythm production. Interest in secondary stress in BP is fostered by the fact that its existence, nature and distribution patterns are disputed in the literature. Also, the few existing experimental data do not help to settle the issues. Two production experiments are reported that aimed at describing the patterns of acoustical parameters traditionally considered correlates of stress observed in target words with at least two prestressed syllables. The experiments' corpora manipulated target word variables such as the number of prestressed syllables, syntactic position and referential status. Duration, fundamental frequency, vowel quality and spectral emphasis were measured. Results suggest that there's evidence of optional and speaker dependent initial prominence marking. Lengthening of utterance-initial syllable-sized units and fundamental frequency peaks also aligned to initial syllables are the main correlates of initial prominence. The number of target words' prestressed syllables has the strongest influence in initial prominence marking among the variables manipulated in the corpora. Simulations run with the coupled-oscillator model indicate that it is able to generate patterns of initial lengthening similar to the ones observed in the experiment. We outlined a proposal for a unified approach to speech rhythm that extends the notion of coupling and entrainment to the speaker-hearer relationship. Two perception experiments were run to test the implicit proposition that rhythm perception is the result of listeners getting entrained by speaker's produced timing. In the experiment, clicks were inserted near each vowel onset along two consecutive stress groups in test sentences. Each test sentence had one click and there were as many test sentence copies as vowel onset in the two stress groups. Subjects were instructed to press a button as soon as they heard the click upon listening to test sentences. Results show that the closer the click is to the stress group boundary (signaled in the speech signal by a peak in normalized duration) the faster the RT is. The crucial result concerning the speaker-hearer entrainment hypothesis, though, is that RT slows down after the stress group boundary, resuming its decrease afterwards, suggesting that the listener is sensitive to the effects of the boundary on the temporal structure of the signal being heard. Regression analysis points out that previous intervocalic interval duration (relative to the interval the click is associated to) and the derivative of the median fundamental frequency over the intervocalic interval account for nearly 50% of the variance in detection latency times. Overall the results seem to provide initial evidence to the speaker-listener entrainment hypothesis by showing that important events in the speech signal like a boundary have an impact on listeners' flow of attention along the sentence. Also, results single out the importance of vowel onsets as a carrier of prosodic structure and its role as a common currency between production and perception / Doutorado / Linguistica / Doutor em Linguística

Worldwide, mariners use a variety of English as an International Language known as Maritime English regardless of the first language spoken by the crew or port in which they enter. English knowledge and ability is therefore critical to a mariner's livelihood at sea and is also mandated by the International Maritime Organization. The ability to understand and be understood is paramount to safety at sea. This study investigated which accents of English a subset of Chinese mariners found easy or difficult to understand. The data from 39 Chinese mariners who listened to 8 Standard Marine Communications phrases was analyzed. The phrases were spoken in English by native speakers of Japanese, Russian, Chinese, and English. The participants provided verbatim responses followed by their assessment of the speakers' intelligibility and accent. Results indicated that participant position on board the vessel had a statistically significant effect on the intelligibility rating of the phrase heard and the overall understandability assessed of the speaker's accent. Moreover, participants reported that the phrases were deck commands. For deck officers who participated in the study, the phrases were easy to understand, for engineers, they were more difficult. These findings suggest that within the field of Maritime English, further specification of English training is warranted and necessary to provide all mariners with authentic language relevant to their jobs. Initial Maritime English instruction at Maritime Education and Training (MET) institutions must include reading, writing, listening, and speaking which includes the spectrum of scenarios which all cadets may find themselves. Follow-on English classes for mariners beyond the academies or maritime universities must necessarily be situated in the context of the mariner and be flexible enough to adjust to the needs of the mariners. Finally, assessment of the mariner's Maritime English language abilities must also strive to test authentic use of the language as indicated by the position.

M.Ed. (Language Teaching) / The lack of proper regard for language variation and the heterogeneous nature of language in the teaching of Afrikaans First Language Secondary Phase caused various problems. Not only individuals but the whole Afrikaans language community and the language itself suffered. Language variation is actually recognised in the learning content and teaching approach of the latest Afrikaans First Language syllabus. However, because of the inadequate recognition in the syllabus and the current complexity of the Afrikaans language community, it is necessary to provide guidelines for augmenting the syllabus to improve the teaching-learning situation. This study therefore proposes appropriate learning content with regard to the heterogeneous nature of language, language variation and specific problems in the Afrikaans language community. In order to accommodate all the varieties of Afrikaans and speakers of these varieties in the teaching-learning situation, a multi-variety approach is recommended. With that in mind a strategy to implement a multi-variety approach and the teaching of the complex phenomenon, language variation in Afrikaans First Language Secondary Phase is proposed.

