Neuere Forschungsergebnisse aus dem Bereich der Musikpsychologie zeigen, dass die subjektive Beurteilung, ob jemand spricht oder singt, nicht nur von Eigenschaften des empfangenen akustischen Signals abhängt. Obwohl die Tonhöhe beim Sprechen anders moduliert wird als beim Singen, kann der Tonhöhenverlauf einer gesprochenen Äußerung vom Rezipienten als eine musikalische Tonfolge wahrgenommen werden. Dieser Eindruck brachte Musikschaffende und Sprachwissenschaftler bereits seit Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts dazu, Sprechmelodien in Form musikalischer Notenschrift aufzuzeichnen. Im aktuellen Diskurs der Linguistik setzte sich diese Art von Notation nicht durch. Für die Beschreibung der grammatikalisch relevanten Eigenschaften der Sprechmelodie in Intonationssprachen wie Deutsch und Englisch werden schematische Darstellungen eingesetzt, in denen es im Wesentlichen auf die binäre Unterscheidung zwischen Hoch- und Tieftönen ankommt. Um die Sprechmelodie aus musiktheoretischer Sicht zu betrachten, kann sich jedoch die Transkription in musikalische Notenschrift als ein wertvolles Werkzeug erweisen. Durch die Notation wird die Vielfalt der intervallischen Strukturen von Sprechmelodien erfassbar und eine Grundlage für deren musikalische Analyse geschaffen. In diesem Artikel wird zunächst ein methodischer Ansatz zur gehörmäßigen Erfassung von Sprechmelodien erprobt. Der Vergleich zwischen der exemplarisch transkribierten Sprechmelodie und den Messwerten der Grundfrequenz des Sprachsignals deutet darauf hin, dass das Gehör die verfügbare Tonhöheninformation selektiert, um daraus die Vorstellung einer musikalischen Tonfolge zu konstruieren. Im Bereich von Tonhöhenakzenten orientiert sich die Wahrnehmung scheinbar nach dem lokalen Maximum der Grundfrequenzfunktion, während sich in den übrigen Silben deren Mittelwert als auschlaggebend herausstellt. Anhand der Transkription werden mögliche analytische Ansätze dargelegt, die strukturelle Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen sprachlichen und musikalischen Melodien veranschaulichen. / Recent research results from the field of music psychology show that the subjective assessment of whether someone speaks or sings does not only depend on the characteristics of the received acoustic signal. Although the pitch is modulated differently when speaking than when singing, the recipient can perceive the pitch of a spoken utterance as a musical tone sequence. This impression has since the end of the 18th century led musicians and linguists to record speech melodies in the form of musical notation. In the current discourse of linguistics, this kind of notation has not prevailed. For the description of the grammatically relevant characteristics of the speech melody in intonation languages such as German and English, schematic representations are used in which the main focus lies on the binary distinction between high and low tones. However, to approach speech melody from the perspective of music theory, the transcription in musical notation can be a useful tool. Notation allows to capture the variety of intervallic structures of speech melodies and provides a basis for their musical analysis. This paper introduces a methodical approach to the aural recording of speech melodies. The comparison between the transcribed speech melody and the measured values of the fundamental frequency of the speech signal suggests that the auditory system selects the available pitch information in order to construct the representation of a musical tone sequence. In the area of pitch accents, the perception seems to be driven by the local maximum of the fundamental frequency function, while in the remaining syllables, its mean value appears to be determinant. Based on the transcription, possible analytical approaches are presented, illustrating structural similarities between linguistic and musical melodies.

