Foundations of psycholinguistics

1. Foundations of psycholinguistics Week 4 Early speech sound development Vasiliki (Celia) Antoniou

2. Today • Brief review about prosody • Speech perception • Speech production • Assignment queries

3. Review: Prosody • Includes properties like rhythm/stress, intonation • Low auditory frequency information, transmitted to the womb (5-7 month of gestation) • Rhythm is used by newborns to recognise and prefer their native language • Prosody helps infants to initialise acquisition of other linguistic areas = bootstrapping • Lexicon: Stress pattern used to segment words • Syntax: Sensitivity to pauses and other prosodic markers that signal clause boundaries

4. Prosody and speech perception From what age can English infants use word stress to recognise words in fluent speech? 0 months 5 months • 7 months 10 months

5. Speech sound perception Voice Onset Time in stops (e.g. [b] vs. [p]): Time betweenopening of closure and onset of vocal fold vibrations bpa 0 ms VOT bpa 20 ms VOT bpa 40 ms VOT bpa60 ms VOT ba pa Wood 1976

6. Categorical perception • Human adults are better at discriminating pairs of sounds across category boundaries (e.g. ba1 vs. pa1) than within categories (e.g. ba1 vs. ba2)

7. Othercontrasts • As for adults, speech rate affects categorisation the same token can be perceived as pa in fast speech and ba in slow speech • Infants can also perceive subtle differences between vowels (e.g. a vs. o, see Kuhl’s work) although they have some difficulties with speaker variation

8. Audiovisual integration • Adults automatically integrate audio and visual information • McGurkeffect: audio ba and visual ga lead to perception of intermediate ‘da’ in most adult subjects • This effect has also been found in infants as young as 5 months!

9. Whatishuman about this? • Humanspeech perception abilitiespresentatbirthare shared with otheranimals • chinchillas and quailscanbetrained to perceivesoundscategorically i.e Ba vs. Pa • tamarin monkeysand rats candiscriminatebetweenrhythmicallydifferentlanguages Japanese quail Cotton-top Tamarin

10. ‘Later’ speech perception Methods to investigate speech sound discrimination later in life (4-18 months) Infant EEG Conditioned HeadturnProcedure

11. Changes in speech perception Percentage of infants reaching CHT criterion Engl. 6-8m Engl. 8-10 ms Engl. 10-12m Native 11-12m Werker & Tees (1984)

12. Changes in speech perception • sensitivityloss for other non-native contrasts • Decrease for r-l distinction in Japanese infants at8m • Decrease for [u]-[y] in English infants at 6m • but: stable performance for some clicks, and for d-th distinction in French learners • enhancementfor difficultnative contrastsbetween 6 and 12 months • r-l discrimination increased in English learners • na-ŋaincreased in Filipino learners

13. Milestones in native speech perception Birth Languagepreference 6 - 9 m Stress perception 6 m Vowel perception 8 – 12 mths Consonant perception

14. Native speech production First vocalisations Birth– 1 month Crying, sounds of (dis) comfort • 1 month– 5 months • Vocalisations with mouthclosure • Cooing, first productions thatsoundlike glottal or back vowel or consonants • First vocal play, imitation

15. Speech production preparationLarynx descent and speech • larynx ishigher in infants (b) thanin adults(a) • descentstartsat3 months • speech and choking possible from4-6 months • descentfinishesat4 years (boys: more changes duringpuberty)

16. Native speech production Babbling phases First vocalisations Birth– 1 month Crying, sounds of (dis) comfort 5-6 months Reduplicative canonical babbling (i.e. babababa) • 1 month– 5 months • Vocalisations with mouthclosure • Cooing, first productions thatsoundlike glottal or back vowel or consonants • First vocal play, imitation

17. Babbling Phase I reduplicative/ canonical babbling • first speech-like productions • repetitions of one syllable e.g. [babababa]

18. Native speech production Babbling phases First vocalisations 5-6 months Reduplicative/ canonical babbling (i.e. babababa) Birth– 1 month Crying, sounds of (dis) comfort • 1 month– 5 months • Vocalisations with mouthclosure • Cooing, first productions thatsoundlike glottal or back vowel or consonants • First vocal play, imitation 8-10 months Variegatedbabbling (i.e. bagota)

