Speech is highly variable and systematic, governed by the internal linguistic system and socio-indexical factors. The systematic relationship of socio-indexical factors and variable phonetic forms, referred to here as "socio-indexical structure," has been the cornerstone of sociophonetic research over the last several decades. Research…

Purpose: The present study investigates the perception of vowel nasality in French-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs; CI group) and children with typical hearing (TH; TH group) aged 4-12 years. By investigating the vocalic nasality feature in French, the study aims to document more broadly the effects of the acoustic limitations of CI…

This study investigates the perception of the three Mandarin high vowels /i, u, y/ after dental, retroflex, and palatal fricatives and affricates (/s/-/[voiceless alveolar affricate]/-/[voiceless alveolar affricate][superscript voiceless glottal fricative]/; /[voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative]/-/[voiceless alveolar affricate]/-/[voiceless…

Purpose: Weighting of acoustic cues for perceiving placeof-articulation speech contrasts was measured to determine the separate and interactive effects of age and use of cochlear implants (CIs). It has been found that adults with normal hearing (NH) show reliance on fine-grained spectral information (e.g., formants), whereas adults with CIs show…

Second language (L2) learners often have difficulty perceiving L2 sound contrasts when the first-language (L1) and L2 sounds are acoustically similar and these similar L2 sounds correspond to an existing L1 sound (Flege, 1995). To improve L2 learners' perception of sound contrasts, researchers have used high-variability phonetic training (HVPT)…

Purpose: We examined how consonant perception is affected by a preceding speech carrier simulated in the same or a different room, for different classes of consonants. Carrier room, carrier length, and carrier length/target room uncertainty were manipulated. A phonetic feature analysis tested which phonetic categories are influenced by the…

The present study investigates the time course of acoustic cue integration in the processing of the Korean three-way laryngeal stop contrast by native Korean listeners and English second language (L2) learners of Korean. As such, this study seeks to understand how native listeners and L2 learners weight and integrate fine-grained acoustic…

Arabic emphasis refers to the production of consonants resulting from a primary constriction in the dental or alveolar region and a secondary constriction in the back of the vocal tract, recognized as 'Emphatic.' These have contrastive consonants produced in the dental or alveolar region, recognized as 'Plain.' The existing research on emphasis in…

The present dissertation explores the effect of exposure to non-native speech via foreign film on non-native speech production and perception. In order to explore potential effects, two main experiments were developed, which examined French production and perception by monolingual native speakers of English before and after exposure to French…

Purpose: Former studies suggested that music perception can help produce certain accentual features in the first and second language (L2), such as intonational contours. What was missing in many of these studies was the identification of the exact relationship between specific music perception skills and the production of different accentual…

Purpose: The speech motor system uses feedforward and feedback control mechanisms that are both reliant on prediction errors. Here, we developed a state-space model to estimate the error sensitivity of the control systems. We examined (a) whether the model accounts for the error sensitivity of the control systems and (b) whether the two systems…

Spoken words vary phonetically along a number of dimensions, such as duration, pitch, and vowel quality. Much of this variation is associated with social factors like the dialect, age, or gender of the speaker -- a type of variation termed 'socio-indexical'. Traditional theories of speech perception have seen this socio-indexical variation as a…

This study aimed to investigate the role that phonetic convergence plays in the acquisition of L2 segments. In particular, it examined whether phonetic convergence towards native speakers could help Arabic-speaking second-language (L2) learners of English improve their pronunciation of four problematic English segments (/p, v, [open-mid front…

Purpose: This study presents the results of acoustic and kinematic analyses of word-initial semivowels (/[voiced alveolar approximant], l, w/) produced by second-language (L2) speakers of English whose native language is Korean. In addition, the relationship of acoustic and kinematic measures to the ratings of foreign accent was examined by…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of auditory perceptual phonetic training on the identification and production of English vowels by Cypriot Greek children and adults. Another two groups of Cypriot Greek child and adult speakers served as controls. The trained groups participated in the pretest, training, and posttest phase,…