Perception of pitch height in lexical and musical tones by English-speaking musicians and nonmusicians

2014 ◽  
Vol 135 (3) ◽  
pp. 1607-1615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao-Yang Lee ◽  
Allison Lekich ◽  
Yu Zhang
Africa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Carter-Ényì

AbstractSarah Ann Glover (1785–1867) believed that singing was for the public good and Samuel Àjàyí Crowther (1809–91) thought that speech tones should be preserved in writing. Their stories illustrate that diversity in thought may encounter obstacles, but can ultimately shape human consciousness. While this shows a positive side of missionary work, bringing people and ideas together, the transmission of Glover's and Crowther's ideas was mediated by the overlapping political, social and cultural hegemonies of the colonial era. Crowther was celebrated in the English-speaking world as evidence that the civilizing agenda – and colonialism – was good for all involved, but his orthographic approach was credited to the missionary linguist Johann Gottlieb Christaller. Glover's innovations in music education have been misattributed to John Curwen and Zoltán Kodály. Drawing evidence from ethnographic work, field recordings, language surveys and literature from a variety of disciplines, this article asks the question: why is do-re-mi the preferred heuristic for Yorùbá speech tone? Glover's and Crowther's physical paths never crossed, but their ideas did, converging in a remarkable inter-continental and trans-disciplinary synthesis. The do-re-mi heuristic resists the pitch-height paradigm used in formal linguistics (low-mid-high). In a culture where drums can speak, it is unsurprising that a musical model filled a void in the (European) concept of what a language could be.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan David Bradley

Lexical tones are perceived along several dimensions, including pitch height, direction, and slope. Melody is also factored into several dimensions, key, contour, and interval, argued to correspond to phonetic dimensions. Tone speakers are expected to possess enhanced sensitivity to musical properties corresponding to properties of their tonal inventories. Mandarin- and English-speaking non-musicians took a melody discrimination test. Mandarin listeners more accurately discriminated melodic contour and interval, corresponding to relevant Mandarin tonal properties direction and slope. Groups performed similarly on other dimensions, indicating that tone language experience causes specific, rather than general, melody perception improvement, consistent with neural and perceptual learning theories.


Author(s):  
Yunjuan He ◽  
Qian Wang ◽  
Ratree Wayland

This study compared the effectiveness of two teaching methods on the production of Mandarin Tone 3 by English-speaking students. The control group (n=12) received pitch direction-focused instruction in which Tone 3 was introduced as a falling-rising contour tone while the experimental group (n=12) received pitch height-focused instruction in which Tone 3 was introduced as a low level tone. The ability to produce this tone in monosyllabic words, disyllabic words and sentences was assessed after 1 month, 2 months, and 3 months of instruction. The results showed that the pitch height-focused teaching method improved Tone 3 production in connected tonal environments at the sentence level, whereas the pitch direction-focused teaching method was more effective in training students to produce this tone in isolation. More importantly, unlike the pitch direction-focused method, the effectiveness of the pitch height-focused teaching method generalized to new words. It helped L2 learners to develop a self-learning skill for pronouncing unfamiliar words.


Author(s):  
Diana Deutsch

Chapter 5 explores the tritone paradox—a musical illusion that was discovered by the author. Its basic pattern consists of two computer-generated tones that are related by a half-octave (i.e., a tritone). These tones are well defined in pitch class (note name) but ambiguous in pitch height. When one of these tone pairs is played in succession, some people hear an ascending pattern, yet other people hear a descending one. Indeed, a group of people will disagree completely among themselves as to whether such a pair of tones is moving up or down in pitch. Furthermore, any one person hears one of these tone pairs as ascending or descending depending on their note names (such as C–F♯, or G♯–D). How people hear the tritone paradox varies with the geographic location in which they grew up—and so with their native language or dialect. Native English-speaking Californians hear this pattern differently from natives of the south of England. People who are natives of Vietnam hear the pattern quite differently from native English-speaking Californians. The tritone paradox shows, therefore, that the way we perceive music is related to our language, and generally reveals strong effects of our memories and expectations on how we hear music. It also has important implications for absolute pitch (or “perfect pitch”)—the rare ability to name a musical note that is presented in isolation. People make orderly judgments of the tritone paradox, even though they cannot name the notes that they are judging, so they must have an implicit form of absolute pitch.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 991-1016
Author(s):  
Shameka Stanford ◽  
Ovetta Harris

