In the present experiment, the authors tested Mandarin and English listeners on a range of auditory tasks to investigate whether long-term linguistic experience influences the cognitive processing of nonspeech sounds. As expected, Mandarin listeners identified Mandarin tones significantly more accurately than English listeners; however,…

Purpose: Maximum flow declination rate (MFDR) in the glottis is known to correlate strongly with vocal intensity in voicing. This declination, or negative slope on the glottal airflow waveform, is in part attributable to the maximum area declination rate (MADR) and in part to the overall inertia of the air column of the vocal tract (lungs to…

This article outlines some of the key issues involved in developing a programme of strategy training for learners of French, in listening and in writing. It highlights the theoretical perspectives and research findings on listening and writing that informed the selection of strategies to teach learners and thence the development of appropriate…

A study of the phonetics of everyday conversational interaction looked specifically at the occurrence of the "oh" particle, a signal of the receipt of new information. Focus was on the phonetic characteristics of the "oh" utterance in this context. Data were drawn from British and American recorded telephone conversations. It was observed that…

The recitation of a nineteenth century Swahili poem is analyzed for the devices in spoken Swahili used by the performer to keep the audience's attention. The poem has a very formal structure in both rhyme, rhythm, and words linking one stanza to the next, giving it great rigidity. The primary focus of the analysis is on three variables:…

As an example leading toward a social grammar of language, three emotions are analyzed in English and Yoruba. Certain communication features in English that lie in intonation and stress require a change of grammar in Yoruba and that these changes are subject to further categorization through status and solidarity. (Author/RM)

An acoustic study of German focused on voice frequency at sentence-, turn-, and discourse-end in conversations. The data were drawn from short dialogues in which the same word occurs at the ends of utterances, in the middle of a turn, at the end of a turn, and at the end of a discourse. The dialogues were read 10 times by a male and a female…

The frequencies and co-occurrence distributions of some of the prosodic features in the speech of children are discussed. The emphasis is on the determination of systems and structure of non-segmental lectal variability in the children's speech without primary reference to function. The primary data consisted of selected episodes of connected…

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO SELECED ASPECTS OF THE LINGUISTICS ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH IS PRESENTED IN THIS MONOGRAPH. FOLLOWING A DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE AND AN EXPLANATION OF THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS, THE PEDAGOGICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE INADEQUACIES OF TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR ARE EXAMINED. THE CONSIDERATION OF STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH CENTERS ON PHONOLOGY…

IN ADDITION TO GIVING A COMPLETE DESCRIPTION OF THE GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE OF VIETNAMESE, THIS TEXT CONTAINS A STUDY OF VIETNAMESE PRONUNCIATION, BASED ON THE EDUCATED SPEECH OF HANOI, WHICH IS CONSIDERED STANDARD. ANOTHER ENTIRE SECTION IS DEVOTED TO DIALECTAL DIFFERENCES, SPECIFICALLY TO COMPARISONS WITH THE SPEECH OF SAIGON. ALL PHONOLOGY IS…

A STUDY WAS MADE TO CONFIRM CERTAIN OBSERVATIONS ABOUT SPANISH INTONATION PATTERNS, ESPECIALLY THOSE THAT PRESENT A STRIKING CONTRAST WITH ENGLISH INTONATION PATTERNS. TWENTY-FIVE SPANISH SENTENCES ILLUSTRATING PARTICULAR INTONATION PATTERNS WERE PREPARED, AND 25 STUDENTS, WHO HAD HAD AN AVERAGE OF FOUR SEMESTERS IN SPANISH, RECORDED THEM. THE…

Findings of a seminar which explored the current linguistics methods of teaching elementary reading and examined the background of this approach and some programs constant with it are presented. The seminar established the following set of criteria for describing the important characteristics of a linguistics method: (1) task definitions of…