LURA 2022-2

A Comparison of Syllable Length Between Kansai and Kanto Dialects of Japanese

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:06:04 +0000

A Comparison of Syllable Length Between Kansai and Kanto Dialects of Japanese Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/25/2022 - 12:06

Author: Madelyn Weber
Nominator: Rebecca Scarborough
Course: LING 3100 Language Sound Structures, Fall 2021
LURA 2022

Japanese is a language only spoken widely in Japan, however there are approximately 47 dialects spoken within the language, which makes for some interesting variations in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

I examined pronunciation differences between the Kanto and Kansai dialects. The Kanto dialect is spoken in and around Tokyo, the capital, located in the Kanto region of Japan. The Kansai dialect is spoken around the cities of Osaka and Kyoto, located in the Kansai region of Japan.

Japanese makes use of a syllabary writing system �� a written system in which each ��letter�� represents a consonant-vowel pair, pronounced as a syllable. Japanese spoken pronunciation, however, is based off of a system of moras �� a phonological unit of sound, similar to a syllable, that consists of a consonant-vowel (CV) construction and denotes timing in pronunciation, where each mora is pronounced for the same duration of time. Due to this, Japanese can only accept a CV sound structure, with the exception of the sound /n/, which is composed of a single consonant. As an example, we can look at the Japanese word for ��Japanese language,�� ձ��Z /ni.ho.n.go/, which consists of four moras (syllables). Each mora has been split up by periods within the transcription above. So, when pronouncing the word /ni.ho.n.go/, each mora should be pronounced for the same approximate measure of time.

I am specifically analyzing how mora (syllable) length changes between the Tokyo and Osaka dialects, especially in monosyllabic words. A well-known trait in the Tokyo dialect of Japanese is that monosyllabic words �� or words that consist of only a single mora/syllable �� are pronounced for the same measure of time as any other mora within a given sentence, but in the Osaka dialect, such single-mora words tend to be lengthened so that they will take up the measure of two moras. For example, we can look at the Japanese word for ��eye��, Ŀ [me], which consists of one mora. For an Osaka dialect speaker, it is expected that they would lengthen the final vowel [e], to produce the two-mora pronunciation /me.e/ or [me?].

Using the software Praat, I was able to measure the length of different monosyllabic words spoken by native Japanese speakers; two native Tokyo dialect speakers and two native Osaka dialect speakers.

Data 1: Example sentences, along with IPA transcription and English translation.

In order to examine whether or not Osaka dialect speakers truly lengthen the vowel sound in monosyllabic words, and to measure the extent of lengthening, we can look at monosyllabic word pronunciation lengths and compare them against non-monosyllabic words. This is done by taking words which contain the same sounds as the monosyllabic words, but only measuring the individual sound itself, rather than the entire word. We can then compare these against the length measures of a lengthed sound.

Measuring Process Example:

The monosyllabic word for ��letter; character�� in Japanese is �� [?i]. We compare this against the Japanese word for ��Chinese character��, �h�� [kan?i], as well as the word for ��grandfather��, �� 游�� [o?i?san]. Here, a measure for the length of pronunciation is gathered for the monosyllabic word [?i], and is compared to the measure for the lengthened sound [?i?] in [o?i?san], as well as the sound [?i] embedded within the word [kan?i].

Data 2: Words examined along with approximate average pronunciation lengths per dialect.

After collecting the data of different pronunciation length measures, we can compare them in the tables below.

Data 3: Difference in length measures between monosyllabic and word-embedded sounds.

Data 4: Difference in length measurements between monosyllabic and lengthened sounds:

From Data 3 and 4, it appears as if the Osaka dialect, on average, has much larger differences

in length of pronunciation between moras for monosyllabic words and for that of the same sound embedded within another word. Seeing such large gaps in difference in pronunciation time supports the expectation that monosyllabic words are lengthened from the length of one mora to two. This is further backed up by looking at the difference in pronunciation length of monosyllabic words and those of the words containing the same or similar lengthened sounds, in which the Osaka dialect is showing smaller differences in the length of pronunciation. This backs up the idea that the two-mora pronunciations are similar in length to the monosyllabic words of the Osaka dialect. We can go one step further by examining half the time it takes for both dialects to pronounce monosyllabic words. So, if the Osaka dialect truly does pronounce their monosyllabic words for the length of two moras, then the halved length of such words should more closely reflect the length of pronunciation for that of similar sounds embedded in other words.

