Fifty native English speakers (ages: 3, 9, 11 and adults) were asked to discriminate and pronounce Spanish words. The Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test was administered to the subjects to assess their discrimination abilities in their native language. A training session using English pairs of words showed that five-year-olds improved in their discrimination abilities after training but three-year-olds did not. Pronunciation was scored by two native Spanish speakers. Analyses revealed that older subjects pronounced the Spanish words significantly better than did younger subjects. Similar results were obtained for the analyses of Spanish phoneme pronunciation. Moreover, analyses of discrimination abilities on the Wepman Test also showed that the older subjects discriminated better than did the three-year-olds but discrimination appeared to remain constant after the five-year-old level. Finally, discrimination abilities for the Spanish words improved as a function of age. Older subjects discriminated better than did younger ones; however, this improvement was seen only up to the nine-year-old level after which performance remained constant.

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Acompanha: Ensino de fonética da língua inglesa com uso de material digital / O ensino da fonética da Língua Inglesa pode colaborar para uma melhora na oralidade do aluno através de uma comunicação condizente entre o falante e o interlocutor. Diante dessa perspectiva, um dos questionamentos da professora pesquisadora era sobre o equívoco dos alunos pronunciarem oralmente – fonema – palavras da Língua Inglesa da mesma forma que são escritas – grafema, sem perceberem que no Inglês a oralidade nem sempre é como se vê a palavra na forma escrita. Assim, o objetivo desta pesquisa é mostrar a efetividade do ensino de fonética para aprendizes de Língua Inglesa dos mais variados níveis, com foco neste trabalho para o Ensino Médio, onde o próprio aluno possa se apropriar de determinados aspectos fonéticos e produzir adequadamente o gênero textual oral limerick. O referencial teórico para este estudo conta com as contribuições de Cristófaro-Silva (2005), Celce-Murcia, Goodwin, Griner (2010), Brinton et al. (2010), que discutem o ensino da fonética da Língua Inglesa, e Marcuschi (2002), Cristovão (2005), que discorrem sobre o uso de gêneros textuais em sala de aula. Como metodologia científica são utilizados os tipos de pesquisa de campo, bibliográfica, descritiva, experimental e analítica. A descrição e análise das atividades aplicadas mostram que os alunos usaram aspectos fonéticos do inglês trabalhados para sua produção textual oral. Apesar das dificuldades encontradas durante a aplicação do material, como falta de estrutura e poucas aulas para execução, uma parcela significativa dos alunos participantes da pesquisa produziu oralmente o Limerick de forma satisfatória em relação aos parâmetros gerais desse gênero textual oral. / The teaching of phonetics from English Language can collaborate to an oral improvement from students through a suitable communication between speaker and listener. Facing this perspective, one of the researcher-teacher´s question was about the misunderstanding from students when saying orally – phoneme – words in English Language in the same way they are written – grapheme, without observing that in English the orality is not always as you see the words in their written form. Therefore, the objective of this research is to show the effectiveness from phonetic teaching to English Language learners from different levels of knowledge, with focus on this paper on High School, where the student can appropriate him/herself from determined phonetic aspects and produce the oral genre limerick. The theoretical referential for this study is based in the contrbutions from Cristófaro-Silva (2005), Celce-Murcia, Goodwin, Griner (2010), Brinton et al. (2010), whose discuss English Language phonetics teaching, and Marcuschi (2002), Cristovão (2005), who discuss about text genre in the classroom. As scientific methodology is used at this paper field research, bibliographical, descriptive, experimental and analytic. The entailment from this study shows that the students applied the English sound organization to its orally application. Despite of the difficulties faced through this material application such as a lack in the school structure and few classes to the application, the students, which participate on it, had condition to produce the limerick in a suitable form to this genre characteristic.

In the light of the Theory of Variation and Change and Generative Phonology, in this study, aims to investigate the performance of a segment /R/ in the community of Porto da Rua (in the northern coast of Alagoas). The phonetic environment in which this realization occurs was determined, as well as the influence of extralinguistic factors analysed. The corpus for this research consisted of 48 informants among men and women born in the community. The categorization of data and statistical analysis were done using the package VARBRUL. Data were coded according to linguistic and social groups of factors (GF). The results indicated that the variant under study may be undergoing a process of linguistic change, since those responsible for spreading the informants are not in school and age over 50 years. Data collection was done through recordings with spontaneous narratives. The objective is thus to study the correlation between linguistic phenomena and stratified external variables (gender, age and education). / Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Alagoas / À luz da Teoria da Variação e Mudança e da Fonologia gerativa, pretendeu-se, neste estudo, investigar a realização de um segmento /R/ na comunidade de Porto da Rua (litoral norte de Alagoas). Determinamos o ambiente fonético em que essa realização ocorre e verificamos a influência de fatores extralinguísticos. O corpus para a pesquisa constituiu-se de dados de fala, gravados em áudio, de textos espontâneos produzidos por 48 informantes, homens e mulheres nascidos (e que viveram sempre) na comunidade. A categorização dos dados e a análise estatística foram feitas com a utilização do pacote VARBRUL. Os dados foram codificados de acordo com grupos de fatores (GF) linguísticos e sociais. Objetivou-se, dessa forma, estudar a correlação entre fenômenos linguísticos e variáveis externas estratificadas (sexo, faixa etária e escolarização). Os resultados indicaram que a variante em estudo pode estar passando por um processo de mudança linguística, uma vez que os responsáveis pela sua realização são os informantes não escolarizados e a faixa etária com mais de 50 anos.

