Phonetic convergence, communicative efficiency, and language distance

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann R. Bradlow ◽  
Midam Kim ◽  
Minyoung Kim
Keyword(s):  
Phonetic Convergence ◽  
Communicative Efficiency

Phonetic convergence, communicative efficiency, and language distance

2013 ◽  
Vol 133 (5) ◽  
pp. 3433-3433
Author(s):  
Ann Bradlow ◽  
Midam Kim ◽  
Minyoung Kim
Keyword(s):  
Phonetic Convergence ◽  
Communicative Efficiency

Phonetic convergence in college roommates

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 190-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer S. Pardo ◽  
Rachel Gibbons ◽  
Alexandra Suppes ◽  
Robert M. Krauss
Keyword(s):  
Phonetic Convergence ◽  
College Roommates

scholarly journals Communicative efficiency and differential case marking: a reverse-engineering approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Levshina
Keyword(s):  
Reverse Engineering ◽  
Conditional Probabilities ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Poisson Models ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Cue Reliability ◽  
Communicative Efficiency ◽  
Cue Availability ◽  
Probabilistic Measures ◽  
Better Than

Abstract The use of differential case marking of A and P has been explained in terms of efficiency (economy) and markedness. The present study tests predictions based on these accounts, using conditional probabilities of a particular feature given the syntactic role (cue availability), and conditional probabilities of a particular syntactic role given the feature in question (cue reliability). Cue availability serves as a measure of markedness, whereas cue reliability is central for the efficiency account. Similar to reverse engineering, we determine which of the probabilistic measures could have been responsible for the recurrent cross-linguistic patterns described in the literature. The probabilities are estimated from spontaneous informal dialogues in English and Russian (Indo-European), Lao (Tai-Kadai), N||ng (Tuu) and Ruuli (Bantu). The analyses, which involve a series of mixed-effects Poisson models, clearly demonstrate that cue reliability matches the observed cross-linguistic patterns better than cue availability. Thus, the results support the efficiency account of differential marking.

scholarly journals Continuity or Discontinuity – the Case of Macedonian Phonetics

2015 ◽  
pp. 97-113
Author(s):  
Irena Sawicka
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
East European ◽  
Small Areas ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Phonetic Convergence ◽  
Phonetic Features

Continuity or Discontinuity – the Case of Macedonian PhoneticsThe article presents its principal topic of the continuity of linguistic phenomena based on the material of Macedonian phonetics, treated as a constituent of south-east European phonetics, and not as an element of the Slavic world. It provides, firstly, a static perspective, produced by enumerating typologically relevant features. Seen from this perspective, Macedonian phonetics is a component of the Central Balkanic area. Secondly, emphasis has been put on processes of phonetic convergence and their differences from those of grammatical convergence. These difference account for the instability of phonetic features, or in any case their generally lesser stability compared to morphosyntactic features, but on the other hand also for the possibility for some phenomena to survive in small areas, in a few dialects, and the possibility for linguistic features to reappear, which stems from alternating cross-dialectal interference. The Macedonian language territory abounds in such situations due to its multi-ethnicity, which is greater here than anywhere else in the Balkans. Particular in this respect is the area of Aegean Macedonia, where Slavic dialects are “protected” from the influence of the literary norm – albeit in the case of Macedonian even the realisation of the literary norm is not entirely stable in terms of phonetics.Ciągłość czy jej brak – casus macedońskiej fonetykiNadrzędny temat dotyczący ciągłości zjawisk przedstawiony został na materiale macedońskiej fonetyki. Fonetyka macedońska została rozpatrzona jako składnik fonetyki Europy południowo-wschodniej, a nie jako element świata słowiańskiego. Przedstawiono, po pierwsze, obraz statyczny, wynikający z wyliczania relewantnych typologicznie cech. Ten obraz klasyfikuje fonetykę macedońską jako składnik centralnego obszaru bałkańskiego. Po drugie, położono akcent na przebieg procesów konwergencyjnych w zakresie fonetyki i na różnice w stosunku do takich procesów w zakresie gramatyki. Wynika z nich: nietrwałość cech fonetycznych, a w każdym razie ogólnie mniejsza trwałość cech fonetycznych niż cech morfo-składniowych, ale też możliwość przetrwania pewnych zjawisk na małych obszarach, w paru gwarach, możliwość powracania cech fonetycznych, co wynika z naprzemiennej interferencji międzydialektalnej. Terytorium języka macedońskiego obfituje w takie sytuacje ze względu na większą multietniczność niż gdziekolwiek indziej na Bałkanach. Szczególny pod tym względem jest obszar Macedonii Egejskiej, gdzie dialekty słowiańskie są „zabezpieczone” przed działaniem normy literackiej. Chociaż w wypadku języka macedońskiego nawet realizacja normy literackiej pod względem fonetycznym nie jest całkiem stabilna.

