Background and Objectives: Normative reference of the connected speech measures (both micro-structural and macro-structural) for descriptive discourse is fundamental to systematic discourse analysis because it provides an anchor for comparison. This study aims to establish a comprehensive normative reference for connected speech measures in…

The current study investigated disfluency and self-repair in L2 presentational and interpersonal speech to determine whether speech modes may affect L2 self-repair. Knowledge of self-initiated repair behavior in L2 speech is particularly relevant for understanding psycholinguistic processes of L2 speech production. Different speech modes, such as…

We compared maternal speech in interactions of mothers with their firstborn dizygotic twin and singleton infants. Nine twins and nine singletons were video-recorded at home in spontaneous face-to-face interactions with their mothers, from the 2nd to the 6th month. Continuous micro-analysis revealed that there are more quantitative and qualitative…

Statistical learning, the ability to extract regularities from input (e.g., in language), is likely supported by learners' prior expectations about how component units co-occur. In this study, we investigated how adults' prior experience with sublexical regularities in their native language influences performance on an empirical language learning…

Interventions focused on the home language environment have been shown to improve a number of child language outcomes in the first years of life. However, data on the longer-term effects of the intervention are still somewhat limited. The current study examines child vocabulary and complex speech outcomes (N = 59) during the year following…

This study investigated if the language profiles of prelingually deaf children with bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) and children with typical hearing (TH) matched on their quantitative score on clinical spoken expressive language tasks differed in terms of sentence complexity, sentence length, and severity of grammatical errors. No significant…

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to assess the acoustical conditions in which optimal intelligibility and low listening difficulty can be achieved in real classrooms for elementary students, taking into consideration the effects of dysphonic voice and typical classroom noise. Method: Speech intelligibility tests were performed in six…

The significance of producing socially appropriate utterances, not just linguistically correct ones, has given rise to a plethora of studies on speech acts. In this regard, the performance of second and foreign language learners against the norms of the target language and the factors affecting them have yet to be thoroughly investigated. To…

Encouraging students' ability to reason can be looked at through the lens of both oral and written representations. In 2022, the author participated in the first intake of the Teacher Excellence Program run by the Victorian Teaching Academy. Being part of an in-depth professional learning program challenged the author's teaching practices to focus…

Due in part to its complex nature, there is still much to uncover in the investigation of the neural processes that contribute to synchronization between speakers and listeners during communication in the context of social cognition, specifically between native and nonnative English speakers and listeners. This study used a novel method of…

This dissertation investigates the relationship among language, gender/sexuality, and childhood through a digital and sociolinguistic ethnography with a national nonprofit organization, GLSEN. GLSEN's mission is to ensure K-12 schools provide safe and affirming spaces for LGBTQ+ students, through interventions with educators, students, parents,…

Research on intelligibility in international encounters has long focused on issues of pronunciation to the detriment of factors such as linguistic co-text and extralinguistic context, which are comparatively well-studied variables in intelligibility research concerning L1 listeners. This paper seeks to expand the scope of international…

Accent recognition refers to the problem of inferring the native language of a speaker from his foreign-accented speech. Differences in accent are due to both articulation and prosodic characteristics. The automatic identification of foreign accents is valuable for different speech systems, such as speech recognition, speaker identification or…

This paper advocates for using critical intercultural and participatory pedagogy as the basis for an introductory communication course. Communication programs are often concerned with the basics -- teaching students to communicate effectively through writing and speaking. Yet the methods for teaching these two classic competencies diverge widely,…

Many Aboriginal Australian communities are undergoing language shift from traditional Indigenous languages to contact varieties such as Kriol, an English-lexified Creole. Kriol is reportedly characterised by lexical items with highly variable phonological specifications, and variable implementation of voicing and manner contrasts in obstruents…