The development of linguistic stimuli for the Swedish Situated Phoneme test

The speech perception ability of people with hearing loss can be efficiently measured using phonemic-level scoring. We aimed to develop linguistic stimuli suitable for a closed-set phonemic discrimination test in the Swedish language called the Situated Phoneme (SiP) test. The SiP test stimuli that we developed consisted of real monosyllabic words with minimal phonemic contrast, realised by phonetically similar phones. The lexical and sublexical factors of word frequency, phonological neighbourhood density, phonotactic probability, and orthographic transparency were similar between all contrasting words. Each test word was recorded five times by two different speakers, including one male and one female. The accuracy of the test-word recordings was evaluated by 28 normal-hearing subjects in a listening experiment with a silent background using a closed-set design. With a few exceptions, all test words could be correctly discriminated. We discuss the results in terms of content- and construct-validity implications for the Swedish SiP test.

The Orthographic Consistency Effect in French and Spanish: Phoneme-to-Grapheme Mappings Influence Auditory Word Recognition

PurposeIn languages with alphabetical writing systems, the relationship between phonology and orthography is strong. Phonology-to-orthography mappings can be consistent (i.e., one phonological unit corresponds to one orthographic unit) or inconsistent (i.e., one phonological unit corresponds to multiple orthographic units). This study investigates whether the Orthographic Consistency Effect (OCE) emerges at the phonemic level during auditory word recognition, regardless of the opacity of a language’s writing system.MethodsThirty L1-French (opaque language) and 30 L1-Spanish (transparent language) listeners participated in an L1 auditory lexical decision task which included stimuli with either only consistently-spelled phonemes or both consistently-spelled and a number of inconsistently-spelled phonemes. ResultsThe results revealed that listeners were faster at recognizing consistently-spelled words than inconsistently-spelled words. This implies that consistently-spelled words are recognized more easily than inconsistent ones. As for pseudoword processing, there is a numerical trend that might indicate a higher sensibility of French listeners to phoneme-to-grapheme inconsistencies. ConclusionsThese findings have theoretical implications: inconsistent phoneme-to-grapheme mappings, like inconsistencies at the level of the syllable or rhyme, impact auditory word recognition. Moreover, our results suggest that the OCE should occur in all languages with alphabetical writing systems, regardless of their level of orthographic opacity.

CAN AUDIO-VISUAL TRAINING EQUALLY AFFECT PHONEMIC AND PHONETIC CONTRASTS? AN EXAMPLE OF L2 FRICATIVE PRODUCTION

The paper explores the effect of audio-visual perceptual training on Serbian EFL learners’ production of novel phonemic and phonetic contrasts in L2, specifically focused on fricatives. Hence, the paper aims at discovering whether audio-visual training has equal effects at phonemic and phonetic levels, and also, whether the effect is the same at two different age/proficiency levels, 6th grade primary and 4th grade secondary school. In order to explore the phonemic level we concentrated on interdental fricatives, and for the phonetic level differences sibilant contrasts were included, following the predictions of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (Best 1994) and Speech Learning Model (Flege 1995). The testing for relevant acoustic information was per- formed prior to and immediately following the experimental period, when all the participants were recorded pronouncing a prepared sentence list containing target sounds. It consisted of measuring spectral moments, frication duration and comparison of spectrograms. The results of the audio-visual phonetic training proved especially beneficial for phonemic contrasts, i.e. interdental fricatives for both levels of age/proficiency, while sibilant contrasts showed insignificant progress. The age/proficiency level did not appear to be a significant predictor of the effect of audio-visual training. Along with the empirical results, the paper likewise presents pedagogical implications important for pronunciation teaching and highlights the significance of phonetic training in the Serbian EFL context in particular.

PHONEMIC INTERFERENCE AND OVERREGULARIZATION IN THE /S/ AND /∫/ PHONEMES REALIZATION IN FRENCH

One of the problems in foreign language learning is interference, a rearrangement of patterns resulting from the presence of foreign elements in the language domain (Weinreich, 2010). This research shows how and why phonemic interference of /s/ and /∫/ phonemes occur from Indonesian and English although both phonemes exist in all three languages. Some interference begins from lexeme and then to phonemic level. Other faults are overregularization which is the application of regular grammatical patterns to irregular cases. This seems to support the Logical Problem of Language Acquisition which states that a student cannot correct his/her mistakes without explicit feedback from the linguistic environment (Pinker, 2004).The results of this research indicate that foreign language learning requires knowledge of non-structural elements that are outside of the language, not only following phonological, syntactic, morphological, or lexical rules (structural elements). For example, students' foreign language knowledge and cultural content in teaching materials.

