/fɑɪs/, /fes/ or /feɪs/? Teachers’ phonetic accommodation of diphthongs in an L2 classroom setting

Author(s): Piotr Steinbrich / Language(s): English / Issue: 11/2016

The following paper aims to investigate whether, and if so to what extent, native speaker teachers resort to phonetic accommodation in the use of diphthongs in the classroom setting. In the course of analysis, seven native speaker teachers, each representing a different variety of British English, were recorded in two distinct contexts: classroom and natural. The recordings were used in acoustic analysis in order to gauge potential differences in F1 and F2 in each context. It was concluded that phonetic accommodation does occur in the classroom setting and the modifications of either individual segments or the whole glides can be observed, irrespective of the native accent of the user. It was found, however, that the speakers representing northern varieties of English accommodate more than those speaking with other accents. Another important observation resulting from the analysis was that some diphthongs are likely to undergo phonetic accommodation more than others. On the one end of the cline we observe the diphthong price, whereas the other end is occupied by the glides goat and cure. It is still unclear, however, whether the modifications occur consciously, thus representing a rather developed declarative knowledge of the users, or subconsciously, which would suggest an inner need to attempt to pronounce diphthongs in a standardized way.

/Õ/ HÄÄLDUSE VARIEERUMINE

Author(s): Pire Teras / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 63/2017

There are 9 vowels in Estonian: /i, ü, u, e, ö, õ, o, ä, a/. Unlike other vowels the classification of the vowel /õ/ has been problematic. In the phonetic transcriptions /õ/ has been transcribed as [ɤ] or [ɯ] (IPA) or [e̮] (Finno-Ugric transcription). What are the possible reasons for this variance? This paper gives an overview of the results of experimental phonetic research focusing on the quality of /õ/: articulation, acoustics and perception. All these results, as well as phonetic transcriptions of Estonian dialects, point to variation in the quality of /õ/. In the articulation of different speakers the configuration of the body of the tongue and its height are similar to the close back vowel /u/ or to the close-mid back vowel /o/, but /õ/ is unrounded ([ɯ] or [ɤ]). In the acoustic analyses /õ/ has rather been compared to the close-mid vowels than close vowels, admitting that /õ/ can be closer than other close-mid vowels. Perception tests have shown that /õ/ occupies the space corresponding to both the close-mid and close vowels. The pronunciation of /õ/ can also vary due to the speaker’s regional background. Phonologically, /õ/ has been classified as an unrounded close-mid central or back vowel or unrounded close back vowel. Considering the phonetic variation of /õ/, a compromise in the classification of /õ/ can be that it is an unrounded non-open back vowel.

[ˈhӕrəs] or [,həˈrӕs], [’hɒtəl] or [həʊˈtɛl]? – What/ Whose Language Do Our Students Learn (and Why)?

Author(s): Andreea Bratu / Language(s): English / Issue: XX/2019

Learners of a foreign language (L2) are to a greater or smaller extent influenced by their native tongue (L1), be it at the level of the structures used or at the lexical and morphological levels (tenses used according to the L1 verbal behavior, to give just one example). The purpose of this paper is twofold: to investigate the deviations from the standard pronunciation in English that are common among Romanian students, trying to explain them, and to analyse the choices they make between British and American pronunciation. Questionnaires have been used with Ist and IInd year students of the English Department of the Faculty of Letters in Craiova.

[voice] And/versus [spread glottis] in the modified Leiden model

Author(s): Dániel Huber,Katalin Balogné Bérces / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2010

The paper stresses the need to distinguish between two subtypes of binary laryngeal systems, viz. [voice] languages versus [spread glottis] languages (“laryngeal realism”—Honeybone 2005). It criticizes the use of the primes H and L for this distinction in Government Phonology, and proposes an alternative representation, based on Backley-Takahashi (1998) and Nasukawa-Backley (2005). This feature geometric model assumes the same set of melodic components for obstruents and sonorants within a system but with a difference in the status of source elements across the language types. Therefore, accompanied by the mechanism of element activation, it is claimed to capture the cross-linguistic observations more adequately.

