This dissertation examines the associations between pragmatic meaning categories in English and specific realizations of prosodic prominence. It has been well-established that in Mainstream American English (MAE), prominence is often used to convey contrast. A more limited set of studies suggests that prosodic prominence may also be capable of…

When infants hear sentences containing unfamiliar words, are some language-world links (such as noun-object) more readily formed than others (verb-predicate)? We examined English learning 14-15-month-olds' capacity for linking referents in scenes with bisyllabic nonce utterances. Each of the two syllables referred either to the object's identity,…

Current speech-to-speech translation systems face challenges in effectively translating the nuances of prosody, which plays a pivotal role in conveying speaker intent and stance in dialog. This limitation restricts cross-lingual communication, especially in situations demanding deeper interpersonal understanding. To address this, this research…

High variability pronunciation training (HVPT) has been found to be successful for training various segmentals, such as the challenging /l/-/[voiced alveolar approximant]/ contrast, and suprasegmental features such as tone and pitch accent. These studies have found that HVPT is an effective method not only in helping learners improve their…

Amidst ongoing global debate about reproductive rights, questions have emerged about the role of language in reinforcing stigma around termination. Amongst some 'pro-choice' groups, the use of "pro-life" is discouraged, and "anti-abortion" is recommended. In UK official documents, "termination of pregnancy" is…

Variegation - the presence of more than one supraglottal consonant per word - is a key challenge for children as they increase their expressive vocabulary toward the end of the single-word period. Here we consider the prosodic structures of target words and child forms in English, Finnish, French, Japanese and Mandarin to determine whether…

Cross-linguistic influence has been observed across all domains of language. However, nothing is known about the role of cross-linguistic influence in bilingual speakers' use of vocal fry. Several recent studies have identified an upsurge in the use of vocal fry among female speakers of American English. We sought to identify cross-linguistic…

Child-directed language can support language learning, but how? We addressed two questions: (1) how caregivers prosodically modulated their speech as a function of word familiarity (known or unknown to the child) and accessibility of referent (visually present or absent from the immediate environment); (2) whether such modulations affect…

Languages tend to have three major clause types (declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives), dedicated to three main speech acts (assertions, questions, commands). However, the particular forms that these clause types take differ from language to language, and have to be learned. Previous experimental results suggest that by 18 months old,…

Understanding speech in an accent or dialect different than one's own can be challenging. McLaughlin and Van Engen (2020) were the first to quantify this increase in listening effort using Task Evoked Pupillary Response (TEPR), a common measure of cognitive arousal. They found that monolingual, English speaking adults' pupils dilated more quickly…

This paper investigates whether typical stress patterns in English nouns and verbs are available as a prosodic cue for categorisation and accelerated word learning during first language acquisition. The stress typicality hypothesis states that left-stressed nouns and right-stressed verbs should be acquired earlier than the reverse configurations…

Infant-directed speech (IDS) is phonetically distinct from adult-directed speech (ADS): It is typically considered to have special prosody--like higher pitch and slower speaking rates--as well as unique speech sound properties, for example, more breathy, hyperarticulated, and/or variable consonant and vowel articulation. These phonetic features…

Purpose: The current study investigated English prosodic focus marking by autistic and typically developing (TD) Cantonese trilingual children, and examined the potential differences in this regard compared to native English-speaking children. Method: Forty-eight participants were recruited with 16 speakers for each of the three groups…

Infant-directed speech (IDS) is characterized by a range of register-typical characteristics. Many of those can be objectively measured, such as acoustic-prosodic and structural-linguistic modifications. Perceived vocal affect, however, is a socio-emotional IDS characteristic and is subjectively assessed. Vocal affect goes beyond acoustic-prosodic…

Previous studies have shown that Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers exhibit different patterns of cross-modal congruence for the lexical tones of Mandarin Chinese, depending on which features of the pitch they attend to. But is this pattern of language-specific listening a conscious cultural strategy or an automatic processing effect? If…