In a perceptual assimilation task, 16 Russian speakers categorized American English (AE) vowels [iː, ɪ, ɛ, aeː, ɑː, ʌ, ʊ, uː] in /Vpə/ disyllables into Russian (RU) response categories and rated their perceived goodness on a 9-point Likert scale. Cross-language discriminant analysis established acoustic similarities to Russian vowels. For all but AE [ε], acoustic similarity predicted modal assimilation responses. Russian listeners consistently assimilated AE point vowels to their Russian counterparts, whereas assimilation of the remaining vowels was less consistent. These acoustic and perceptual similarity patterns provide a baseline for future studies of AE vowel discrimination by Russian learners of English.
This study is part of a project examining how L2 learners whose native languages have small vowel inventories (Japanese, Russian, Spanish) perceive American English (AE) vowels. Experienced Russian (RU) L2 learners’ discrimination was evaluated in a speeded ABX task that included nil Experimental contrasts among adjacent height pairs and front/back pairs; four nonadjacent height pairs served as Controls. An earlier study of Japanese L2 learners indicated that AE contrasts with spectrum and duration differences (S+D) [i:/■, æ:/[g\/], u:/■, ■:/■] were discriminated more rapidly, relative to Control contrasts [i:/[g\/], ■/æ, u:/■, ■/■:], than were contrasts that differed only in spectral structure (S-Only) [■/[g\/], ■/■, [g\/]/■, æ:/■:]. Since vowel duration is not contrastive in Russian, it was hypothesized that discrimination of S-Only and S+D contrasts might be equally slow, relative to Controls, if RU listeners did not attend to duration differences. Preliminary findings confirm that reaction time (RT) difference scores (relative to Controls) were not different for S-Only and S+D contrasts. Relative RTs on both contrast types were slower than for AE listeners, whose RTs were about the same for S-Only and S+D pairs. These findings suggest that speeded discrimination is a sensitive measure of continuing perceptual difficulties of L2 learners. [Work supported by NSF.]
The purpose of this study was to examine the accuracy of final consonant perception in whispered speech. Of particular interest was the accuracy of the detection of “voicing” in whispered consonants and its relationship to the prominence of different acoustic cues to consonant voicing. This relationship was investigated for the effect of speaker and consonant. Stimuli were natural tokens that differed in final consonant and vowel preceding it. For example, [habæz] embedded in the carrier sentence “I said testword eight times” produced at a conversational speaking rate. Recordings from four monolingual speakers of American English were used. The consonants were two pairs of stops /b-p/, /g-k/, a fricative-pair /z-s/ and an affricate-pair d ȝ-ʈ ∫. In an eight-alternative forced choice task, listeners indicated which final consonant they heard. Analysis of the results revealed that whispered consonants were identified with a relatively high overall degree of accuracy (84%–88%). ANOVA indicated that identification accuracy was affected by both speaker and consonant. A logistic regression model was used to establish the best predictors of consonant voicing in whispered speech for classification of intended consonants and in predicting the success in [+/− voicing] detection. Predictors that were considered included several acoustic measures, e.g., vowel duration.
Whispered speech is a naturally distorted speech signal. Whereas it preserves some characteristics of fully phonated speech, some important acoustic cues are removed, diminished or altered. The prominence of acoustic cues in whispered speech may change due to the physical properties of the whispered speech signal, i.e., decreased intensity, the absence of periodic vibration of the vocal folds, damping of F1, shift of the formants and flattening of the amplitude envelope. Such changes affect the acoustic cues both for vowels (e.g. vowel height) and consonants (e.g. voicing contrasts). The objective of the present project was to explore the acoustic cues for post-stressed syllable-final consonant voicing contrasts and the vowels preceding them in continuous whispered speech of American English speakers and to compare the results with those in fully phonated speech. The stimuli were recorded in the carrier sentence "I'll utter /habVC/ off the list". The consonant pairs included voiced/voiceless bilabial stops /b-p/ and labiodental fricatives /f-v/, each combined with 11 AE vowels /i, I, "epsilon", e, ae, a, "turned-v", o, "open-o", u, "horseshoe"/. Preliminary results showed that vowels had longer duration in whispered speech than in fully phonated speech. Spectral dispersion, temporal contrastivness of vowels; F1, and vowel duration cues will be reported in the presentation.
Variability of vowels in three languages with small vowel inventories (Russian, Japanese, and Spanish) was explored. Three male speakers of each language produced vowels in two-syllable nonsense words (VCa) in isolation and three-syllable nonsense words (gaC1VC2a) embedded within carrier sentences in three contexts: bilabial stops in normal rate sentences and alveolar stops in both normal and rapid rate sentences. Dependent variables were syllable duration and formant frequency at syllable midpoint. Results showed very little variation across consonant and rate conditions in formants for /i/ in Russian and Japanese. Japanese short /u, o, a/ showed fronting (F2 increases) in alveolar context, which was more pronounced in rapid sentences. Fronting of Japanese long vowels was less pronounced. Japanese long/short vowel ratios varied with speaking style (isolation versus sentences) and speaking rate. All Russian vowels except /i/ were fronted in alveolar context, but showed little change in either spectrum or duration with speaking rate. Spanish showed a strong effect of consonantal context: front vowels were backed in bilabial context and back vowels were fronted in alveolar context, also more pronounced in rapid sentences. Results will be compared to female productions of the same languages, as well as American English production patterns.
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