scholarly journals Dialect divergence and convergence in New Zealand English

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 437-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly Babel
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Automatic Process ◽  
Dialect Contact ◽  
Implicit Association Task ◽  
Association Task ◽  
Phonetic Convergence ◽  
English Dialect ◽  
Influence Degree ◽  
Social Biases

AbstractRecent research has been concerned with whether speech accommodation is an automatic process or determined by social factors (e.g. Trudgill 2008). This paper investigates phonetic accommodation in New Zealand English when speakers of NZE are responding to an Australian talker in a speech production task. NZ participants were randomly assigned to either a Positive or Negative group, where they were either flattered or insulted by the Australian. Overall, the NZE speakers accommodated to the speech of the AuE speaker. The flattery/insult manipulation did not influence degree of accommodation, but accommodation was predicted by participants' scores on an Implicit Association Task that measured Australia and New Zealand biases. Participants who scored with a pro-Australia bias were more likely to accommodate to the speech of the AuE speaker. Social biases about how a participant feels about a speaker predicted the extent of accommodation. These biases are, crucially, simultaneously automatic and social. (Speech accommodation, phonetic convergence, New Zealand English, dialect contact)*

scholarly journals Increased language co-activation leads to enhanced cross-linguistic phonetic convergence

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miquel Simonet ◽  
Mark Amengual
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Random Order ◽  
Acoustic Characteristics ◽  
Phonological Process ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Co Activation ◽  
Phonetic Convergence ◽  
Linguistic Interference ◽  
Language Activation

Purpose: This study investigates the effects of bilingual language modes (or settings) on the speech production patterns of a group of early Catalan/Spanish bilinguals from Majorca, Spain. Our main research question was as follows: are bilingual speech patterns modulated by the level of (co-)activation of a bilingual’s two languages? Design: Bilingual participants were classified as a function of their linguistic experience (or dominance), from Catalan- to Spanish-dominant. Subsequently, we recorded their speech in two experimental settings: a unilingual setting in which only Catalan words were uttered, and a bilingual setting in which both Catalan and Spanish words (cognates) were produced in random order. Data and analysis: The study examined the acoustic realization of Spanish and Catalan unstressed /a/, which surfaces as [a] in Spanish but is reduced to schwa, [ə], in Catalan. The acoustic characteristics of unstressed /a/ were explored across the two languages and the two experimental settings. Findings: Catalan unstressed /a/, which was similarly reduced to schwa in the speech of all participants, became slightly more similar to Spanish unstressed /a/ (i.e., it had a higher first formant) when produced alongside Spanish words (bilingual setting) than when produced in a Catalan unilingual setting. There were no effects of linguistic experience, and the effects of setting did not interact with experience. Originality: Very few studies have reported the effects of dynamic cross-linguistic interference in phonetic production, and even fewer have reported them with a phonetic variable resulting from a language-specific phonological process (unstressed vowel reduction) rather than a phonemic contrast. Implications: These findings suggest that cross-linguistic interaction is dynamic and modulated by language activation, and that an absence of dominance effects does not necessarily entail an absence of online cross-linguistic phonetic influence.

scholarly journals Phonetic convergence towards American English by Indian agents in international service encounters

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-274
Author(s):  
Claire Cowie ◽  
Anna Pande
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
American English ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
International Service ◽  
Call Centres ◽  
Phonetic Convergence ◽  
It Workers ◽  
Indian Agents

Abstract In outsourced voice-based services (call centres are a typical example), an agent providing a service is likely to accommodate their speech to that of the customer. In services outsourced to India, as in other postcolonial settings, the customer accent typically does not have a place in that agent’s repertoire. This presents an opportunity to test whether exposure to the customer accent through telephone work promotes phonetic convergence, and/or whether social factors are implicated in convergence. In this map task experiment, 16 IT workers from Pune (half of whom regularly spoke to American colleagues on the telephone) gave directions to American followers. There was evidence of imitation of the bath vowel with an American addressee. However, imitation did not depend on exposure alone. Attitudes to American English, social networks and individuals’ sense of themselves as performers affected their behaviour in the experiment.

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