PEMETAAN PENGGUNAAN BAHASA MELAYU BANGKA

This study aims to map the use of the Bangka Malay language. This research uses qualitative. The source of the data was observations, interviews with language users, and questionnaires focused on four districts, namely Bangka Regency, South Bangka Regency, Central Bangka Regency, West Bangka Regency, and one Madya City, Pangkalpinang. The reduction data for dialectological studies contain differences in phonological and lexical levels selected from all data obtained, except data in the form of phrases and sentences, while reduction data for comparative historical linguistic studies are collected from 200 basic Swadesh vocabularies (for lexicostatistic analysis), in which describe the word kin. The results of this study are as follows: a. The Malay language of Bangka has the same variation between user regions, especially those used in the City of Pangkalpinang, Sungailiat, Toboali, Koba, and Mentok; b. Some vocabularies are different between regions but are not significant because they occur only at the phonemic level such as the use of the words 'akar (root)' and 'aker', 'dingin (cold)' and 'dingen', 'dengar (hear)' and ‘denger'; c. Significant differences occur only in some of the vocabulary used by the Bangka community such as the word 'burn' which translates to 'menam', 'tembung', and 'tunu'; d. Vocabulary differences are generally found in remote areas such as Sadai, Air Gegas, and Kelapa.

Efficacy of phonemic training program in rehabilitation of Persian-speaking children with auditory processing disorder: a single subject study

Background and Aim: One of the most prevalent problems in auditory processing disorder (APD) is in decoding. This problem is at the phonemic level and can difficulties in spelling, reading, speech processing disorder, responding delay, phonemic identification, memory, and manipulation. One of the training approaches for decoding problems is the phonemic training program. Considering high prevalence of decoding problems and lack of evaluation of the Persian version of the phonemic training program, this study investigated its efficacy in a child with APD.Methods: This is a single-subject interventional study. A child with APD was selected and evaluated with Persian version of Phonemic Synthesis Test and staggered spondee words test at baseline, training, and monitoring phase. Data were analyzed by single-subject study statistics.Results: All results showed absolute efficacy of the training.Conclusion: The phonemic training program was effective in a child with auditory processing disorder.

Lexical Plasticity in Early Bilinguals Does Not Alter Phoneme Categories: I. Neurodynamical Modeling

Sebastián-Gallés et al. [The influence of initial exposure on lexical representation: Comparing early and simultaneous bilinguals. Journal of Memory and Language, 52, 240–255, 2005] contrasted highly proficient early Spanish-Catalan and Catalan-Spanish bilinguals, using Catalan materials in a lexical decision task (LDT). They constructed two types of experimental pseudowords, substituting Catalan phoneme /e/ for Catalan /ɛ/, or vice versa. Catalan-dominant bilinguals showed a performance asymmetry across experimental conditions, making more mistakes for /ɛ/→/e/ changes, than for /e/→/ɛ/ ones. This was considered evidence of a developed acceptance of mispronounced Catalan /ɛ/-words, caused by exposure to a bilingual environment where mispronunciations by Spanish-dominant bilinguals using their /e/-category abound. Although this indicated modified or added lexical representations, an open issue is whether such lexical information also modifies phoneme categories. We address this using a biophysically realistic neurodynamic model, describing neural activity at the synaptic and spiking levels. We construct a network of pools of neurons, representing phonemic and lexical processing. Carefully analyzing the dependency of network dynamics on connection strengths, by first exploring parameter space under steady-state assumptions (mean-field scans), then running spiking simulations, we investigate the neural substrate role in a representative LDT. We also simulate a phoneme discrimination task to address whether lexical changes affect the phonemic level. We find that the same network configuration which displays asymmetry in the LDT shows equal performance discriminating the two modeled phonemes. Thus, we predicted that the Catalan-dominant bilinguals do not alter their phoneme categories, although showing signs of having stored a new word variation in the lexicon. To explore this prediction, a syllable discrimination task involving the /e/-/ɛ/ contrast was set up, using Catalan-dominants displaying performance asymmetry in a repetition of the original LDT. Discrimination task results support the prediction, showing that these subjects discriminate both categories equally well. We conclude that subjects often exposed to dialectal word variations can store these in their lexicons, without altering their phoneme representations.