Data 5: Division on pronunciation length by dialect.

As can be seen from the table above, on average, the divided measures for monosyllabic words from the Osaka dialect displays pronunciation lengths closer to that of the single mora sounds embedded within words. So we can conclude that while the exact length of monosyllabic words spoken in the Osaka dialect are indeed lengthened when compared to their Tokyo dialect counterparts, they are not always pronounced for the approximate measurement of two mora lengths.a

https://www.jay-han.com/2008/02/28/what-is-kanto-and-kansai/

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Your Words Are Music to My Ears

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 06:21:31 +0000

Your Words Are Music to My Ears Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/25/2022 - 00:21

Author: Olivia Walt
Nominator: Rebecca Scarborough
Course: LING 3100 Language Sound Structures, Fall 2021
LURA 2022

Anyone who takes a language class at some point in their life is practically guaranteed to use music to help facilitate their learning, so common practice has it become in language classrooms across the globe. Language learners everywhere can be found learning songs to help them memorize specific, often unique linguistic features �C from alphabets of sound structures to eccentric colloquial phrases. This is possible because like understanding language, listening to music involves carefully interpreting complex patterns of sound.

Considering this evident overlap of music and spoken language, it may seem reasonable to assume that having an affinity for one automatically grants an advantage to the other. However, it turns out that this is not always the case.

In the attempt to discover how much (if at all) having an affinity for music affects a person��s ability to recognize/process English vowels, I conducted an independent study wherein I asked a variety of individuals �C both of musical and non-musical backgrounds �C to listen to, identify, and then replicate three synthesized vowel sounds made to emulate real spoken vowels. Vowels are a lot like musical chords in that each consists of a complex combination of multiple different frequencies, or pitches, produced at the same time. Therefore, I started my research expecting to see a generally positive relationship between the extent of a person��s musicality and the accuracy with which they were able to perceive and reproduce the study sounds.

Created using Praat software, the sounds I provided for my study participants to hear were combinations of ��pure�� tones (i.e., sounds with a single frequency) layered on top of one another, resulting in highly digitalized-sounding composite tones when played all together. For example, to create a synthesized vowel /i/ (as in ��beet��), I combined 3 tones with measured frequencies of 280 Hz, 2207 Hz, and 2254 Hz. You can hear the resulting sound, as well as see a visual representation of it, in the recording and graph given below:

Link to recording of Synthesized Vowel 1 (/i/): https://1drv.ms/u/s!AiwsjjI_oD8lzzQ8-XzfI_NEr_7y?e=qLMtKH

Spectrogram of Synthesized Vowel 1 (/i/)

The lines of red dots shown on the above spectrogram represent the individual ��pure�� tone frequencies (also called ��formants�� in natural speech) that when played simultaneously, produce a synthesized version of the correlating vowel (EDUHK, 2021, Pich��, 1997, and ��Using Formants��, 2019). In addition to /i/, I also created synthesized versions of the vowels /o/ (as in ��orchard��) and /?/ (as in ��hat��). All were pretty simple to create and were intended to be relatively easy for an individual to distinguish from each other, regardless of whether they proved easy to identify.

While ��easy�� might not be the best descriptor to use when characterizing the participants�� actual responses to the study activity, the overall feedback was nonetheless significant. Interestingly, out of all the individuals who participated, those who identified as ��non-musicians�� appeared the most likely to create each study sound as they heard it (i.e., their perceptions of the sounds matched their own reproductions of them). By a similar token, the participants whose perceptions didn��t match their productions often ended up adding more acoustic features to their sound productions than they described as hearing �C e.g., giving the sound a more nasalized quality, or combining two sounds together. Many of these individuals seemed to do this unconsciously, perhaps further endorsing their affinity to decode sounds through a perspective centered around musicality as opposed to linguistic meaning.