Orientador: Charlotte Marie Chambelland Galves / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T18:18:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernandes_FlavianeRomani_D.pdf: 14839262 bytes, checksum: c392914eaa58b1175a0db11bab76cde4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: O presente trabalho, desenvolvido no âmbito da interface sintaxefonologia, consiste num estudo comparativo das construções de focalização em português brasileiro (doravante, PB) e em português europeu (doravante, PE) na expressão do foco informacional do elemento 'sujeito¿. A hipótese que buscamos confirmar ou infirmar neste estudo é a de que as diferentes formas de expressão do foco informacional do sujeito realizadas em PB e PE, além de estarem relacionadas a questões de natureza sintática, como à fixação do parâmetro prodrop, como afirmam Nespor & Guasti (2002) para as línguas em geral, também estão relacionadas a questões de natureza prosódica, como, por exemplo, o peso fonológico dos constituintes nas sentenças. Os resultados alcançados nesta tese mostram que tanto em PE, como em PB, restrições de peso fonológico atuam na escolha por determinada forma de focalização informacional do sujeito. Todavia, ainda mostram que, em PE, requisitos fonológicos relacionados ao alinhamento da proeminência do elemento focalizado com a proeminência principal de sentença podem também ser satisfeitos através do reordenamento de constituintes ou do uso de estruturas pseudoclivadas, por exemplo. Diferentemente do PE, o PB, dadas as particularidades de sua gramática, não se vale destes mesmos artifícios. Em PB, ocorre preferencialmente o uso de sentenças na ordem SV(O) com o sujeito portando a proeminência principal da sentença ou o uso de sentenças clivadas e clivadas invertidas. Quanto à primeira estratégia de focalização, ainda que o PE também possa se utilizar dela, nossos resultados indicam que as duas variedades de português apresentam diferenças quanto à posição sintática ocupada pelo sujeito focalizado. Enquanto este elemento se encontra na posição de especificador de TP em PE, em PB, ele se encontra fora de TP. Tal afirmação encontra respaldo na estrutura entoacional diferente associada a este tipo de sentença nas duas variedades / Abstract: Taking into account the syntaxphonology interface, this thesis compares subject focalization constructions in Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth, BP) and European Portuguese (henceforth, BP). This study aimed to confirm or infirm the hypothesis that the di erences between BP and EP derive from prosodic aspects of sentences, e.g., the phonologicalweightofconstituents,asidefromsyntacticpropertiesof thetwo languages, e.g., the nu subject parameter se ing (cf. Nespor & Guasti, 2002). Our results show that phonological weight constrains play an important role in both Portuguese varieties.Furthermore, our results also indicate that the phonologicalrequirementofalignment betweenthefocusprominenceand the sentence principal prominence may be satisfied in EP, for example, through reordering of constituents or pseudoclefts sentences. Due to particularities of BP grammar, these strategies are not available in BP. In this language, two solutions are available: (i) the preverbal subject ca ies the sentence principal prominence; and ( ) the use of cleft sentences and inversecleft sentences. Although strategy (i) is also used in EP, our results reveal that, in SV(O) sentences with focalized subject, the subject occupies di erent syntactical positions in the two varieties. Whereas the focalized subject occupies the TP specifier position in EP, in BP, this same element is out of TP.Evidence for this claim is provided by the di erent intonational structure type associated with this kind of sentences in the two languages / Doutorado / Doutor em Linguística

This study is set to explore the theory of speech acts with special reference to Zulu. This is done with the motive of discovering the applicability of this theory to the utterances that are issued by the speakers of this language. Particular attention is given to the performatives as a special kind of speech act. Their examination reveals that in Zulu, there are acts, which could be performed by saying something. We distinguish between explicit and inexplicit performatives. Explicit performatives contain a verb in their main clause which names the act that is performed when a performative is issued. The inexplicit performative on the other hand does not contain this verb. Acts that are restrained as far as the explicit performative is concerned, would rather be expressed by means of the inexplicit performative. Utterances such as those that express commands, customarily make use of the imperative, which is an inexplicit performative. A closer examination of how performatives are realised in Zulu, reveals that in order for the performatives to be understood as intended by the speaker, the illocutionary force, of what the speaker intends or means by the issuance of the utterance in question, comes to the surface. It is the illocutionary force which connote that an utterance is a request, a command, a warning, etc. Performatives can also be double-natured in function. One performative could be a request which is intended as an order. In this case it is the responsibility of the addressee to use contextual information in order to determine that which is the speaker's intention. In this investigation, what has surfaced as well, is that one speech act could be expressed in various different ways. For instance, a request, could be expressed by the use of a performative, an imperative, a question and a statement. Another factor which we came across in this study, and which has a significant bearing on the performative, is that they should comply with the conditions of felicity, if they are to be successful and understood as intended by the addressee. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

