Abstract:This monograph series presents scholarly work in an increasingly active area of linguistic research. It deals with a worldwide range of language types and presents both descriptive and theoretically orientated accounts of language change through time. Aimed at the general theoretician as well as the historical specialist, the series seeks to be a meeting ground for a wide range of different styles and methods in historical linguistics.
“…The effect of preceding context also follows the expected pattern based on the empirical data and previous work: Sibilants, sonorants, and non-sibilant obstruents induce progressively less deletion, at average pause duration. However, the effect size is notably smaller than that of following context and is only weakly significant (Preceding Context 1: β = -0.179, p = 0.167; Preceding Context 2: β = -0.350, p = 0.011), illustrating that preceding context has less influence on deletion rates than following context, as expected (Schreier, 2005).…”
Section: Pausesupporting
confidence: 50%
“…Different studies have found inconsistent effects of a pause coded in this way, with some finding that pauses pattern more like consonants (higher deletion rate, African American English in Fasold, 1972;Wolfram et al, 2000), or more like vowels (lower deletion rate; Philadelphia speakers in Guy, 1980), or induce the least deletion of any following context (Tagliamonte & Temple, 2005). These different effects are generally attributed to dialectal differences, which is unusual, given that most factors influencing CSD rate (such as preceding context and morphological class) have been found to have strikingly similar qualitative effects across many dialects (Schreier, 2005).…”
Many phonological processes can be affected by segmental context spanning word boundaries, which often lead to variable outcomes. This paper tests the idea that some of this variability can be explained by reference to production planning. We examine coronal stop deletion (CSD), a variable process conditioned by preceding and upcoming phonological context, in a corpus of spontaneous British English speech, as a means of investigating a number of variables associated with planning: Prosodic boundary strength, word frequency, conditional probability of the following word, and speech rate. From the perspective of production planning, (1) prosodic boundaries should affect deletion rate independently of following context; (2) given the locality of production planning, the effect of the following context should decrease at stronger prosodic boundaries; and (3) other factors affecting planning scope should modulate the effect of upcoming phonological material above and beyond the modulating effect of prosodic boundaries. We build a statistical model of CSD realization, using pause length as a quantitative proxy for boundary strength, and find support for these predictions. These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that the locality of production planning constrains variability in speech production, and have practical implications for work on CSD and other variable processes.
“…The effect of preceding context also follows the expected pattern based on the empirical data and previous work: Sibilants, sonorants, and non-sibilant obstruents induce progressively less deletion, at average pause duration. However, the effect size is notably smaller than that of following context and is only weakly significant (Preceding Context 1: β = -0.179, p = 0.167; Preceding Context 2: β = -0.350, p = 0.011), illustrating that preceding context has less influence on deletion rates than following context, as expected (Schreier, 2005).…”
Section: Pausesupporting
confidence: 50%
“…Different studies have found inconsistent effects of a pause coded in this way, with some finding that pauses pattern more like consonants (higher deletion rate, African American English in Fasold, 1972;Wolfram et al, 2000), or more like vowels (lower deletion rate; Philadelphia speakers in Guy, 1980), or induce the least deletion of any following context (Tagliamonte & Temple, 2005). These different effects are generally attributed to dialectal differences, which is unusual, given that most factors influencing CSD rate (such as preceding context and morphological class) have been found to have strikingly similar qualitative effects across many dialects (Schreier, 2005).…”
Many phonological processes can be affected by segmental context spanning word boundaries, which often lead to variable outcomes. This paper tests the idea that some of this variability can be explained by reference to production planning. We examine coronal stop deletion (CSD), a variable process conditioned by preceding and upcoming phonological context, in a corpus of spontaneous British English speech, as a means of investigating a number of variables associated with planning: Prosodic boundary strength, word frequency, conditional probability of the following word, and speech rate. From the perspective of production planning, (1) prosodic boundaries should affect deletion rate independently of following context; (2) given the locality of production planning, the effect of the following context should decrease at stronger prosodic boundaries; and (3) other factors affecting planning scope should modulate the effect of upcoming phonological material above and beyond the modulating effect of prosodic boundaries. We build a statistical model of CSD realization, using pause length as a quantitative proxy for boundary strength, and find support for these predictions. These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that the locality of production planning constrains variability in speech production, and have practical implications for work on CSD and other variable processes.
