Modality-Independent Effects of Phonological Neighborhood Structure on Initial L2 Sign Language Learning

Williams, Joshua T.; Newman, Sharlene D.

doi:10.1515/rela-2015-0022

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 49 publications

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“…With regard to sign learning, research is scant; however, two studies are germane. First, Williams and Newman (2016a) investigated the effect of perceptual similarity. Analogous to the similarity effect in word learning, visually distinct signs were learned more rapidly than visually similar signs.…”

Section: Perceptual-motor Processes In Phonological Stm and Sign Learmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting sign learning in hearing adults: The role of perceptual-motor (and phonological?) processes

Martinez

Singleton

2018

Applied Psycholinguistics

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The present study aimed to identify predictors of one aspect of sign language acquisition, sign learning, in hearing nonsigners. Candidate predictors were selected based on the theory that the observed relationship between phonological short-term memory and L2 lexical learning is due in part to common perceptual-motor processes. Hearing nonsigning adults completed a sign learning task, three assessments of short-term memory for movements (movement STM; two of which used sign-like stimuli), and two visuospatial STM tasks. The final sample included 103 adults, ranging between 18 and 33 years of age. All predictors were moderately to strongly correlated with the sign learning task and to each other. A series of regression analyses revealed that both movement and visuospatial STM uniquely contributed to the prediction of sign learning. These results suggest that perceptual-motor processes play a significant role in sign learning and raise questions about the role of phonological processing.

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Section: Perceptual-motor Processes In Phonological Stm and Sign Learmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting sign learning in hearing adults: The role of perceptual-motor (and phonological?) processes

Martinez

Singleton

2018

Applied Psycholinguistics

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Operationalization of Sign Language Phonological Similarity and its Effects on Lexical Access

Williams

Stone

Newman

2017

The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

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Cognitive mechanisms for sign language lexical access are fairly unknown. This study investigated whether phonological similarity facilitates lexical retrieval in sign languages using measures from a new lexical database for American Sign Language. Additionally, it aimed to determine which similarity metric best fits the present data in order to inform theories of how phonological similarity is constructed within the lexicon and to aid in the operationalization of phonological similarity in sign language. Sign repetition latencies and accuracy were obtained when native signers were asked to reproduce a sign displayed on a computer screen. Results indicated that, as predicted, phonological similarity facilitated repetition latencies and accuracy as long as there were no strict constraints on the type of sublexical features that overlapped. The data converged to suggest that one similarity measure, MaxD, defined as the overlap of any 4 sublexical features, likely best represents mechanisms of phonological similarity in the mental lexicon. Together, these data suggest that lexical access in sign language is facilitated by phonologically similar lexical representations in memory and the optimal operationalization is defined as liberal constraints on overlap of 4 out of 5 sublexical features-similar to the majority of extant definitions in the literature.

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Creaky Voice and Prosodic Boundaries in Spanish: An Acoustic Study

González

Weissglass

Bates

2022

Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics

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This study investigates vocalic creak in connection to the demarcation of prosodic boundaries in Spanish. Data from a picture task from 10 native Spanish speakers from diverse dialects was examined word-medially and word-finally. A total of 800 vowels were analyzed acoustically to determine if they involved creak; duration of creak relative to vowel duration was also recorded. The role of prosodic context, vowel quality and gender were examined. Our results show that creak is one of the cues that signals the end of prosodic constituents, particularly at higher prosodic levels: it averages 64% of realizations word-finally, but only 4% medially; and it is more pervasive in higher prosodic domains. Creak is more likely in males than females (80 vs. 53%), and vowel quality has no effect on creak word-finally, although word-medially /a/ is more frequently creaked than other vowels. We discuss the implications of our results in comparison with previous studies on creaky voice in Spanish and English, in particular Garellek, Marc & Patricia Keating. 2015. Phrase-final creak: Articulation, acoustics, and distribution. In Paper presented at the 89th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Portland, Oregon, 8–11 January, which report a higher rate of creak for Mexican Spanish females compared to males utterance-finally, and Kim, Ji Young. 2017. Voice quality transfer in the production of Spanish heritage speakers and English L2 learners of Spanish. Silvia Perpiñán. In David Heap, Itziri Moreno-Villamar & Adriana Soto-Corominas (eds.), Selected papers from the 44th linguistic symposium on romance languages (LSRL), 191–207. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, which found creaky voice utterance-finally in L2 Spanish and heritage Spanish speakers, but not in L1 Spanish participants.

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Modality-Independent Effects of Phonological Neighborhood Structure on Initial L2 Sign Language Learning

Cited by 3 publications

References 49 publications

Predicting sign learning in hearing adults: The role of perceptual-motor (and phonological?) processes

Predicting sign learning in hearing adults: The role of perceptual-motor (and phonological?) processes

Operationalization of Sign Language Phonological Similarity and its Effects on Lexical Access

Creaky Voice and Prosodic Boundaries in Spanish: An Acoustic Study

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