This study investigates how fluent second-language (L2) learners of English produce and perceive the /ae/-/?/ vowel contrast of Southwestern American English. Two learner groups are examined: (1) early, proficient English speakers who were raised by Spanish-speaking families but who became dominant in English during childhood and, as adults, lack…

In two eye-tracking experiments we examined whether wider discourse information helps the recognition of reduced pronunciations (e.g., "puter") more than the recognition of canonical pronunciations of spoken words (e.g., "computer"). Dutch participants listened to sentences from a casual speech corpus containing canonical and reduced target words.…

This study investigated where the consonantal constrictions take place when Korean coronal obstruents are articulated since there is disagreement over the place of articulation of these consonants. Unlike other studies in Korean phonetics, which focus on various acoustic features, the current study used static palatography (SPG) in the form of…

This study identified robust predictors of expressive skills in academic English as a foreign language. The participants were 92 Korean-speaking learners of English. The field test of the Pearson Test of English Academic was used as a secondary data analysis. Four communicative skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) and six enabling…

This year's conference theme, "Be Seen, Be Heard," reflected not only our goal of celebrating our achievements but also represented our intent of making sure everyone's voices are heard, especially during 2017's difficult political climate. The conference opened with a motivating address from Dean Laura E. Lyons, followed by an…

Recent years have seen a backlash against multiculturalism in many Western countries and increasing calls to restrict migration and citizenship rights to those who can pass language tests. This paper explores the sentiment of high school students who were born and raised in Australia towards issues of language and migration, including the need for…

The shape of a word pronunciation time distribution supplies information about the dynamic interactions that support reading performance. Speeded word-naming pronunciation and response time distributions were collected from 20 sixth grade Dutch students with dyslexia and 23 age-matched controls. The participants' pronunciation times were modeled…

The current study addresses an aspect of second language (L2) phonological acquisition that has received little attention to date--namely, the acquisition of allophonic variation as a word boundary cue. The role of subphonemic variation in the segmentation of speech by native speakers has been indisputably demonstrated; however, the acquisition of…

Accurate production of polysyllables (words of three or more syllables) can be challenging for children with phonological impairment. Research with typically developing children has suggested that children can improve their polysyllable productions in response to requests for clarification containing an incorrect model of a target word (Gozzard et…

A number of studies attest to the late language learner's ability to attain native-like outcomes in morphology and syntax, with accent often the only linguistic hint of their non-native status. Nevertheless, some do end up sounding native-like despite a late start. This article explores possible explanations for "exceptional"…

The discovery and characterization of a phonetic segment's variants and the prediction of their distribution are two of the chief goals of phonology. In this dissertation, I develop a new, mostly automatic technique for discovering and classifying contextual variation. The focus is on a set of sounds in English that undergoes considerable…

Background: Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) is a motor speech disorder in which a variety of segmental and suprasegmental errors lead to the perception of a new accent in speech. Whilst changes in intonation have been identified to contribute considerably to the perceived alteration in accent, research has rarely focused on how these changes impact…

Purpose: The autosegmental-metrical (AM) framework represents an established methodology for intonational analysis in unimpaired speaker populations but has found little application in describing intonation in motor speech disorders (MSDs). This study compared the intonation patterns of unimpaired participants (CON) and those with Parkinson's…

This study examined the lexical representation of words with two pronunciation variants. We tested whether both the schwa and reduced variants of French words are stored as lexical entries. The results of four experiments in which speakers named pseudohomophones and pseudowords show an advantage for pseudohomophones over matched pseudowords for…

This study explores the effects of integrating music into English pronunciation practice. Ninety-five English major students from a technological university located in central Taiwan participated in this project. Six songs were selected and played by means of using YouTube. Students were given a list of vocabulary words selected from the lyrics…