Transcript LCD720 – 04/02/08

LCD720 – 03/25/08
Phonology and speech perception
Announcements
• Midterm
• Looking ahead
– Next four weeks: Interfaces
– Last two weeks: Implementation
– May 20: Final paper due (and last class!)
• Final paper:
– Lesson plan + justification of the plan (paper)
– Start thinking about a topic now
– Guidelines and grading rubric are on Blackboard;
please review soon
Announcements
• Homework assignments
– Ungraded assignments for April 22 and 29
• Don’t need to hand in
– Graded homework assignment due on May 6
(available on April 29)
• Hand in in class or on Blackboard
Interfaces, or How pronunciation is
involved in other parts of language
knowledge and skills
Today
• Listening: perception
• Grammar
• Orthography (spelling)
Importance of perception in
acquisition of phonology
• Remember: Listening discrimination is an
important first step in acquiring correct
pronunciation (both segmental and
suprasegmental features)
– If students don’t hear the difference between
sleep and slip, they can’t produce the
difference either
– Similar for word stress and sentence
intonation
Importance of phonology for
listening (perception)
• Listening discrimination is also crucial for
developing listening skills
– Identifying phonemes, word stress and
intonation correctly
• Sleep vs. slip; thirty vs. thirteen; statement
vs. question
– Segmenting the speech stream correctly into
words and phrases
How do native speakers listen?
1. They attend to stress and intonation (strongly
and weakly stressed syllables)
2. They attend to stressed vowels
3. They segment speech and find words that
correspond to the stressed vowels and the
consonants next to them
4. They look for phrases that are compatible with
the stress/intonation patterns in (1) and words
in (3)
These steps may proceed in parallel
Listeners also use prior knowledge (schemata)
Example: /greydey/
What is difficult for non-native
speakers?
• Each of the steps may pose problems:
– Identifying phonemes, word stress, sentence
intonation (step 1)
– Finding words, esp. unfamiliar words (step 2 and 3)
– Finding phrases and grammar (step 4)
– Parallel processing
• This requires automatized processing and
sufficient working memory
• Prior knowledge: e.g., cultural background
knowledge
• Result: mishearing or no comprehension
Assessing students’ listening
difficulties
• Dictation may show some of the students’
difficulties:
– Not hearing unstressed syllables
• Including function words (articles, prepositions!)
and grammatical morphemes
– Mishearing unfamiliar words
• Including unknown culturally-related words, like
names of people and places
– Incorrect segmentation
• E.g., no in instead of knowing
– Incorrect identification of phonemes
• E.g., /l/ instead of /r/
What to focus on
• Intonation units and prominence
• Reduced speech
– Function words
– Assimilation
– Contractions
– Ambiguities
• Segmentation
More examples of reduced function
words
• Remember:
– him, his, her, them: first consonant is dropped
– and, of: last consonant is dropped
– can, to, as, or, in, on: reduced vowel ə
– will => /l̩/ (syllabic l); and /n̩/ (syllabic n)
• What (wi)ll you do?
• Bread (a)n(d) butter
– Combinations of these processes:
• have => /əv/, /v/ or /ə/
• of => /əv/ or /ə/
How did this happen?
•
•
What are the intermediate steps?
What processes (e.g., reduction, assimilation)
are involved?
1. don’t know /downt now/
2. might have /mayt hæv/
3. should not have
/ʃʊd nɑt hæv/
=>
=>
/dənow/
/mayɾə/
=>
=>
/ʃʊdn̩təv/
/ʃʊdn̩ə/
More examples of assimilation
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
(have) got to
have to
has to
want to
going to
don’t know
should have
might have
used to
shouldn’t have
gotta
hafta
hasta
wanna
gonna
donno/dunno
shoulda
mighta
usta
shouldn’t’ve/
shouldna
gɑɾə
hæftə
hæstə
wɑnə
gʌnə
dənow
ʃʊdə
mayɾə
yuwstə
ʃʊdn̩təv
ʃʊdn̩ə
More examples of assimilation
• Students can memorize these chunks and
practice identifying them in a spoken text
– E.g., they listen to a text, identify the
assimilated forms and write out the full forms
– Additional focus on ambiguous assimilated
forms
• Emphasize that this is informal speech,
and should not be written
More examples of contractions
and blendings
is, has: ’s
have: ’ve
will: ’ll
had, would: ’d
are: ’re
not: n’t
• Students should practice these contractions in
chunks, like I’ll, he’d, they’re, who’s, where’re,
how’s, etc.
• Practice: identify the contractions and write out
the full form
• Focus on ambiguous contractions
Ambiguities due to reduced speech
• What is the full form of these words?
• Use the reduced forms in a sentence
– /ɪm/
– /ɪz/
– /əz/
– /s/
– /ə/
– /ən/
– /d/
– /wɑtʃə/
him
is, his
is, as
is, has
of, have
and, in, on
had, would, did
what do you, what have
you, what you
Segmentation difficulties
• Remember linking:
– lef/t_arm, fin/d_out
– Joa/n_Elson will sound like Joe_Nelson
– gra/de_A will sound like gray day
• There may be slight differences between
the two members of the pair
– Especially in connected speech, these
differences may be difficult to hear
Segmentation difficulties
• In other pairs, there are greater
differences:
What is the
difference?
– nitrate
night rate aspiration; release
– my turn
might earn aspiration; flapping
– key punching keep punching length of /p/
• Native speakers can hear these
differences
– ESL learners will need to practice them
Teaching listening skills
(perception)
• Fill-in-the-blanks listening exercises
– Open or multiple choice
• Some basic rules:
– Never have a gap in the first sentence
– There should be enough time between the gaps to fill
in the word
– Use only familiar words; if possible, use a familiar text
– Listen to the text twice before discussing the answers
– Finish by listening to the text again
Why?
Why?
Teaching listening skills
(perception)
• Listening & reading
– Listen to the text twice, and check for
comprehension
– Listen again and read along
• Repeat until all words, function words, and
morphemes are heard
Don’t forget
– Listen again without reading,
focusing on the missed or misheard words
– How to keep the students attention? Ask new,
simple questions each time they listen
Teaching listening skills
(perception)
• Transcribing (in regular spelling)
– Listen to and transcribe a text containing the
targeted forms (e.g., reduced forms,
assimilation, contractions)
– Indicate the reduced/assimilated/contracted
forms and provide their full forms
– Listen to the text again
• What does this exercise focus on?
• Why would this work?
• How can this exercise be improved?
p. 232
• What does this exercise focus on?
• Why would this work?
• How can this exercise be improved?
p. 233
Next week
• Read Chapter 8
• Construct a fill-in-the-blanks exercise for
teaching contractions/blendings
– Bring to class, and be ready to discuss it
– Bring two copies of the text (empty blanks)