In terms of correctness of identification, out of the three synthesized vowels, /i/ was accurately identified the most often. It also had the fewest occasions of perceptions that did not align with productions. This may indicate that there is an inverse relationship between the number of accurate identifications of a synthesized vowel and the frequency at which it is perceived one way but produced another.

Upon considering all the above conclusions, it appears more likely that a person with a higher degree of musical background may experience more difficulty in attempting to identify a vowel from a set of raw, pure tone frequencies alone. This goes against my initial prediction in the sense that, even as musicians become quite skilled at interpreting tones as individual ��musical�� notes, this might get in the way of their ability to interpret the tones together as a spoken vowel sound.

How, then, do we best treat language learners who may find it especially difficult to learn a language��s sound system due to their stronger inclination towards processing individual speech sounds in terms of perceived ��musical�� attributes rather than phonemic meaning? Using my initial research as a starting point, I hope to dive further into this question, as well as countless others that have arisen as a result, all with the intent of continuing to bridge the gap between language and music within the scope of education and beyond.

Header image credit: http://whs-blogs.co.uk/teaching/links-romance-languages-music/

Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. (2016). Praat (Version 6.1.16). University of Amsterdam. https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/

EdUHK. (2021). 2.2 Formants of vowels. Phonetics and phonology. https://corpus.eduhk.hk/english_pronunciation/index.php/2-2-formants-of-vowels/

Pich��, J. (Ed.). 1997. Table III: Formant values. The csound manual (version 3.48): A manual for the audio processing system and supporting programs with tutorials. Analog Devices Incorporated. https://www.classes.cs.uchicago.edu/archive/1999/spring/CS295/Computing_Resources/Csound/CsManual3.48b1.HTML/Appendices/table3.html

Using formants to synthesize vowel sounds. (2019, July 17). SoundBridge. https://soundbridge.io/formants-vowel-sounds/

How does having an ear for music impact a person��s ability to recognize English vowel sounds?

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Polylithic Patterns of Newfoundlander English

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 06:15:20 +0000

Polylithic Patterns of Newfoundlander English Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/25/2022 - 00:15

Author: Kinley Rex
Nominator: Rebecca Scarborough
Course: LING 3100 Language Sound and Structures, Fall 2021
LURA 2022

Newfoundland is often referred to as the most homogenous province in Canada, with 98% of its residents speaking English (Decker, 1970). However, the combination of historical migration patterns, the geography of the island, as well the rapidly changing socioeconomic class makes the English found in Newfoundland far from monolithic. Due to these factors, the province has been deemed to have the ��greatest regional diversity (in terms of language) to be found anywhere in North America�� (Decker, 1970). Most of the migration to the island came from southwest England and Southeast Ireland, due to the booming fishing industry.

For my final project, for Dr. Rebecca Scarborough��s Language Sound and Structure (Ling 3100) class, I explored the realization of the /l/ phoneme throughout the differing dialects across the island. These realizations include light and dark /l/. A light [l] is created when a speaker places their tongue behind their teeth and allows air to pass the sides of their tongue. A dark [?] is produced similarly to the light [l] in terms of tongue position but differs in the back of the tongue. The back of the tongue lifts slightly to the back of the mouth creating tension in the throat.

Attributable to the migration patterns of the island, it was hypothesized that Newfoundlander English speakers exhibit a light /l/ in the coda, as well as the onset portions of the word similar to many Irish dialects. The coda of the word can be described as the sound that occurs at the end of the word. The onset of the word is the sound that occurs at the beginning portion of the word. I predicted that although a majority of dialects exhibited the light [l] realizations seen in Irish English, there would be some instances where speakers would follow a more ��standard�� North American realization of the phoneme. This was due to the mixed migration patterns found on the island as well as the influence of modern technology often associated with ��standard�� North American English.

