LCD720 – 03/25/08

1. LCD720 – 03/25/08 Phonology and speech perception

2. Announcements • Midterm • Looking ahead • Next four weeks: Interfaces • Last two weeks: Implementation • May 20: Final paper due (and last class!) • Final paper: • Lesson plan + justification of the plan (paper) • Start thinking about a topic now • Guidelines and grading rubric are on Blackboard; please review soon

3. Announcements • Homework assignments • Ungraded assignments for April 22 and 29 • Don’t need to hand in • Graded homework assignment due on May 6 (available on April 29) • Hand in in class or on Blackboard

4. Interfaces, or How pronunciation is involved in other parts of language knowledge and skills • Listening: perception • Grammar • Orthography (spelling) Today

5. Importance of perception in acquisition of phonology • Remember: Listening discrimination is an important first step in acquiring correct pronunciation (both segmental and suprasegmental features) • If students don’t hear the difference between sleep and slip, they can’t produce the difference either • Similar for word stress and sentence intonation

6. Importance of phonology for listening (perception) • Listening discrimination is also crucial for developing listening skills • Identifying phonemes, word stress and intonation correctly • Sleep vs. slip; thirty vs. thirteen; statement vs. question • Segmenting the speech stream correctly into words and phrases

7. How do native speakers listen? • They attend to stress and intonation (strongly and weakly stressed syllables) • They attend to stressed vowels • They segment speech and find words that correspond to the stressed vowels and the consonants next to them • They look for phrases that are compatible with the stress/intonation patterns in (1) and words in (3) These steps may proceed in parallel Listeners also use prior knowledge (schemata) Example: /greydey/

8. What is difficult for non-native speakers? • Each of the steps may pose problems: • Identifying phonemes, word stress, sentence intonation (step 1) • Finding words, esp. unfamiliar words (step 2 and 3) • Finding phrases and grammar (step 4) • Parallel processing • This requires automatized processing and sufficient working memory • Prior knowledge: e.g., cultural background knowledge • Result: mishearing or no comprehension

9. Assessing students’ listening difficulties • Dictation may show some of the students’ difficulties: • Not hearing unstressed syllables • Including function words (articles, prepositions!) and grammatical morphemes • Mishearing unfamiliar words • Including unknown culturally-related words, like names of people and places • Incorrect segmentation • E.g., no in instead of knowing • Incorrect identification of phonemes • E.g., /l/ instead of /r/

10. What to focus on • Intonation units and prominence • Reduced speech • Function words • Assimilation • Contractions • Ambiguities • Segmentation

11. More examples of reduced function words • Remember: • him, his, her, them: first consonant is dropped • and, of: last consonant is dropped • can, to, as, or, in, on: reduced vowel ə • will => /l̩/ (syllabic l); and /n̩/ (syllabic n) • What (wi)ll you do? • Bread (a)n(d) butter • Combinations of these processes: • have => /əv/, /v/ or /ə/ • of => /əv/ or /ə/

12. How did this happen? • What are the intermediate steps? • What processes (e.g., reduction, assimilation) are involved? • don’t know /downt now/ => /dənow/ • might have /mayt hæv/ => /mayɾə/ • should not have /ʃʊd nɑt hæv/ => /ʃʊdn̩təv/ => /ʃʊdn̩ə/

13. More examples of assimilation • (have) got to • have to • has to • want to • going to • don’t know • should have • might have • used to • shouldn’t have gotta hafta hasta wanna gonna donno/dunno shoulda mighta usta shouldn’t’ve/ shouldna gɑɾə hæftə hæstə wɑnə gʌnə dənow ʃʊdə mayɾə yuwstə ʃʊdn̩təv ʃʊdn̩ə

14. More examples of assimilation • Students can memorize these chunks and practice identifying them in a spoken text • E.g., they listen to a text, identify the assimilated forms and write out the full forms • Additional focus on ambiguous assimilated forms • Emphasize that this is informal speech, and should not be written

15. More examples of contractionsand blendings is, has: ’s had, would: ’d have: ’ve are: ’re will: ’ll not: n’t • Students should practice these contractions in chunks, like I’ll, he’d, they’re, who’s, where’re, how’s, etc. • Practice: identify the contractions and write out the full form • Focus on ambiguous contractions

16. Ambiguities due to reduced speech • What is the full form of these words? • Use the reduced forms in a sentence • /ɪm/ • /ɪz/ • /əz/ • /s/ • /ə/ • /ən/ • /d/ • /wɑtʃə/ him is, his is, as is, has of, have and, in, on had, would, did what do you, what have you, what you

17. Segmentation difficulties • Remember linking: • lef/t_arm, fin/d_out • Joa/n_Elson will sound like Joe_Nelson • gra/de_A will sound like gray day • There may be slight differences between the two members of the pair • Especially in connected speech, these differences may be difficult to hear

18. Segmentation difficulties • In other pairs, there are greater differences: • nitrate night rate • my turn might earn • key punching keep punching • Native speakers can hear these differences • ESL learners will need to practice them What is the difference? aspiration; release aspiration; flapping length of /p/

19. Teaching listening skills (perception) • Fill-in-the-blanks listening exercises • Open or multiple choice • Some basic rules: • Never have a gap in the first sentence • There should be enough time between the gaps to fill in the word • Use only familiar words; if possible, use a familiar text • Listen to the text twice before discussing the answers • Finish by listening to the text again Why?

20. Teaching listening skills (perception) Why? • Listening & reading • Listen to the text twice, and check for comprehension • Listen again and read along • Repeat until all words, function words, and morphemes are heard • Listen again without reading,focusing on the missed or misheard words • How to keep the students attention? Ask new, simple questions each time they listen Don’t forget

21. Teaching listening skills (perception) • Transcribing (in regular spelling) • Listen to and transcribe a text containing the targeted forms (e.g., reduced forms, assimilation, contractions) • Indicate the reduced/assimilated/contracted forms and provide their full forms • Listen to the text again

22. What does this exercise focus on? • Why would this work? • How can this exercise be improved? p. 232

23. What does this exercise focus on? • Why would this work? • How can this exercise be improved? p. 233

24. Next week • Read Chapter 8 • Construct a fill-in-the-blanks exercise for teaching contractions/blendings • Bring to class, and be ready to discuss it • Bring two copies of the text (empty blanks)