Orientadores: Maria Bernadete Marques Abaurre, Marina Cláudia Pereira Verga Afonso e Vigário / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T10:39:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Toneli_PriscilaMarques_D.pdf: 66093968 bytes, checksum: ed948857f871f46f09b9e060e46efc87 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: Esta tese apresenta um estudo sistemático do domínio da Palavra Prosódica (PW ¿ Prosodic Word) no Português Brasileiro (doravante PB) em relação (i) à prosodização de palavras funcionais e de palavras lexicais; (ii) aos fenômenos fonológicos que podem tomar a PW como domínio de aplicação e àqueles que podem funcionar como diagnósticos para identificá-la; e (iii) à investigação da estrutura entoacional em busca de evidências desse domínio prosódico no PB. Uma comparação entre PB e Português Europeu (doravante PE) é feita ao longo do trabalho, conforme são discutidos os fenômenos fonológicos que identificam e caracterizam a PW na variedade europeia, uma vez que há um estudo sistemático sobre o respectivo domínio realizado por Vigário (2003). Os corpora analisados para o desenvolvimento da presente pesquisa foram obtidos empiricamente por meio de observação e da elaboração de experimentos que controlaram algumas variáveis para a validação ou para a refutação de algumas hipóteses, por exemplo, a investigação do domínio relevante para distribuição tonal no PB e para a atribuição de acento de foco fonológico. Na presente tese, mostramos que alguns fenômenos fonológicos tomam a PW como domínio de aplicação, como as regras de (i) atribuição de acento primário, (ii) harmonia vocálica, (iii) atribuição de acento secundário, (iv) neutralização da pretônica, (v) assimilação de nasalidade fonética, (vi) associação de acentos tonais e (vii) atribuição de acento inicial. Outros fenômenos como a haplologia, a semivocalização, a nasalidade fonética, a neutralização vocálica das vogais pretônicas e postônicas ajudam a identificar uma PW no PB. Destacamos que a síndrome da palavra mínima e as generalizações fonotáticas também contribuem para a discussão do estatuto prosódico de palavras funcionais e de palavras lexicais. Nossos resultados experimentais mostraram que a regra de atribuição de acento de foco e de acento enfático, o apagamento em estruturas coordenadas e o truncamento em sentenças que incluíam palavras formadas por duas PWs (e.g. cata-ventos) trazem evidências do Grupo de Palavra Prosódica (Prosodic Word Group - PWG). A análise da prosodização de palavras funcionais monossilábicas (e.g. a, artigo definido) também mostrou que tais palavras, quando prosodizadas como sílabas átonas, sofrem processos fonológicos pós-lexicais e são adjungidas a uma PW pronta no pós-léxico, formando um domínio prosódico acima de PW. Nesse caso, assumimos que esse domínio prosódico é PWG (cf. Toneli, 2009). Por outro lado, em relação à prosodização de afixos átonos (e.g. desfazer), assumimos, conforme já proposto na literatura do PB, que são adjungidos a uma PW pronta no componente lexical, formando uma única PW. No caso de sufixos átonos, também é assumido que são incorporados a uma base lexical no componente lexical, formando uma PW (cf. Lee, 1995; Moreno, 1997, Schwindt, 2000). A comparação entre PB e PE é tratada mais detalhadamente no âmbito da relação entre estrutura prosódica e estrutura entoacional, principalmente com relação à produção de sentenças declarativas em contexto de foco de escopo largo e de foco de escopo estreito contrastivo, e consiste em destacar os aspectos que aproximam e que distanciam as duas variedades de português, no que tange à aplicação de fenômenos fonológicos, como a distribuição tonal dentro do Sintagma Entoacional (I). Mostramos que a principal semelhança entre PB e PE é a posição e o tipo de acento tonal associado à posição nuclear de sentenças declarativas produzidas em contexto de foco largo, e a principal diferença consiste na densidade tonal, já que no PB há um acento tonal em cada PW de I, enquanto no PE há somente um acento tonal associado às posições inicial e final de I / Abstract: This thesis presents a systematic study on the domain of Prosodic Word (PW) in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) in relation to (i) the prosodization of function words and of lexical words; (ii) phonological phenomena that can take PW as an application domain, and those that can work as diagnostics to identify it; (iii) the investigation of the intonational structure searching for evidences of these prosodic domain in BP. A comparison between BP and European Portuguese (EP) is made throughout the study as the phonological phenomena that identify and characterize the PW in the European variety are discussed, since there is a systematic study about this domain conducted by Vigário (2003). The analyzed corpora on the development of this research were empirically obtained through the observation and by the elaboration of experiments that controlled some variables to validate or to deny some hypotheses, for example, the investigation of the relevant domain to the tonal distribution in BP and to the assignment of the phonological focus stress. In this thesis, we show that some phonological phenomena take the PW as an application domain, as the rules of: (i) primary stress assignment, (ii) vowel harmony, assignment of secondary stress, (iv) pretonic vowel neutralization, (v) phonetic nasality assimilation, (vi) pitch accents association and (vii) initial stress assignment. Other phenomena such as haplology, semivocalization, phonetic nasalization, pretonic and post-tonic vowels neutralization, helped us to identify a PW in PB. We emphasize that the syndrome of minimal word and that the phonotactic generalizations also contribute to the discussion of the prosodic status of function words and lexical words. Our experimental results showed that the rule for focus stress assignment and for emphatic accent, the deletion in coordinated structures, and the truncation in sentences that included words formed by two PWs (e.g. cata-ventos) provide evidence of the Prosodic Word Group (PWG). The analysis of the prosodization of monosyllabic function words (e.g. a - definite article) also showed that such words when prosodized as unstressed syllables, suffer post-lexical phonological processes and are adjoined to a ready PW in the post-lexical, forming a prosodic domain above PW. In this case, we assume that this prosodic domain is a PWG. On the other hand, in relation to unstressed prefix prosodization (e.g. desfazer > des+fazer), we assume, as already proposed in the literature of PB, that they are adjoined to a ready PW in the lexical component, forming a single PW. In the case of the unstressed suffixes, it is also assumed that they are incorporated into a lexical base in the lexical component, forming a PW (cf. Lee, 1995; Moreno, 1997 Schwindt, 2000). The comparison between BP and EP is treated in more details in the context of the relationship between the prosodic structure and the intonational structure, particularly with respect to the production of declarative sentences in a context of focus with a broad scope and focus with a contrastive narrow scope, and consists in highlighting aspects approaching and distancing the two Portuguese varieties, with respect to the application of phonological phenomena such as tonal distribution in the Intonational Phrase (I). We show that the main similarity between BP and EP is the position and the type of pitch accent associated with the nuclear position of declarative sentences produced in the context of broad focus, and the main difference lies in the tonal density, since in the BP there is a pitch accent on each PW in I, while in BP there is only one pitch accent associated with the initial and the final positions of I / Doutorado / Linguistica / Doutora em Linguística

