This dissertation investigates articulatory characteristics of English /I/ in child speech.
The study is primarily based on experimental data collected using ultrasound imaging
techniques from eight English children ages 3;11 to 5;9. Replicating previous articulatory
studies of syllable-based allophones of /I/ in adult speech production, the articulatory
components of III in child speech production are analyzed for the static information and
relative timing between tongue movements. Secondarily, the acoustic analysis of this data
and its perception judgments by adults are presented.'
One of the major findings of this study is that children at these ages produce /I/ using
different spatial and temporal coordination than adult speech production, although some
children produce /I/ more similar to adult /I/ in terms of articulatory organization. Further, the
findings are addressed in relation to speech motor development, and hypotheses are tested to
see which motor developmental process(es) (differentiation, integration, refinement) can
describe the acquisition of /I/. The ultrasound results of the tongue movements in children's
/I/ indicate that all general motor developmental processes are active in these children, and
the spatial and temporal coordination of the articulatory gestures of /I/ is rather simplified or
modified, and needs to be further refined. I argue that the tendency toward late acquisition of
/I/ is due directly to the articulatory complexity of its spatial and temporal characteristics.
This work contributes much-needeid empirical data of the articulatory characteristics
of /I/ to both language acquisition and speech sciences and constitutes a novel application of
ultrasound imaging to child speech research.
Organization of this dissertation is as follows. Subsequent to the overall introduction
of the study in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 presents the empirical background and hypotheses for
the study. It reviews speech and developmental studies in production and perception
conducted by other researchers, and proposes empirical questions. Chapter 3 provides the
methodology for the study. It introduces ultrasound techniques and experiment design and
procedure. Chapter 4 presents the results of the spatial characteristics of the children's /I/ in
terms of number of gestures, tongue shape, constriction location, and allophonic variation
with respect to different syllable positions. Chapter 5 discusses the results of the temporal
characteristics of the children's /I/ gestures. Inter-gestural timing of allophones of /I/ is
examined to determine whether timing distinguishes positional allophones in these children's
speech. Chapter 6 provides post-experiment perception judgments made by adults, and
acoustic analysis of samples of tokens used in the current study. Finally, Chapter 7
summarizes the results and discusses the implications of the dissertation. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/17061 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Oh, Sunyoung |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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