Table 3 - uploaded by David Deterding
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The six plosives of Standard Chinese are compared with those of RP British English, to see if there is a difference in their aspiration and/or voicing. Recordings of 7 speakers from China reading words beginning with each of the 6 plosives are compared to similar recordings of 7 speakers of RP British English, and it is found that there is little d...
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... Although Mandarin and English employ a two-category contrast in their stop consonants, there are some similarities and differences in the phonetic and phonological implications. The Mandarin stop consonants are based on the presence or absence of aspiration instead of voicing and are shown to have a wider range and longer values along the VOT continuum compared to English Deterding & Nolan, 2007). Furthermore, the English voiced stop consonants are phonetically similar to the Mandarin unaspirated stop consonants as they are often voiceless with a short-lag VOT, especially at the word-initial position (Cho & Ladefoged, 1999;Cho, Whalen, & Docherty, 2019;Docherty, 1992;Lisker & Abramson, 1964). ...
... While L1 influence in L2 acquisition is common, the English initial stop consonants produced by Mandarin-English bilinguals do not exhibit strong L1 influence despite their language dominance in ChM and earlier acquisition of Mandarin since birth. From the VOT findings, Mandarin-English bilinguals produce a substantial number of voicing leads in their English initial stop consonants, which is not present in their L1 as there is no voicing distinction in Mandarin Deterding & Nolan, 2007). Other than the influence of British English in their L2 acquisition, Malay as the official and national language in Malaysia is hypothesised to influence the phonetic realisations of the bilingual speakers even though they reported limited use of Malay in their daily communication. ...
... into the closure (Deterding & Nolan, 2007). ...
... In English, the voiced and voiceless stops also have quite distinguished percentages of voicing. Deterding and Nolan (2007) examined the percentage of voicing in Mandarin and British English intervocalic stops using a reading task with isolated words embedded in carrier sentences. In both languages, the stop consonants were flaked by vowels. ...
... In both languages, the stop consonants were flaked by vowels. The percentage found for English /b, d, g/ was around 50% to 66%, and for /p, t, k/ was around 15% to 20%, varying according to place of articulation (Deterding & Nolan, 2007). ...
Previous literature has shown that voicing contrast is a difficult feature for Chinese-English emergent bilingual learners of L3 Spanish (Bravo Díaz, 2020; Chen, 2007; Zhang, 2022). The production of voicing contrast in stops has been broadly investigated in second and third language studies (e.g., Zampini, 1998; Llama, 2010; Wrembel, 2014), but almost exclusively focusing on VOT as a unified correlate and studying one moment in the process of L2 development. Adopting a Complex and Dynamic Systems Theory framework (e.g., Larsen-Freeman, 2007), this dissertation investigates the roles of other acoustic correlates of voicing contrast in multilingual participants’ stop production, including individual differences in developmental paths of VOT using a time-series approach.Two studies were conducted studying stop production of a group of L1 Mandarin – L2 English learners of L3 Spanish (N = 30). In Study 1, tokens of intervocalic stops in a text-reading task were analyzed to measure C:V ratio of intensity, percentage of voicing, and onset F0 of the following vowel to examine and compare their realizations in the participants’ three languages. In Study 2, VOT samples in a wordlist reading task were measured five times during a period of one semester to trace their developmental paths. The role of individual differences including language aptitude, language use, and metalinguistic knowledge were integrated in mixed effect models.Results showed that participants relied on all acoustic cues under examination to signal voicing contrast in all three languages, with differences of cue weights across languages. At the same time, there were significant individual differences in individual developmental paths of VOT; mixed effect models revealed that phonetic coding ability had a facilitative effect in pronunciation accuracy; sequence recognition ability interacts with time to show an effect in more advanced stages of learning.This dissertation has implications for research on L3 phonological development and individual variation. It sheds light on the relevance of acoustic cues other than VOT in stop production among multilingual learners, and highlights the roles of explicit and implicit language aptitude in the learning of segment pronunciation. Finally, it contributes to a complex and dynamic view of voicing contrast development in a third language.Alternate abstract:La literatura previa ha demostrado que el contraste de voz es una característica difícil para los estudiantes bilingües emergentes chino-inglés de español L3 (Bravo Díaz, 2020; Chen, 2007; Zhang, 2022). La producción de contraste de voces en oclusivas ha sido ampliamente investigada en estudios de segundas y terceras lenguas (p. ej., Zampini, 1998; Llama, 2010; Wrembel, 2014), pero centrándose casi exclusivamente en VOT como un correlato unificado y estudiando