“…Throughout its history, English exhibits striking instability in its system of vowels, while its consonants have remained relatively fixed especially since the fourteenth century … As to consonants, the English system has remained relatively stable throughout its history, and the inventory of phonemes has changed only slightly since about 1400. (Finegan 1990: 78, 80, cited in Schreier 2005: 1).…”
This paper first briefly reviews the concept of intelligibility as it has been employed in both English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and world Englishes (WE) research. It then examines the findings of the Lingua Franca Core (LFC), a list of phonological features that empirical research has shown to be important for safeguarding mutual intelligibility between non-native speakers of English. The main point of the paper is to analyse these findings and demonstrate that many of them can be explained if three perspectives (linguistic, psycholinguistic and historical-variationist) are taken. This demonstration aims to increase the explanatory power of the concept of intelligibility by providing some theoretical background. An implication for ELF research is that at the phonological level, internationally intelligible speakers have a large number of features in common, regardless of whether they are non-native speakers or native speakers. An implication for WE research is that taking a variety-based, rather than a features-based, view of phonological variation and its connection with intelligibility is likely to be unhelpful, as intelligibility depends to some extent on the phonological features of individual speakers, rather than on the varieties per se
“…There are few minimal pairs involving these sounds, but the issue is made harder to assess by the fact that vocalisation may lead to vowel changes and possible homophony (Wells 1982: 313 (Labov 1972, in Schreier 2005. The greater economy of production achieved by the speaker through simplification partly explains this, but is there also an intelligibility explanation?…”
Section: Summary: the Predictability Of Intelligibilitymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…L vocalisation is an example of a universal tendency to weaken complex codas, and the near-universality of final consonant cluster simplification (Schreier 2005) However, a possible caveat in these cases might be the loss of grammatical information involved. Other examples, such as in government and department (Speaker 7) also appear to follow the intelligibility 'rules' by appearing word-finally and being only a small part of the whole word.…”
Phonological Features of Hong Kong English: Patterns of Variation and Effects on Local Acceptability by SEWELL, Andrew John
Doctor of PhilosophyThe changing dynamics of international communication in English have led to a intense questioning of the relevance of native-speaker pronunciation models in language teaching and testing. In addition, the World Englishes approach to local varieties has increased their level of recognition. Both of these developments suggest that English pronunciation models need to be reviewed, and Hong Kong represents an interesting case study. Although it has been claimed that Hong Kong English is at the 'nativization' stage, the existence of exonormative attitudes towards English is also well known. Two important questions arise from this inherent tension, neither of which has been intensively addressed in previous studies. Firstly, although many of the features of Hong Kong English pronunciation have been described, patterns of inter-speaker variation have not been investigated in detail. Secondly, the attitudes of Hong Kong English users towards the phonological features of their own variety have not been studied in ways that take account of such variation.This dissertation addresses both of these questions by being features-based in approach and using local listeners to evaluate accent samples. After an initial review of the features of Hong Kong English pronunciation, a preliminary study surveys the occurrence of consonantal phonological features within a mini-corpus of speech samples taken from local television programmes. Its findings are presented in the form of an implicational scale, which not only shows the relative frequencies with which different features occurred, but also indicates the existence of implicational patterns of co-occurrence. In the main study, twelve authentic accent samples (eleven Hong Kong speakers and one British speaker) were presented to 52 first-year undergraduate students for evaluation as to their acceptability, defined here as acceptability for pedagogical purposes.Multivariate statistical analysis discovered firstly that phonological 'errors', as marked by the student listeners, were the most important measured factor in determining the acceptability scores, and secondly that only certain types of 'error' or 'feature' had significant effects. These features were either related to L1 transfer or involved other salient phenomena such as idiosyncratic alterations to syllable structure. The explanatory part of the study includes acceptability as one of the factors determining feature persistence, in an 'ecological' or 'evolutionary' model of L2 phonology acquisition and development that combines the findings of the preliminary and main studies. Among the other factors that determine feature persistence or disappearance, salience, intelligibility and markedness are invoked as important influences.The acceptability data also has pedagogical implications, in that local listeners did not give the British accent the highest acceptability rating. ...
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