Arising from the increasing demands of the twenty-first century workplace, concern over learner reading performance is at the forefront of national education. The increasing demands have raised the literacy bar for learners and subsequently, schools have been forced to accommodate instruction for these increased expectations. Successful reading requires the learner to incorporate a number of reading skills in appropriate ways. Oral reading fluency and reading comprehension are identified as components in effectively gaining meaning from text. A reciprocal relationship exist between the two that allows one to comprehend more thoroughly as one reads more fluently. Additionally, as one reads more fluently, one‟s ability to comprehend also improves. This is due to the fact that one‟s brain is more capable in processing text when one is able to read fluently. Therefore, when one automatically identifies words one is able to comprehend text more completely. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a linear relationship exists between Grade 4 learners‟ oral reading fluency on different types of tests and their reading comprehension. The study was conducted within a positivistic research paradigm. A one-shot crosssectional survey design was used to determine the relationship between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension of Grade 4 learners in selected schools in Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province. Five schools, representing the different quintiles, were selected to participate in the study. A total of 406 Grade 4 learners made up the study population. Two tests were developed and validated in order to assess the learners‟ oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. The data was analysed by means of descriptive statistics as well as Pearson product-moment correlations. The results indicate that learners in rural schools could only read at 52 words per minute (wpm) which meant that they could be grouped in the 10th percentile. With regard to reading comprehension the learners in the rural areas scored an average of 54% on the first reading comprehension test. Their results on the second comprehension test indicated that they experienced difficulties with inference questions. The results indicated that learners in urban schools read at 107.5 words per minute (wpm) which meant that they could be grouped between the 50th and 75th percentile. In their first reading comprehension test they scored an average of 78%. Their results on the second comprehension test indicated that they experienced difficulties with interpretation questions. Pearson product moment correlations indicated a practically significant difference between rural and urban schools on oral reading fluency and reading comprehension with urban schools outperforming rural schools. Overall, the results indicated a practically significant relationship of r = 0.69 between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. The findings of this study should be noted by teachers as well as be addressed in interventions as a matter of urgency. / MEd (Learner Support), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Arising from the increasing demands of the twenty-first century workplace, concern over learner reading performance is at the forefront of national education. The increasing demands have raised the literacy bar for learners and subsequently, schools have been forced to accommodate instruction for these increased expectations. Successful reading requires the learner to incorporate a number of reading skills in appropriate ways. Oral reading fluency and reading comprehension are identified as components in effectively gaining meaning from text. A reciprocal relationship exist between the two that allows one to comprehend more thoroughly as one reads more fluently. Additionally, as one reads more fluently, one‟s ability to comprehend also improves. This is due to the fact that one‟s brain is more capable in processing text when one is able to read fluently. Therefore, when one automatically identifies words one is able to comprehend text more completely. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a linear relationship exists between Grade 4 learners‟ oral reading fluency on different types of tests and their reading comprehension. The study was conducted within a positivistic research paradigm. A one-shot crosssectional survey design was used to determine the relationship between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension of Grade 4 learners in selected schools in Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province. Five schools, representing the different quintiles, were selected to participate in the study. A total of 406 Grade 4 learners made up the study population. Two tests were developed and validated in order to assess the learners‟ oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. The data was analysed by means of descriptive statistics as well as Pearson product-moment correlations. The results indicate that learners in rural schools could only read at 52 words per minute (wpm) which meant that they could be grouped in the 10th percentile. With regard to reading comprehension the learners in the rural areas scored an average of 54% on the first reading comprehension test. Their results on the second comprehension test indicated that they experienced difficulties with inference questions. The results indicated that learners in urban schools read at 107.5 words per minute (wpm) which meant that they could be grouped between the 50th and 75th percentile. In their first reading comprehension test they scored an average of 78%. Their results on the second comprehension