un momento en el proceso del desarrollo de L2. Adoptando un marco de Teoría de Sistemas Complejos y Dinámicos (por ejemplo, Larsen-Freeman, 2007), esta disertación investiga los roles de otros correlatos acústicos del contraste de voces en la producción de parada de participantes multilingües, incluidas las diferencias individuales en las rutas de desarrollo de VOT utilizando el método de la serie de tiempo.Se realizaron dos estudios para estudiar la producción de oclusivas de un grupo de estudiantes de L1 mandarín – L2 inglés de L3 español (N = 30). En el Estudio 1, se analizaron muestras de oclusivas intervocálicas en una tarea de lectura de texto para medir la relación C:V de intensidad, porcentaje de sonorización e inicio F0 de la siguiente vocal para examinar y comparar sus realizaciones en los tres idiomas de los participantes. En el Estudio 2, las muestras de VOT en una tarea de lectura de listas de palabras se midieron cinco veces durante un período de un semestre para rastrear sus caminos de desarrollo. El papel de las diferencias individuales, incluida la aptitud lingüística, el uso del lenguaje y el conocimiento metalingüístico, se integraron en modelos de efectos mixtos.Los resultados mostraron que los participantes se basaron en todas las señales acústicas bajo examen para señalar el contraste de voz en los tres idiomas, con diferencias en el peso de las señales entre los idiomas. Al mismo tiempo, hubo diferencias individuales significativas en los caminos de desarrollo individuales de VOT; los modelos de efectos mixtos revelaron que la capacidad de codificación fonética tuvo un efecto facilitador en la precisión de la pronunciación; la capacidad de reconocimiento de secuencias interactúa con el tiempo para mostrar un efecto en etapas más avanzadas de aprendizaje.Esta disertación tiene implicaciones para la investigación sobre el desarrollo fonológico de L3 y la variación individual. Arroja luz sobre la relevancia de las señales acústicas distintas del VOT en la producción de oclusivas entre los estudiantes multilingües y destaca los roles de la aptitud lingüística explícita e implícita en el aprendizaje de la pronunciación de segmentos. Finalmente, contribuye a una visión compleja y dinámica del desarrollo del contraste sonoro en un tercer idioma.
... Danish (Jessen, 2001) do not undergo passive voicing inter-vocalically (Deterding and Nolan, 2007). ...
The present study investigates the phonetic and phonological aspects of the voicing contrast in stops in Najdi Arabic, a dialect that has been found to contrast prevoiced and aspirated stops. This study discusses the implications of the acoustic correlates of Voiceless and Voiced stops for the phonological representation of the voicing contrast in this variety and examines the connection between the acoustic signal and the distinctive features that specify the opposition by employing the types of evidence proposed in the realm of laryngeal realism. These types of evidence include the manifestation of acoustic correlates of stops in various positions, speech rate effect on aspiration and prevoicing, and the Voiceless and Voiced stops' behaviour in stop-stop clusters across word boundary in terms of regressive voicing assimilation. The manifestation of the acoustic correlates of Voiceless and Voiced stops shows that Voiceless stops are aspirated in the examined positions whereas Voiced stops show robust prevoicing in utterance-initial and utterance-medial contexts. The acoustic correlates also show that Voiceless stops are robustly accompanied by longer closure, longer burst, higher F0 and F1 onset, and lower burst intensity. Voiced stops, on the other hand, are robustly accompanied by shorter closure (utterance-medially), shorter burst, lower F0 and F1, and higher burst intensity. Speech rate affects both aspiration and prevoicing in Voiceless and Voiced stops, respectively. Prevoicing and aspiration are lengthened in normal speech rate in comparison to fast speech rate. Stop-stop cluster results show that both Voiceless and Voiced stops trigger some (de)voicing in the preceding member of the cluster. The acoustic analysis reveals that Voiceless stops show voicing assimilation in F0/F1 and burst intensity but not in voicing in the closure. For Voiced stops, the results show a degree of devoicing in their closure but not in F0/F1 and burst intensity. The results suggest that Voiceless and Voiced stops in Najdi Arabic have features from both aspirating and voicing languages. This claim is supported by the three types of evidence implemented in this study. The assumption that both Voiceless and Voiced stops are specified implicates that the voicing contrast in Najdi Arabic is overspecified in the phonology with two features, [spread glottis] and [voice]. Applying the numeric values of phonetic distinctive features proposed by Beckman et al. (2013), on the scale of 1 to 9, the present study claims that Voiced stops in Najdi Arabic are specified with [9 voice] while Voiceless stops are specified with [8 spread glottis], mainly because of the existence of moderate aspiration in utterance-initial Voiceless stops and the robust prevoicing found in utterance-initial and utterance-medial Voiced stops (1 means inactive, 9 means highly active). The phonological repercussions for the proposed overspecification in the voicing contrast in Najdi Arabic are discussed with a specific focus on the inclusion of such a patterning in theoretical models of voicing.