The data collected and presented throughout this project was composed of linguistic samples of four native Newfoundlanders ranging in ages, gender, and geographical origin. Their geographical locations ranged from the capital city of Newfoundland, St. Johns, to a smaller fishing town by the coast. The realizations and the pronunciations of the /l/ phoneme are dependent on the placement of the sound within a word. The words that were selected for the language samples demonstrate the /l/ in the coda of the word as well as the /l/ in the onset of the word. Words were said in short phrases to allow the speaker to have the most natural pronunciation and get the most accurate representation of the phoneme. The words were selected to clearly contrast the sounds in word-final position and word-initial position. For example, the phrase ��pay labs�� shows the /l/ phoneme word-initially while the phrase ��pale abs�� shows the phoneme word-finally. Since the phrases utilized similar words and sounds, it made it easier to distinguish between the light and dark allophones.

In order to determine these realizations, I utilized spectrographic analysis. A spectrogram analyzes the formants, or the specific frequencies, amplified by the shape of the vocal tract within a word. I focused primarily on the second formant (F2). If the F2 dips significantly compared to F1, it is a dark /l/; if it stays around the same height, it is a light /l/. As illustrated in the Corpus spectrogram in Figure 1, the light [l] depicts hardly any decrease in frequency when focusing on F2. This is contrasted with the significant decrease in frequency seen in the dark [?].

Figure 1: Spectrograms comparing light /l/ (top) and dark /l/ (bottom) taken from Corpus.

When comparing the spectrogram in Figure 1, collected and created by Corpus, and the spectrogram, seen in Figure 2, utilizing a linguistic sample I collected from a Newfoundlander English speaker, a similar frequency pattern can be seen. As discussed above, the patterns of decreasing frequency in the second formant (F2) determines whether or not a speaker produced a light or dark /l/ in their linguistic sample. F2 for light /l/ occurs between 950-1,500 Hz and for dark /l/ the F2 occurs between 650-850 Hz (Corpus). The data in Figure 1, which demonstrates how a dark and light /l/ are manifested on a spectrogram, proves that the Newfoundlander English Speaker, in Figure 2, produced a light [l] when producing the word ��steel�� and a dark [?] when producing the word ��able.��

Figure 2: Spectrograms comparing the light /l/ in the phrase ��steel assets�� and dark /l/ in the word ��able�� from the phrase ��feel able.�� These samples were taken from an individual Newfoundlander English speaker.

Figure 3 shows how often a speaker of ��standard '' North American English would utilize a light /l/ and when they would use a dark /l/. It also shows the position in which this occurs. This data is being compared to speakers of Newfoundlander English utilizing the same word list. As demonstrated in this figure, there is a significant difference in the positional realization of the allophone /l/ in ��standard '' North American English from Newfoundlander English but there are also similarities in the position in which certain allophones appear.

Figure 3: Comparison of how often SAE and Newfoundlander English realize a dark or light /l/.

By viewing and analyzing the data collected, my hypothesis was accepted to be true. Newfoundlander English speakers demonstrated the positional variation of the light /l/ in the word final position at a much higher rate than ��standard�� American English speakers. It is important to note that other aspects of a speaker's identity may impact the frequency in which they produce a realization. Not all these factors were specifically addressed during my data analysis, such as gender or sexuality, but would be an interesting continuation of my research. Further accumulation of data would allow for there to be a more thorough analysis of how demographics affect phoneme occurrence. I did find however a connection between generation and the rate at which the speaker is utilizing the word-final light /l/. The data shows that older generations (65 -75 year olds) produce a light /l/ more frequently in word final position when compared to younger generations (35-45 year olds). This can be due to the growing access to social media and more ��standard language.�� As generations have more contact with the mainland and technology, a change in language can be observed. The data presented throughout this analysis demonstrated the immense amount of linguistic diversity that exists within the island of Newfoundland and how closely connected it is to the island��s history. Viewing the pronunciation and realization of the /l/ phoneme offers a small glimpse into the incredible amount of variation found in Newfoundlander English.