test indicated that they experienced difficulties with interpretation questions. Pearson product moment correlations indicated a practically significant difference between rural and urban schools on oral reading fluency and reading comprehension with urban schools outperforming rural schools. Overall, the results indicated a practically significant relationship of r = 0.69 between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. The findings of this study should be noted by teachers as well as be addressed in interventions as a matter of urgency. / MEd (Learner Support), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Ce mémoire consiste à offre un survol des études neuropsychologiques et électrophysiologiques concernant l’interaction possible entre le traitement du langage et la musique. Le but principal est de déterminer les raisons possibles pour lesquelles des locuteurs d’une langue à tons auraient une meilleure capacité dans la perception du contraste du pitch en musique par rapport aux individus qui ont pour langue maternelle une langue à intonation. Dans un premier temps, nous discutons du traitement neuronal de la prosodie et de la musique, tentant de montrer le chevauchement du traitement cérébral des deux domaines. Ensuite, nous présentons des notions d’une langue tonale ainsi que le traitement neuronal des tons lexicaux. Après, nous discutons des effets de transfert de la capacité du traitement du pitch en linguistique et en musique, en nous focalisant sur l’influence de la connaissance native d’une langue tonale sur la perception musicale. Pour ce faire, l’encodage du pitch et la localisation hémisphérique du traitement des tons lexicaux et la musique serons discutés. / This thesis gives an overview of neuropsychological and electrophysiological studies about the possible interaction between the processing of language and music. Our main purpose is to examine the possible reasons for which tone language speakers have a better capacity in perceiving pitch contrast in music than native speakers of an intonational language. First, we discuss the neural processing of prosody and music, attempting to show an overlap between the two domains. Next, we present the concept of a tone langue and the neural processing of lexical tones. Afterwards, we discuss the transfer effects of the processing capacity of pitch in linguistic and music by focusing on the influence of a knowledge of a tone language on the musical perception. To do this, the encoding of pitch and the hemispheric specialization will be discussed.

De récentes découvertes sur le rôle du détail phonétique ont inspiré des modèles prosodiques basés sur une approche exemplariste. Au travers de quatre expériences portant sur la production et la perception du détail mélodique et temporel dans la variété napolitaine de l'italien, nous montrons que la notion de détail prosodique n'est pas non plus incompatible avec une approche abstractionniste. Plus particulièrement, nous suggérons que l'exploration du détail prosodique permettrait de mieux encadrer les rapports entre substance phonétique et formes phonologiques, en éclairant ainsi comment les fonctions pragmatiques sont véhiculée par la prosodie. / Recent findings on phonetic detail have been taken as supporting exemplar-based approaches to prosody. Through four experiments on both production and perception of both melodic and temporal detail in Neapolitan Italian, we show that prosodic detail is not incompatible with abstractionist approaches either. Specifically, we suggest that the exploration of prosodic detail leads to a refined understanding of the relationships between the richly specified and continuous varying phonetic information on one side, and coarse phonologically structured contrasts on the other, thus offering in-sights on how pragmatic information is conveyed by prosody.

De par leur présence à l’interface entre plusieurs domaines linguistiques (phonologie, morpho-syntaxe, sémantique ou pragmatique), les déterminants ont depuis longtemps suscité l’intérêt des chercheurs en acquisition. On trouve ainsi de nombreux travaux portant notamment sur les contraintes phono-prosodiques, lexico-syntaxiques, sémantiques ou pragmatiques à l’œuvre dans le processus d’acquisition de ces formes, mais peu d’entre eux ont cherché à proposer une analyse combinée de ces facteurs, en tenant compte à la fois des morphèmes adultes et des formes de transition (omissions et fillers). Nous avons donc souhaité, dans le cadre de ce travail, décrire l’émergence des déterminants et de leurs proto-formes en essayant de saisir, dans une perspective multidimensionnelle intégrant à la fois des facteurs distributionnels et fonctionnels, quels facteurs influencent le plus ce processus, et à quelles périodes.Cette thèse repose sur l’analyse d’un corpus longitudinal de quatre enfants, âgés de 1;6 pour le plus jeune lors de la première séance sélectionnée à 3;5 pour le plus âgé lors de la dernière. Nous avons repéré au sein de ce corpus tous les noms produits par les enfants ainsi que les formes les précédant et chaque syntagme a fait l’objet d’une analyse phono-prosodique, lexico-syntaxique, sémantique, pragmatique et discursive.Les résultats montrent d’une part que tous les facteurs distributionnels peuvent - à des degrés différents - influencer la production des formes pré-nominales, et d’autre part, que les usages que les enfants font des formes témoignent d’une sensibilité précoce à certains contrastes pragmatico-discursifs. Toutefois, aucun des facteurs pris séparément n’a permis de rendre compte de l’intégralité des productions des enfants. L’analyse conjointe de ces facteurs distributionnels et fonctionnels a confirmé les tendances dégagées