... Figure 7 shows the range of VOT for all the voiceless plosives in syllableonset position in M1's reading of the NWS Text. All the tokens of both /p/ and /t/ have VOT less than 20 msec, confirming that there is little evidence of aspiration on any tokens of these two consonants, as aspirated plosives would typically have VOT of 60 msec or more in languages such as English (Docherty, 1992) and Chinese (Deterding & Nolan, 2007). The VOT of /k/ in the Malay NWS data is greater, with a range of 17 msec to 45 msec apart from one outlier (shown as an open circle) with VOT of 61 msec. ...
Malay is one of the major languages in the world, but there has been relatively little detailed research on its phonetics. This Element provides an overview of existing descriptions of the pronunciation of Standard Malay before briefly considering the pronunciation of some dialects of Malay. It then introduces materials that may be used for studying the phonetics of Malay: a short text, the NWS passage; and a map-task, to generate conversational data. Based on recordings using these materials by two female and two male consultants who are academics at Universiti Brunei Darussalam, the Element next offers an acoustic analysis of the consonants and vowels of Malay, the syllable structure arising from fast speech processes, as well as the rhythm and intonation of the Standard Malay that is spoken in Brunei. Finally, it suggests directions for further research on the phonetics of Malay.
... In that study, on average, duration of voicing during stop closures was 51% (of closure) for [b], 58% for [d], and 66% for [ɡ]. Deterding and Nolan (2007) also find similar results in a later study of seven British English speakers. ...
There is a large body of work in phonetics and phonology demonstrating sources and structure of acoustic variability, showing that variability in speech production is not random. This paper examines the question of how variability itself varies across languages and speakers, arguing that differences in extent of variability are also systematic. A classic hypothesis from Dispersion Theory (Lindblom, 1986) posits a relationship between extent of variability and phoneme inventory size, but this has been shown to be inadequate for predicting differences in phonetic variability. I propose an alternative hypothesis, Contrast-Dependent Variation, which considers cue weight of individual phonetic dimensions rather than size of phonemic inventories. This is applied to a case study of Hindi and American English stops and correctly predicts more variability in English stop closure voicing relative to Hindi, but similar amounts of lag time variability in both languages. In addition to these group-level between- language differences, the results demonstrate how patterns of individual speaker differences are language-specific and conditioned by differences in phonological contrast implementation.
... The aspiration contrast should be easy to discriminate for Chinese speakers learning English-as-L2, as this is a familiar contrast commonly encountered in their L1 Chinese. In fact, Deterding and Nolan (2007) showed that the average duration of aspiration for word-initial aspirated and unaspirated stops was not significantly different between Chinese and English speakers. Given that Chinese speakers should be good at distinguishing English voiced and voiceless stops in the word-initial position as the contrast is primarily in aspiration rather than voicing, word-initial stops were excluded from the HVPT in the current study. ...
Do learners of a second language (L2) need frequent contact with native speakers of that language in order to master its phonology? What if they hear audio recordings of native speakers and receive immediate corrective feedback about their perception? We used a randomized controlled experiment with 135 Chinese speakers (with English as their L2) to examine whether a high-variability perceptual training (HVPT) paradigm might enhance the perception of challenging contrasts between English voiced and voiceless stop consonants. Learners in all the age groups tested-middle childhood, early adolescence, and young adulthood-showed enhanced perception of English stop consonants after 20 five-minute training sessions conducted across 4 to 6 weeks, based on audio-recorded input coupled with corrective feedback. The training benefits were maintained at the one-month follow-up. Our results suggest that HVPT using audio-recordings of native speakers can be an affordable and useful language enrichment to supplement live interaction with native speakers, for L2 learners of a wide age range.