Header image credit: photo taken by Kiney Rex

3.2. Acoustic Aspects of Consonants - Corpus. https://corpus.eduhk.hk/english_pronunciation/index.php/3-2-acoustic-aspects-of-consonants/.

Decker, Paul De, and Sara Mackenzie. ��Tracking the Phonological Status of /L/ in Newfoundland English: Experiments in Articulation and Acoustics.�� Scitation, Acoustical Society of America ASA, 1 Jan. 1970, https://asa.scitation.org/doi/figure/10.1121/1.4991349.

How do other American dialects differ from the most linguistically diverse community in North America?

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Empowering Native Language in the English Classroom

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 22:38:15 +0000

Empowering Native Language in the English Classroom Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 04/24/2022 - 16:38

Authors: Cameron Perkins and Topher Yanagihara
Nominator: Rai Farrelly
Course: LING 4620 Teaching L2 Oral Skills and Communication, Fall 2021
LURA 2022

Does learning a new language have to come at the cost of your native language? One common phenomenon in English-speaking countries is the loss of mother languages over the course of a few generations. As the world becomes an increasingly interconnected space, economic pressures and language prestige combine to crowd out minority native languages in favor of larger international languages such as English. This continued expansion of the English diaspora disproportionately affects marginalized groups speaking minority languages who do not have the social or economic standing to advocate for themselves. If teachers of English do not make an active effort to consider and engage with this truth then they risk becoming tools of obliteration, smothering out minority languages as they go. English education does not have to be this way and can have a regenerative impact on minority languages, when taught mindfully and with intention in such a way as to spread proficiency and use of English alongside native languages, instead of in their place.

For our part as prospective English teachers as students in an oral skills class at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� we developed an English language curriculum based around language revitalization and language loss. This curriculum was designed with the goal of providing appropriate, intermediate (CEFR level B2) level English practice while also respecting the learners as agents of change - capable of processing, speaking about, and proposing solutions to the problems that can be caused by the expanding English speaking world. Our curriculum is split into three 90 minute lessons, each focusing on specific aspects of the topic of Language Revitalization.

In preparing the content of these lessons, we looked into the current status of indigenous minority languages in the United States as well as the historical pretext that led to the current state of these languages. We have created activities and lessons that expose learners to information regarding the dark history of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and other such acts of cultural erasure. It is important for us to respect the students�� maturity in discussing serious topics while maintaining appropriate expectations for their English language abilities. Students practice their listening and speaking skills in their discussions of the content and through genuine engagement both to strengthen their English and raise awareness of the value their native language provides.

The latter portion of our curriculum steers students away from the pessimism of language loss and towards the optimism of language revitalization. On our part, we looked into examples of language revitalization across the globe. Some of the most important aspects of language revitalization are resource availability, both monetary and with regards to teaching material and/or qualified teachers, as well as positive community attitude towards the language. To incorporate this into our curriculum, we ask learners to research a minority heritage, or their native language. Often with the goal of focusing learners on their home language, and then identify possible solutions to any negative effects English use may be having on their language. In this way students can engage with their heritage languages and continue their use and spread through English.

Overall, we hope that this curriculum upholds our goal of turning English into a regenerating influence on minority languages instead of the destructive influence it can be. In the ever more interconnected world that we all share together English does have value as a world language allowing the sharing of ideas and cultures from all over. However in the pursuit of English we must continue to place value on languages other than English and by engaging with those languages in meaningful ways we hope to combat language prestige and imbue learners with a sense of confidence and pride with regards to their own cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Rather than becoming ashamed of their perceived lack of English skill it is important to lift these learners up and bring their attention to the skills they have in their native language and through acknowledgement and engagement strengthen their English skills along the way.

Header image credit: https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c26134/

Expanding access to English does not need to come with a loss of native languages.

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