au préalable et a mis en évidence l’influence d’un ensemble de facteurs (et en particulier, phono-prosodique, syntaxique et pragmatique) plus que d’un facteur unique ou prédominant tout au long du processus d’acquisition des déterminants. / Given their presence at the crossroads of different linguistic fields (phonology, morphosyntax, semantics or pragmatics), determiners have for a long time aroused the interest of language acquisition researchers. We thus find several studies dealing with the phono-prosodic, lexical and syntactic, semantic or pragmatic constraints involved in the acquisition of determiners. But only few of them have provided a combined analysis of all these factors, considering both adult morphemes and transitional forms (omissions and filler syllables). Our study aims to describe the emergence of filler syllables and determiners and understand - in a multidimensional perspective examining simultaneously distributional and functional factors - which factors may affect the acquisition process, and over which periods of time.Our study is based on a corpus of four children, aged from 1;6 for the youngest in the first selected session to 3;5 for the eldest in the last session. We first identified all the noun phrases produced in the data and each occurrence was then analysed according to phono-prosodic, lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discursive factors.Our results show that each distributional factor may influence, at different degrees, the production of pre-nominal forms and that children’s use of forms shows early sensitivity to pragmatic factors. However, none of the factors taken separately have accounted for all of the children’s productions. An additional combined analysis of both distributional and functional factors has supported the initial trends and highlighted the influence of a series of factors (and in particular, phono-prosodic, syntactic and pragmatic), more than a single and predominant one throughout the acquisition process of determiners.

No description available.

Notre recherche a pour objectif de tester l’incidence de la pratique linguistique à l’oral sur les compétences en lecture d’apprenants de Français Langue Etrangère (FLE). A partir d’une hypothèse en psycholinguistique sur le rôle de la prosodie implicite dans le décodage de l’écrit en Langue Maternelle (Fodor, 2002), nous postulons qu’un travail poussé de correction phonétique centré sur la sensibilisation à la structure prosodique du français (via la Méthode Verbo Tonale, MVT) va non seulement améliorer la fluence des apprenants en parole spontanée et en parole lue, mais aussi faciliter le décodage de l’écrit. Nous pensons que cet apprentissage sera plus efficace s’il est proposé dès le niveau débutant. Pour tester ces hypothèses, nous avons mené deux études longitudinales avec des apprenants anglophones de FLE. Nous avons mesuré la fluence en lecture oralisée des apprenants avant et après la formation. Les résultats des analyses acoustiques et perceptives de la première étude (étude pilote) nous ont permis de confirmer nos hypothèses et d’appuyer nos choix méthodologiques. Dans la deuxième étude, nous avons souhaité approfondir les résultats obtenus dans l’étude pilote et valider expérimentalement l’efficacité de la MVT. Nous avons comparé l’impact de la MVT et de la méthode Articulatoire dans l’évolution de la fluence des apprenants. Nous avons également testé un des présupposés de la méthodologie SGAV (dont est issue la MVT) selon lequel l’écrit ne devrait pas être introduit avant que les paramètres prosodiques ne soient maitrisés, sans quoi le passage à l’écrit entrainerait une chute de la fluence des apprenants. Les résultats de cette seconde étude vont dans le sens de nos hypothèses : seuls les apprenants qui ont suivi les cours de correction phonétique via la MVT ont amélioré leur fluence en parole lue. De plus, l’introduction de l’écrit fait chuter la fluence des productions chez tous les apprenants. En conclusion, la maitrise de la prosodie constitue un prérequis nécessaire au passage à l’écrit en langue étrangère. / This study investigates the influence of oral training on reading out loud in French as a Foreign Language (FFL). Based on the implicit prosody hypothesis by Fodor (2002), we venture that working on the phonetic correction orally will improve speaking fluency, as well as reading fluency, and facilitate the decoding of the written test. We think that the impact of this training will be stronger with beginner than advanced learners. In order to test these hypotheses, we have conducted two longitudinal studies with English FFL students. We have measured the students’ fluency before and after training. The acoustics and perceptive results of the first study have confirmed our hypothesis and supported our methodology. In the second study, we follow up on these results on a larger-scale longitudinal study, designed to systematically compare the impact of two phonetics teaching methods on reading skills for FFL learners of French: the Articulatory Method (AM) and the Verbo-Tonal Method (VTM). We have also tested one of the presuppositions of the Structuro-Global Audiovisual Methodology (SGAV) – from which comes the VTM – according to which readings and writings activities should be delayed until students’ phonetic and prosodic skills have reached a basic and steady level. Our data support our hypotheses: only the students who have received VTM classes have improved their reading fluency. Furthermore, the introduction of reading activities during the training has caused a decline in all the students' fluency. Thus mastering second language prosody is essential before introducing reading or writing activities.

