scholarly journals Discrimination of four Canadian-French vowels by native Canadian-English listeners

2020 ◽  
Vol 147 (5) ◽  
pp. EL391-EL395
Author(s):  
Félix Desmeules-Trudel ◽  
Marc F. Joanisse
Keyword(s):  
Canadian English ◽  
Native Canadian ◽  
Canadian French

Selected linguistic problems in indexing within the Canadian context

1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-91
Author(s):  
Lisa Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Canadian Context

Study of the problems inherent in indexing within a Canadian context. Takes into account the linguistic characteristics of Canadian English (the divided usage between British and American spelling and vocabulary; the literary warrant of words of Canadian origin) and of Canadian French (the frequency of vocabular, morphological, and semantic anglicisms, the differences in vocabulary between standard and Canadian French) and the problems involved in bilingual indexing because of the trend in the English language towards nominalization.

Eh? and Hein?: Discourse Particles or National Icons?

2006 ◽  
Vol 51 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 247-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Gold ◽  
Mireille Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Canadian English ◽  
French Canada ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Patterns Of Use ◽  
Discourse Functions ◽  
And Function ◽  
The University

AbstractWe compare the use and function of two discourse particles that show many similarities: Canadian English eh and Canadian French hein. Surveys of anglophone students at the University of Toronto and francophone students at Université Laval reveal that these particles have similar discourse functions and that there are many parallels in their patterns of use. However, francophone students report a higher use of hein than do anglophone students of eh. Moreover, francophones have more positive attitudes towards constructions with hein than do their anglophone counterparts with respect to eh. In addition, eh—used both less often and valued less positively—has taken on additional functions as an identity marker: it is used to identify speakers of Canadian English and, in print, to evoke Canadian solidarity. In contrast, hein does not have an identity marking function. We propose that the development of an identity marking function for eh—and the lack of such a function for hein—reflects differences in how linguistic identities are constructed in English and French Canada.

scholarly journals Production of coronal stops by simultaneous bilingual adults

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
MEGHA SUNDARA ◽  
LINDA POLKA ◽  
SHARI BAUM
Keyword(s):  
Initial Position ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Acoustic Phonetics ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Acoustic Analyses

This study investigated acoustic-phonetics of coronal stop production by adult simultaneous bilingual and monolingual speakers of Canadian English (CE) and Canadian French (CF). Differences in the phonetics of CF and CE include voicing and place of articulation distinctions. CE has a two-way voicing distinction (in syllable initial position) contrasting short-and long-lag VOT; coronal stops in CE are described as alveolar. CF also has a two-way voicing distinction, but contrasting lead and short-lag VOT; coronal stops in CF are described as dental. Acoustic analyses of stop consonants for both VOT and dental/alveolar place of articulation are reported. Results indicate that simultaneous bilingual as well as monolingual adults produce language-specific differences, albeit not in the same way, across CF and CE for voicing and place. Similarities and differences between simultaneous bilingual and monolingual adults are discussed to address phonological organization in simultaneous bilingual adults.

Reliability of the Language Environment Analysis Recording System in Analyzing French–English Bilingual Speech

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 2491-2500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriel John Orena ◽  
Krista Byers-Heinlein ◽  
Linda Polka
Keyword(s):  
Strong Correlation ◽  
Recording System ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Environment Analysis ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Data Analyses ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Language Environment Analysis ◽  
Language Environment

Purpose This study examined the utility of the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) recording system for investigating the language input to bilingual infants. Method Twenty-one French–English bilingual families with a 10-month-old infant participated in this study. Using the LENA recording system, each family contributed 3 full days of recordings within a 1-month period. A portion of these recordings (945 minutes) were manually transcribed, and the word counts from these transcriptions were compared against the LENA-generated adult word counts. Results Data analyses reveal that the LENA algorithms were reliable in counting words in both Canadian English and Canadian French, even when both languages are present in the same recording. While the LENA system tended to underestimate the amount of speech in the recordings, there was a strong correlation between the LENA-generated and human-transcribed adult word counts for each language. Importantly, this relationship holds when accounting for different-gendered and different-accented speech. Conclusions The LENA recording system is a reliable tool for estimating word counts, even for bilingual input. Special considerations and limitations for using the LENA recording system in a bilingual population are discussed. These results open up possibilities for investigating caregiver talk to bilingual infants in more detail.

scholarly journals Learning two languages from birth shapes pre-attentive processing of vowel categories: Electrophysiological correlates of vowel discrimination in monolinguals and simultaneous bilinguals

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 526-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
MONIKA MOLNAR ◽  
LINDA POLKA ◽  
SHARI BAUM ◽  
KARSTEN STEINHAUER
Keyword(s):  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Native Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Language Context ◽  
Vowel Categories