19. Babbling Phase II variegatedbabbling • combinations of differentsyllables e.g. [badotu] • soundsand intonation adapt to resembletargetlanguage e.g. more stops in Swedish

20. Native speech production Babbling phases First vocalisations 5-6 months Reduplicative/ canonical babbling (i.e. babababa) Birth– 1 month Crying, sounds of (dis) comfort 10-12 months: jargon Unintelligiblechains (‘babble stories’) • 1 month– 5 months • Vocalisations with mouthclosure • Cooing, first productions thatsoundlike glottal or back vowel or consonants • First vocal play, imitation 8-10 months Variegatedbabbling (i.e. bagota)

21. Native speech production First vocalisations Babbling phases 10-12 months: jargon Unintelligiblechains (‘babble stories’) 5-6 months Reduplicative/ canonical babbling (i.e. babababa) Birth– 1 month Crying, sounds of (dis) comfort 10 -16 months First word production • 1 month– 5 months • Vocalisations with mouthclosure • Cooing, first productions thatsoundlike glottal or back vowel or consonants • First vocal play, imitation 8-10 months Variegatedbabbling (i.e. bagota) • 1. Transition frombabbling • 2. No ‘silentperiod’ in between • smooth transition, • babbling and wordsco - occur

22. More about early phonology • Good summary on infants speech perception • Houston (2011). Infant speech perception. In Seewald & Tharpe: Comprehensive Handbook of Pediatric Audiology. Plural Publishing (on Moodle) • Good book on early speech and language • de Boysson-Bardies (1999). How Language Comes to Children: From Birth to Two Years. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

23. 1st Assignment • Deadline?? Friday, November 9 • Try testing the Online submission system (OCS) • Check the Departmental handout for formatting your essay and referencing rules (p. 89 – 96): http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/publications/booklets/undergraduate_handbook/Handbook%20UG%202012-13.pdf • Exemplary essays: http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/current_students/Guidelines_e_d_t/Assignment/exemp_essays.aspx • Word limit? 1000 words • Topic? How does infants’ perception of speech sounds change during the first year of life?

24. 1stassignement • Read your sources: the coursebook, the lecture slides, the additional reading materials, the class slides and notes • Make a plan! Introduction, Main Body, Conclusion, make a note of the key points you need to address Hints: • Vowel vs consonant contrasts and perception • Infants get better at different native contrasts • Check our previous class presentations for more about prosody and its contribution to speech perception • E-mail me an outline! • Support your arguments with examples and reference to studies where possible. • Acknowledge your sources otherwise you commit plagiarism!

25. Format • Fonts: 12, Times New Roman, double spaced • Italicise Journal names, article / book titles that appear in your main text body • Be consistent! Whatever way you choose to do things it should be (p. 66) when you cite pages and not (Mehler: 66) and further down (Mehler, 69) or (Mehler, p. 69) • Follow this link for additional help with structure, vocabulary and expressions, writing your references, abbreviations: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~vanton/ScanImage004.pdf

26. Common essay mistakes • Include an introduction and a conclusion! • Reference all the resources you have used and remember to include page numbers. Create a reference list at the end of your essay...... • Create paragraphs according to topic..when you change topic, change paragraph. • Pay attention to punctuation. • Avoid using long sentences. • When you write something use an example to illustrate what you say, and if needed, reference the example. • Make sure that what you put in the essay is absolutely necessary –this will reduce your word count • Use theory and references, your textbook etc. and do not simply rely on class/lecture notes

27. When you’ve written your essay leave it for 1-2 days and get back to it later..you’ll be surprised! • When you can’t find a reference here are a few tips: • Search the reference list of our text book, usually the reference will be there. • If not search the library catalogue or google the reference (author’s name, date).

28. Read the essay 3 times • 1st you read in order to check the content: Have I answered the questions? Is what I write correct according to what I’ve read? Have I left anything important out? Do I have any examples? • The 2nd time you read in order to check the structure: intro-conclusion, cohesion, do the ideas flow logically?, long sentences, do I have paragraphs, a reference list, have I used signposting?

29. The 3rd time you read in order to check the punctuation, whether you’ve followed one way in referencing, line spacing, fonts and font size, page numbering, your details, etc. • Don’t forget to write your class instructor’s name!