Cette recherche a deux objectifs, la systématisation de la prosodie fondamentale du japonais langue commune et l’application de ce système prosodique à une méthode didactique. Pour atteindre ces objectifs, nous cernons d'abord un cadre théorique adaptable au japonais en nous fondant sur la théorie de la "Grammaire de l’intonation" de Morel et Danon-Boileau (1998). Ensuite, nous analysons deux types de corpus, les premières phrases d'informations télévisées, dont le style est proche de celui de l’écrit, et des extraits de dialogue spontané. Les résultats de l’analyse du corpus d'écrit oralisé corroborent une hypothèse selon laquelle l’unité discursive, qui est dans l’ordre fondamental des constituants tel que défini par la fonction de détermination correspondant à un marqueur syntaxique/discursif spécifique, doit être réalisée par la prosodie fondamentale conformément à la fonction de détermination. Les indices suprasegmentaux de cette prosodie sont la position et la durée de la pause et la mélodie des séquences du modifiant et du modifié. En application de ce système prosodique, nous proposons une méthode d’enseignement d’accès facile pour l’enseignant et l’apprenant sur les plans théorique et didactique, grâce au critère binaire de la fonction de détermination d'une part, et d’un indice "écrit", le marqueur syntaxique/discursif, d'autre part. L’analyse du corpus d’oral montre que dans l’oral la fonction de détermination n’est pas représentée par le marqueur spécifique ni par la pause, qui sont remplacés par un indice intonatif à la fin du constituant, tandis que la fonction énonciative est réalisée par l’intonation des particules finales. / This research has two objectives: a systematization of the fundamental prosody of Japanese as a common language, and an application of this prosodic system to teaching method. To attain these objectives, we first fix a theoretical framework adaptable to Japanese based on the theory "Grammaire de l’intonation" (Intonation Grammar) of Morel and Danon-Boileau (1998). We then analyze two types of corpus, readings of lead sentences of TV news, whose style are close to the written style, and extracts from spontaneous dialogues. The results of analysis of the corpus in uttered-written style corroborate the hypothesis that the discursive unit, which is in the fundamental constituent order defined by the function of determination corresponding to a specific syntactic/discursive marker, must be realized by the fundamental prosody conforming to the function of determination. The supra-segmental indicia of this prosody are the position and the length of pauses and the pitch pattern of sequences of modifier and modified. With application of this prosodic system, we propose a teaching method easily accessible both to the teacher and the learner in theoretical and didactical aspects through the binary criterion of the function of determination and a "written" indicium, the specific syntactic/discursive marker. The analysis of the corpus in spoken style shows that in this style, the function of determination is represented neither by the marker nor by the pause, which are replaced by the intonated indicium at the end of constituent, whereas the enunciative function is realized by intonation of the final particles.

No description available.