This study investigates the production of the English interdental fricative [theta] by Chinese learners of English, using a variationist framework. Twenty-seven Chinese participants were asked to evaluate the acceptability of four possible substitutes for the variable (th) and to perform four oral production tasks. The results indicated that…

While it is well known that languages have different phonemes and phonologies, there is growing interest in the idea that languages may also differ in their "phonetic setting". The term "phonetic setting" refers to a tendency to make the vocal apparatus employ a language-specific habitual configuration. For example, languages may differ in their…

This dissertation addresses the extent to which linguistic behavior can be described in terms of the projection of patterns from existing lexical items, through an investigation of Korean reduplication. Korean has a productive pattern of reduplication in which a consonant is inserted in a vowel-initial base, illustrated by forms such as "alok"--"t…

Currently students who struggle with language and literacy learning are classified with various labels in different states--language learning disabilities, dyslexia, specific language impairment, and specific learning disability--in spite of having similar diagnostic profiles. Drawing on the research on comprehension of written language, we…

Previous cross-language research has focused on L1 phonological processing and its relation to L2 reading. Less extensive is the research on the effect that L1 orthographic processing skill has on L2 reading and spelling. This study was designed to investigate how reading and spelling acquisition in English (L2) is influenced by phonological and…

Lexical access was examined in English-Spanish bilinguals by monitoring eye fixations on target and lexical competitors as participants followed spoken instructions in English to click on one of the objects presented on a computer (e.g., "Click on the beans"). Within-language lexical competitors had a phoneme onset in English that was shared with…

The eastern half of New York State is a dialectologically diverse region around which several dialect regions converge--the Inland North, New York City, Western New England, and Canada. These regions differ with respect to major parameters of North American English phonological variation; and therefore the interface between them is of interest…

When speaking, how do we convert our thoughts into the sounds that come out of our mouths? Though seemingly effortless, the process of word production is realized by a complex system working over different levels of representation. By focusing on the sublexical factors, this work investigates the representations and dynamics of the word production…

Previous research using the name-based categorization task has shown that 20-month-old infants can simultaneously learn 2 words that only differ by 1 consonantal feature but fail to do so when the words only differ by 1 vocalic feature. This asymmetry was taken as evidence for the proposal that consonants are more important than vowels at the…

This study combined artificial language learning (ALL) with conventional experimental techniques to test whether statistical speech segmentation outputs are integrated into adult listeners' mental lexicon. Lexicalization was assessed through inhibitory effects of novel neighbors (created by the parsing process) on auditory lexical decisions to…

Research indicates a strong relationship between phonological awareness and reading success. Phonemic intervention programs clearly show the benefits of explicitly teaching phonological awareness skills. Phonological awareness skills vary in nature and degree of difficulty and appear to follow a developmental progression. This study examined a…

The current study aimed to use electromagnetic articulography (EMA) to investigate the effect of increasing word length on lingual kinematics in acquired apraxia of speech (AOS). Tongue-tip and tongue-back movement was recorded for five speakers with AOS and a concomitant aphasia (mean age = 53.6 years; SD = 12.60) during target consonant…

This research investigates whether English speakers who learn Mandarin Chinese via a familiar orthography differ from those who learn via a non-familiar orthography in their perception of English-Mandarin sound pairs. Canadian English speakers (n = 32) participated in a series of experimental tasks. The tasks included pre- and posttest perception…

In this review we show how magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a constructive tool for language research and review MEG findings in second language (L2) research. MEG is the magnetic analog of electroencephalography (EEG), and its primary advantage over other cross-sectional (e.g. magnetic resonance imaging, or positron emission tomography) functional…

Dutch listeners were exposed to the English theta sound (as in "bath"), which replaced [f] in /f/-final Dutch words or, for another group, [s] in /s/-final words. A subsequent identity-priming task showed that participants had learned to interpret theta as, respectively, /f/ or /s/. Priming effects were equally strong when the exposure…