Phonetic convergence to Southern American English: Acoustics and perception

Clopper, Cynthia G.; Dossey, Ellen

doi:10.1121/10.0000555

Cited by 22 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…With respect to the hypothesis that RedVow is more prone to convergence compared to OSL and ISG, against the predictions, no significant differences in degree and direction of accommodation (DDpair) were found between the three ratio measures (Table 5). Unlike findings on vowel accommodation between GRG and ZHG or between other dialects, showing more convergence for phonetically more distant features (Ruch, 2015;MacLeod, 2012;Walker & Campbell-Kibler, 2015;Clopper & Dossey, 2020), and more divergence for acoustic attributes perceived as strong dialect markers (Babel, 2010;Clopper & Dossey, 2020), in the case of ISG, OSL and RedVow, interpretations of accommodation based on phonetic distance or degree of dialect markedness do not seem tenable (Fig 3 ). As shown in Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…We hypothesise that if rhythmic features are object of accommodation, dyads members adjust their rhythmic behaviour such that the Euclidean distance in ISG, OSL and RedVow will be lower after than before the interaction. In view of findings showing the effect that speakers converge more for features that differ mostly between dialects (MacLeod, 2012;Ruch, 2015;Walker & Campbell-Kibler, 2015;Clopper & Dossey, 2020) and between the speakers and the model talkers (Babel, 2012), we hypothesise that more accommodation is evoked by RedVow than ISG and OSL. RedVow, indeed, is one of the features that best distinguishes the two dialects.…”

Section: Data Analysis and Statisticsmentioning

confidence: 91%

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Do speakers converge rhythmically? A study on segmental timing properties of Grison and Zurich German before and after dialogical interactions

Pellegrino

Schwab

2021

loquens

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This paper reports on the results of a research investigating whether rhythmic features, in terms of segmental timing properties, are object of speaker’s adjustments after the exposure to a conversational partner. In the context of dialects in contact, this is crucial to understand whether rhythmic attributes may bring about language variation and change. In the context of human-machine interactions, this can benefit the design of spoken dialogues systems to achieve human-likeness. To study rhythmic accommodation, we selected a corpus of pre- and post-dialogue recordings, performed by 18 speakers of Grison and Zurich German (henceforth GRG and ZHG), two Swiss German dialects characterised by noticeable segmental and supra-segmental differences. To quantify rhythmic convergence, we designed three measures based on the segmental timing differences between the two dialects. We compared the Euclidean distances in the three measures between GRG and ZHG speakers in a pair before and after two interactions. Results reveal that dyads members do not significantly shift the production of segmental timing features after the dialogues. Neither linguistic nor social factors can account for the observed accommodation pattern. Cross-dialectal segmental timing differences, captured by the three ratio measures, may be either robust against the influence of interlocutors’ acoustic behaviour or too subtle to be perceived or retained after interactions.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 72%

Section: Data Analysis and Statisticsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Do speakers converge rhythmically? A study on segmental timing properties of Grison and Zurich German before and after dialogical interactions

Pellegrino

Schwab

2021

loquens

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“…This perception study is important to do in order to see if there is a mismatch between production and perception in their realisations or if some speakers do not distinguish them at all. There have been a number of relevant studies that deal with these perception and production phenomena, for example Clopper and Dossey (2020), Gunter et al (2020), Jacewicz and Fox (2020) and Kirby and Misnadin (2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phonetic realisations of Madurese vowels and their implications for the Madurese vowel system

Misnadin

2020

Indonesian J. Appl. Linguist.