This study will explore to what extent familiarity with English accents can influence compulsory school students’ attitudes towards them. Data from questionnaires completed by 98 students were analysed. The results show that the degree of familiarity with the English accent seems to affect the attitude attributed to it. More specifically, the results indicate that a higher degree of familiarity influences the ability to express an attitude. A lower degree of familiarity leads to similar attitudes being given to the accents, which shows a lack of differentiation between them. The results also indicate a bias towards RP. While it is not necessarily harmful, teachers should be aware of this and how their own teaching may influence how different accents are perceived. It is argued that teachers need to intervene in the process of stereotyping which will help develop an awareness of students’ language attitudes. To summarize, it is difficult to draw any wide conclusions from these results due to the study’s scope. Furthermore, the target group is not representative of Swedish compulsory school students as students from the chosen school generally finish with an above-average final grade. Further research is necessary to determine more specifically how familiarity affects attitudes of English accents and if these findings recur in other areas of Sweden where the final grade average is lower.

This study uncovers how and to what extent UK sports commentaries vary in terms of speech variations and other sociolinguistic factors, such as social class and gender, in relation to the social status with which different sports are associated. It also analyses how the use of jargon, slang, colloquial forms of English, and other linguistic features are incorporated in the commentaries of the sports and how it affects the information expressed by the commentators. In order to do this, theories and scholarly work on variations in speech, phonological and sociolinguistic features will be applied to examples of recorded commentaries made during matches in five popular televised sports, namely football, cricket, rugby union, netball, and tennis. The primary data will consist of two-minute transcriptions made from matches from each sport. The study finds that there are speech variations in the commentators’ ways and that they relate, to some extent, to the social class associated with the sport which the commentators are commenting on. The variations also depend on the commentator’s role in the broadcast, whether or not they feature as the general commentator or as an expert in the particular sport. It also reveals how commentators rely on the use of jargon, slang and, colloquialisms to make the communication to the spectators/listeners efficient and entertaining.