Thesis (M.A. ( Translation and Linguistics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / The aim of this dissertation is to examine the impact of phonetics and phonology on the Xitsonga orthography. It looks at the history of Xitsonga orthography and the developments from the missionaries’ era in the 1800s until 2013. The study also examines the contribution made by the Tsonga Language Board, the Tsonga Language Committee and Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) in the development of Xitsonga orthography. In addition, the study focuses on the Xitsonga speech sound types and the way they are spelled by the speakers. On the other hand, there are speakers who adhere to the standard orthography whereas on the other hand there are speakers who prefer to use speech sounds according to their respective dialects. The challenges which Xitsonga speakers face on a daily basis have been outlined and what can be done to resolve them. It is suggested that more Xitsonga dictionaries should be written and published and PanSALB should ensure that booklets that deal with Xitsonga spelling rules must be distributed as widely as possible

<p dir="ltr">Bilingualism is defined as the regular use of two or more languages by a single speaker in their everyday lives (Grosjean, 2008). Prior research at the phonetic level has shown that bilinguals often experience a degree of cross-linguistic interference, in which the productions of one language shift in the direction of the opposite language. Evidence for cross-linguistic interference is most notable in contexts where bilinguals activate both of their languages, as in cases of code-switching. Yet prior research has produced somewhat mixed results, with a subset of studies failing to find evidence of cross-linguistic interference. While some authors have suggested that such mixed results may be the result of varying levels of phonetic awareness (i.e., knowledge about the phonetic norms of each language), the potential contribution of this variable has yet to be systematically explored. Utilizing code-switching as a tool, the current study examined the role of phonetic awareness in modulating bilingual cross-linguistic phonetic interaction. A total of 20 L1 Mandarin–L2 English bilinguals were recruited for a lab-based speech production paradigm. English vowel /æ/, which differs acoustically in the vowel height (F1) and vowel backness (F2) from its Mandarin counterpart /e/, was selected as the measure of the phonetic interference. Participants produced stimuli across six contexts: monolingual Mandarin, code-switched Mandarin, pre-switched Mandarin, monolingual English, code-switched English, and pre-switched English. Phonetic awareness was assessed using the Strategies for Pronunciation Improvement (SPI) Inventory (Sardegna et al., 2018). The expected evidence of cross-linguistic interference was not found, and phonetic awareness did not serve to modulate the degree of cross-linguistic interference. The discussion considers whether the lack of convergence in the code-switching context may result from both sociolinguistic and cognitive factors and discusses how this finding can affect the exploration of phonetic awareness in cross-linguistic interference.</p>

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Thesis (DLitt (African Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / This study investigates the Intrusive Stop Formation process in Zulu. In this process an intrusive stop arises when a nasal and fricative are juxtaposed resulting in the following seven affricate sounds /þf’, {v, ts’, dz, tñ’, dL, tS’/. These sounds are theoretically distinct from the four affricate phonemes which occur in Zulu, namely /kl’, dZ, ts’, tS’/. In this study the former are termed derived affricates and the latter pure affricates. Two aspects of Intrusive Stop Formation are focused on - firstly, determining experimentally whether durational differences obtain between pure and derived affricates and secondly, using the results of the experimental investigation to facilitate a feature geometry description of the Intrusive Stop Formation process. In the experimental investigation nine affricate sounds were examined. Words, containing these sounds, were recorded in frame sentences by five speakers, using PRAAT, a speech–processing platform. The duration of the pure and derived affricates were then determined. It was found that pure affricates are durationally longer than derived affricates. The next progression in this study was the incorporation of the experimental results into a feature geometry description of Intrusive Stop Formation. Feature Geometry Theory has enjoyed acclaim because of its ability to retain Distinctive Feature Theory – the crux of Phonology – in a nonlinear framework. However, Feature Geometry Theory faces challenges with regard to the extent to which it includes phonetic detail; and its formalization technique. This study – Intrusive Stop Formation in Zulu : An Application of Feature Geometry Theory – brings a new perspective to Feature Geometry Theory with the incorporation of the Duration tier – significant for the description of the Intrusive Stop Formation process. Furthermore the study introduces a more efficient formalization technique, which facilitates the explanation of the process. It is always incumbent upon endeavours like this study, which examine specific phonological processes, to show relevance. In the concluding section the application of the experimental approach and Feature Geometry Theory is evaluated in terms of the contribution made to the disciplines of Human Language Technology and Speech Disorders. A compact disk accompanies this thesis. It contains the sound files, spectrograms and textgrids of the recorded data.