Using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we measured pre-attentive processing involved in native vowel perception as reflected by the mismatch negativity (MMN) in monolingual and simultaneous bilingual (SB) users of Canadian English and Canadian French in response to various pairings of four vowels: English /u/, French /u/, French /y/, and a control /y/. The monolingual listeners exhibited a discrimination pattern that was shaped by their native language experience. The SB listeners, on the other hand, exhibited a MMN pattern that was distinct from both monolingual listener groups, suggesting that the SB pre-attentive system is tuned to access sub-phonemic detail with respect to both input languages, including detail that is not readily accessed by either of their monolingual peers. Additionally, simultaneous bilinguals exhibited sensitivity to language context generated by the standard vowel in the MMN paradigm. The automatic access to fine phonetic detail may aid SB listeners to rapidly adjust their perception to the variable listening conditions that they frequently encounter.

scholarly journals Discrimination between Modal, Breathy and Pressed Voice for Single Vowels Using Neck-Surface Vibration Signals

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhengdong Lei ◽  
Evan Kennedy ◽  
Laura Fasanella ◽  
Nicole Yee-Key Li-Jessen ◽  
Luc Mongeau
Keyword(s):  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Spectral Entropy ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Native Canadian ◽  
Audio Recordings ◽  
Supervised Learning Algorithms ◽  
Voice Data ◽  
Voice Classification ◽  
Acceleration Signals

The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using neck-surface acceleration signals to discriminate between modal, breathy and pressed voice. Voice data for five English single vowels were collected from 31 female native Canadian English speakers using a portable Neck Surface Accelerometer (NSA) and a condenser microphone. Firstly, auditory-perceptual ratings were conducted by five clinically-certificated Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) to categorize voice type using the audio recordings. Intra- and inter-rater analyses were used to determine the SLPs’ reliability for the perceptual categorization task. Mixed-type samples were screened out, and congruent samples were kept for the subsequent classification task. Secondly, features such as spectral harmonics, jitter, shimmer and spectral entropy were extracted from the NSA data. Supervised learning algorithms were used to map feature vectors to voice type categories. A feature wrapper strategy was used to evaluate the contribution of each feature or feature combinations to the classification between different voice types. The results showed that the highest classification accuracy on a full set was 82.5%. The breathy voice classification accuracy was notably greater (approximately 12%) than those of the other two voice types. Shimmer and spectral entropy were the best correlated metrics for the classification accuracy.

scholarly journals Preposition stranding and orphaning: The case of bare prepositions in French

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
GEORG A. KAISER
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Complex Investigation ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Section Heading ◽  
Preposition Stranding ◽  
Scientific Test

In their keynote contribution, Poplack, Zentz & Dion (henceforth PZD; Poplack, Zentz & Dion, 2011, this issue) propose an interesting “scientific test of convergence” (under section heading: “Introduction”) which contains criteria to check whether a particular feature in a given language in contact with another one is due to language contact or not. This is a valiant endeavor with a laudable goal. It is valiant because the answer to this question requires a complex investigation of the languages at issue. It is laudable since it is commonly believed that a given feature of a language in contact with another one is the result of convergence. This belief however is, in general, only a mere conjecture due to superficial similarities of the features at issue, for which no empirical evidence is provided. Yet, there is no doubt that PZD accomplish their endeavor in an outstanding manner. Based on a thorough study of substantial data from Canadian French and Canadian English, they demonstrate in a convincing way how it is possible to reveal whether a given feature is contact-induced or not.

scholarly journals Reliability of the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) in French-English Bilingual Speech

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriel John Orena ◽  
Krista Byers-Heinlein ◽  
Linda Polka
Keyword(s):  
Strong Correlation ◽  
Recording System ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Environment Analysis ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Data Analyses ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Language Environment Analysis ◽  
Language Environment

Purpose: This study examined the utility of the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) recording system for investigating the language input to bilingual infants. Method: Twenty-one French-English bilingual families with a 10-month-old infant participated in this study. Using the LENA recording system, each family contributed three full days of recordings within a one-month period. A portion of these recordings (945 minutes) were manually transcribed, and the word counts from these transcriptions were compared against the LENA-generated adult word counts. Results: Data analyses reveal that the LENA algorithms were reliable in counting words in both Canadian English and Canadian French, even when both languages are present in the same recording. While the LENA system tended to underestimate the amount of speech in the recordings, there was a strong correlation between the LENA-generated and human transcribed adult word counts for each language. Importantly, this relationship holds when accounting for different-gendered and different-accented speech. Conclusions: The LENA recording system is a reliable tool for estimating word counts, even for bilingual input. Special considerations and limitations for using the LENA recording system in a bilingual population are discussed. These results open up possibilities for investigating caregiver talk to bilingual infants in more detail.

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