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It has been suggested that Madurese has eight surface vowels [a, ɛ, ə, ɔ, ɤ, i, ɨ, u], but there have been disagreements with regard to the number of its vowel phonemes. The disagreements arise partly because some scholars base their analyses of Madurese vowels on phonetic grounds while others base them on certain phonological analyses. Besides, some researchers do not consider native versus non-native Madurese words in their analyses. The paper addresses these problems by incorporating both phonetic and phonological analyses in order to provide a better description of Madurese vowels. To achieve this, we investigated the acoustic realisations of the eight surface vowels by looking at the first and second formant frequencies (F1 and F2) of the high and non-high vowel pairs (i ~ ɛ, ɨ ~ ə, ɤ ~ a, u ~ ɔ). Fifteen speakers of Madurese were recorded reading Madurese words put in a carrier phrase. All segmentations were done employing Praat, and F1 and F2 values were extracted using a Praat script. The data were assessed with a linear mixed-effects model accounting for variation due to both random and fixed factors. The results showed that all high and non-high vowel pairs significantly differed in their F1 values. However, the results for F2 values showed variations; only the pair [ɨ ~ ə] showed a significant difference at vowel onset and at vowel midpoint the pairs [i ~ ɛ] and [ɨ ~ ə] were significantly different. Furthermore, we also looked at the vowels [ɤ] and [ɨ] as well as [ɤ] and [ə] to see if they differed in their F1 and F2 values. Our results confirmed that at both vowel onset and midpoint, they were significantly different. The results were discussed employing phonological analysis and vowel dispersion theory. The result of the analyses suggests that Madurese should be best described as a language with a four-vowel system and further offers a solution to the disagreements on the number of vowel phonemes in Madurese

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“…For example, Dufour & Nguyen (2013) showed that participants who were explicitly asked to imitate showed closer approximation to the formant values of a model talker than participants who were simply asked to repeat the words they heard (see also Clopper & Dossey, 2020;Pardo et al, 2010;Sato et al, 2013). To account for these differences, Dufour & Nguyen (2013) proposed that a general automatic alignment mechanism is a shared component of both explicit and implicit imitation, but that explicit instructions to imitate invoke additional "attentional" processes, directing perceptual attention to the specific indexical features of the model talker's speech.…”

Section: The Cognitive Architecture Of Explicit Imitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Underpinnings of explicit phonetic imitation: perception, production, and variability

Schertz¹,

Adil²,

Kravchuk³

2023

Glossa Psycholinguistics

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This work tests the relative role of perception- and production-based predictors, and the relationship between them, in imitation of artificial accents varying in voice onset time (VOT), using a paradigm designed to target distinct sub-processes of imitation. We examined how explicit imitation of sentences differing systematically in voice onset time (VOT) was influenced by the type of VOT manipulation (lengthened vs. shortened) and by the presence vs. absence of voice-related variability in exposure. In contrast to previous work, participants imitated shortened as well as lengthened VOT, albeit with both qualitative and quantitative differences across the two manipulation types. The presence of voice-related variability inhibited imitation, but this inhibition was mitigated by a preceding session with no voice-related variability (i.e., sentences were acoustically identical except for VOT). We then tested the extent to which individual performance on the accent imitation task was related to performance on three other tasks: 1) discrimination of the target accents, 2) imitation of words in isolation drawn from a VOT continuum, and 3) discrimination of these same words. Performance on the accent discrimination task and the word-level imitation task, but not the word-level discrimination task, were independently predictive of accent imitation. Results are consistent with a conceptualization of explicit imitation as the sum of automatic phonetic convergence processes overlaid with distinct, controlled perceptual and articulatory factors that pattern differently across individuals. Phonetic imitation should not be considered as a monolithic skill, and models predicting variation in imitative ability must consider not only the potential sources of individual variability, but also at what level these sources of variability exert their influence. 

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Phonetic convergence to Southern American English: Acoustics and perception

Cited by 22 publications

References 51 publications

Do speakers converge rhythmically? A study on segmental timing properties of Grison and Zurich German before and after dialogical interactions

Do speakers converge rhythmically? A study on segmental timing properties of Grison and Zurich German before and after dialogical interactions

Phonetic realisations of Madurese vowels and their implications for the Madurese vowel system

Underpinnings of explicit phonetic imitation: perception, production, and variability

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