... It thus makes voiced and voiceless bilabial and alveolar plosives fairly identical in initial position in SAG. In Standard Southern British English (SSBE), by contrast, there is a clear voicing distinction in bilabial and alveolar plosives, which mainly results from aspiration: voiceless plosives are strongly aspirated while voiced plosives are devoiced (Deterding/Nolan, 2007). ...
... In the word list above, the /k/ in kadat ('forehead') has Voice Onset Time (VOT) of 32 msec, but there is minimal aspiration on the initial consonant of palad ('palm') and tulang ('bone'). In the North Wind and the Sun passage, the average VOT for initial /p/ is 8 msec, for /t/ it is 17 msec, and for /k/ it is 20 msec, confirming the /p/ < /t/ < /k/ ranking for VOT found in English (Docherty, 1992), Chinese (Deterding & Nolan, 2007) and Brunei Malay (Deterding & Ishamina, 2017). However, in Dusun the VOT for /k/ is quite variable, ranging from 6 msec to 49 msec for the /k/ in the eight tokens of kuat ('strong') in the passage. ...
Dusun is one of the officially-recognised indigenous languages of Brunei, though its continued existence is threatened by the dominance of Malay in the country. This paper describes the eighteen consonants and four vowels of Dusun, based on the reading of word lists and also the North Wind and the Sun passage translated into Dusun and read by a 54-year-old male speaker of the language.
... Equally, studies on voicing languages like Arabic have found only partial prevoicing in some Voiced stops and aspiration in Voiceless stops (e.g., Flege & Port, 1981, for Saudi Arabic;Kulikov, 2016, for Qatari Arabic). And while the patterns of voicing and aspiration have mainly been looked at in absolute initial position, these patterns are more complex in sentence-or word-medial position, with some aspirating languages showing evidence of passive voicing for Voiced stops which are meant to be phonetically voiceless (Beckman et al., 2013;Deterding & Nolan, 2007;Jessen, 1998Jessen, , 2001Kohler, 1984). Crucially though, these patterns of passive voicing have been found to be qualitatively different from active voicing. ...
This study explores which acoustic correlates best distinguish the voicing contrast in Lebanese Arabic, a language with a two-way voicing contrast that occurs with both singleton and geminate stops. The required timing, phonation and articulatory strength settings for each contrast act synergistically in the voiceless set, but it is unclear how the contrasting requirements for voiced geminates are implemented. Twenty adult speakers were recorded producing target words with medial singleton and geminate stops preceded by long and short vowels. Several temporal and non-temporal measures (duration, VOT, percent voicing, f0, F1, intensity, H1 *-H2 *) were taken in the surrounding vowels and in the closure and release phases. Results show that closure duration is the most important cue for distinguishing both voicing and gemination. Active and passive voicing patterns in the closure of voiceless and voiced stops point to [voice] as the main distinctive feature, with [tense] as a secondary feature for voiceless and for geminate stops, with a graded effect. Non-temporal correlates show geminates to have increased tension and creak. Crucially though, voicing is still active in voiced geminates, and release properties have more in common with lenis than fortis languages, leading to a complex profile for this marked category of sounds.
... but there is no significant difference between the values for /p/ and /t/ (t = 0.2, df = 32, p = .84). Greater aspiration for /k/ than for /p/ and /t/ is similar to what has been reported in other languages, such as English (Docherty 1992), French (Nearey & Rochet 1994), and Chinese (Deterding & Nolan 2007). Voiceless plosives in final position may be unreleased, as is the case with dapat 'can' in the third line of the passage and kuat 'strong' in the last line. ...
Brunei Malay (ISO 639-3: kxd ) is spoken in the Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam and also in some nearby places in East Malaysia such as Miri and Limbang in Sarawak (Asmah 2008: 65), on the island of Labuan (Jaludin 2003: 35) and around Beaufort in western Sabah (Saidatul 2003). Of the population of about 400,000 in Brunei, about two-thirds are native speakers of Brunei Malay (Clynes 2001), and the language is generally used as a lingua franca between the other ethnic groups (Martin 1996), so even most Chinese Bruneians, numbering about 45,000 (Dunseath 1996), are reasonably proficient in Brunei Malay. Although Standard Malay is promoted as the national language of Brunei (Clynes & Deterding 2011), in fact it is only used in formal situations, such as government speeches and television and radio broadcasts (Martin 1996). The language that is spoken most extensively is Brunei Malay, though English is also widely used by the educated elite (Deterding & Salbrina 2013).