Purpose In 2011, the United Nations estimated there were between 180 and 220 million youth with disabilities living around the world, and 80% of them resided in developing countries. Over the last 6 years, this number has increased significantly, and now, over 1 million people live in the Caribbean with some form of disability such as communication disorders resulting in complex communication needs (CCN). Method This publication discusses the benefits of an exploratory, descriptive, nonexperimental study on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) classroom integration training for 8 special educators in the Bahamas who work with children with CCN. Results The results of this study revealed that 100% of the participants reported the study to be effective in increasing their knowledge and skill in the area of implementing AAC into their classrooms, enhancing their ability to team teach and incorporate AAC opportunities for all students with CCN within their classrooms, and increasing their knowledge and skill overall in the areas of AAC and CCN. Conclusion The findings highlight an important area of potential professional development and training that can be replicated in other English-speaking Caribbean territories focused on AAC classroom integration training program for special educators who teach students with CCN.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 1148-1161
Author(s):  
Camilo Maldonado ◽  
Alejandro Ashe ◽  
Kerri Bubar ◽  
Jessica Chapman

Background American educational legislation suggests culturally competent speech and language services should be provided in a child's native language, but the number of multilingual speech-language pathologists (SLPs) is negligible. Consequently, many monolingual English-speaking practitioners are being tasked with providing services to these populations. This requires that SLPs are educated about cultural and linguistic diversity as well as the legislation that concerns service provision to non-English or limited English proficiency speakers. Purpose This qualitative study explored the experiences of monolingual, American, English-speaking SLPs and clinical fellows who have worked with immigrant and refugee families within a preschool context. It investigated what training SLPs received to serve this population and what knowledge these SLPs possessed with regard to federal legislation governing the provision of services to culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) communities. Method Ten American clinicians with experience treating CLD children of refugee and immigrant families in the context of preschool service provision participated in the study. Semistructured interviews were utilized to better understand the type of training clinicians received prior to and during their service delivery for CLD populations. Additionally, questions were asked to explore the degree to which practitioners understood federal mandates for ethical and effective service provision. The data collected from these interviews were coded and analyzed using the principles of grounded theory. Findings The results of this study revealed that there was a general sense of unpreparedness when working with CLD clients. This lack of training also attributed to a deficiency of knowledge surrounding legislation governing service provision to CLD populations.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 95-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Kraemer ◽  
Allison Coltisor ◽  
Meesha Kalra ◽  
Megan Martinez ◽  
Bailey Savage ◽  
...  

English language learning (ELL) children suspected of having specific-language impairment (SLI) should be assessed using the same methods as monolingual English-speaking children born and raised in the United States. In an effort to reduce over- and under-identification of ELL children as SLI, speech-language pathologists (SLP) must employ nonbiased assessment practices. This article presents several evidence-based, nonstandarized assessment practices SLPs can implement in place of standardized tools. As the number of ELL children SLPs come in contact with increases, the need for well-trained and knowledgeable SLPs grows. The goal of the authors is to present several well-establish, evidence-based assessment methods for assessing ELL children suspected of SLI.


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-79
Author(s):  
Sara C. Steele ◽  
Deborah A. Hwa-Froelich

Nonword repetition performance has been shown to differentiate monolingual English-speaking children with language impairment (LI) from typically developing children. These tasks have been administered to monolingual speakers of different languages and to simultaneous and sequential bilingual English Language Learners (ELLs) with mixed results. This article includes a review of the nonword repetition performance of monolingual and bilingual speakers and of internationally adopted children. Clinical implications for administration and interpretation of nonword repetition task outcomes are included.


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