10. Стих как мелодическое единство

Author(s): Yuri M. Lotman / Language(s): Russian / Issue: 1/1964

Неоднократно указывалось, что стих - основная элементарная единица поэтической речи. При этом давно уже было замечено, что найти определение признаков этой единицы затруднительно. Определение его как некоей ритмической константы противоречит хорошо. известным фактам из истории вольных и свободных размеров. Весьма распространенные в русской басне, комедии, а иногда и поэме (ср. «Душеньку» И. Богдановича) XVIII - нач. XIX вв. вольные ямбические размеры решительно уклонялись от деления текста на ритмически константные (равностопные) единицы.

1759 metų Ziwato moteriškojo linksniavimo daiktavardžiai ir jų raida

Author(s): Sonata Vaičiakauskienė / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 68/2013

The present article is devoted to the analysis of the development of the feminine-type declension nouns as represented by the 18th century best record of the Northern Zemaiciai (Samogitians) of Kretinga Dialect – the Ziwato, published in 1759. The feminine-type declension comprises three kinds of stem: ā and ā, and also ē stems. The data of the Ziwato Dialect were compared with the data of the present-day form use in the Northern Zemaiciai of Kretinga Dialect. The comparative study of the noun stem paradigms revealed certain characteristic features and tendencies in the morphological development of proper names in the Northern Zemaiciai of Kretinga Dialect. The comparative analysis proved that changes in the noun forms of the feminine-type declension and the abundance of homonymous forms had been preconditioned by the phonetic developments in the Dialect as well as by the patterns of stressing. Thus the morphological development of the dialect depends both on morphological and phonological phenomena.

1918–1940 M. STATYBOS TERMINIJOS DŪRINIŲ DARYBOS POLINKIAI

Author(s): Lina Rutkienė / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 92/2019

The article deals with the compound constructional terms in scientific literature, published between 1918 and 1940. In Lithuania, during the interwar period, the construction sector was rapidly expanding, there were many new realities, which called for many new terms, including compounds. Exclusive personalities were very important for the development of construction terms of this period and for the formation of this professional language: Kazimieras Vasiliauskas, Jonas Šimoliūnas, Pranas Morkūnas, Anatolijus Rozenbliumas, Pranas Jodele, Jonas Kiškinas, Juozas Gabrys and others. Not only did these construction engineers carry out significant research, writing articles and books, teaching young people, but also enriched construction terminology. Quantitative data of related terms from 33 scientific papers and articles on construction indicate that during the interwar period compounding was an important way of developing construction terms: in the literature read, 262 related compound terms were found. The German equivalents presented in addition to some of the compounds make the assumption that the Lithuanian compounds are to be regarded as partial or full evaluations. Although general types of Lithuanian compound terms are characterized by the same major types of compounding found in the the present Lithuanian language, analyzing the period from 1918 to 1940 construction terminology compounds, it is determined that they are made according to 10 types of production.

3 ІСТОРІЇ ДІАЛЕКТНОГО СЛОВА ДРОЗКИ ‘СКАЛКИ’

Author(s): Mykola Verbovyi / Language(s): Ukrainian / Issue: 69/2021

The article presents an analysis of the peculiarities of the origin of the secondary form дрозки ‘rolling pin’ and highlights the specifics of the existence of variant forms of the noun in the Ukrainian language from the end of the 19th to the end of the 20th century. The analyzed word is a phonetic variant of the literary noun друзки , which is a loan translation of the Polish noun used in the construction rozbić w druzgi . The adaptation of the Polish phrase in Western Ukrainian dialects led to the emergence of the noun дрізки , which is a literary variant of the noun друзки . In the east, Ukrainian dialects mostly retain the form of друзки , which in the 17th century, as a result of analogy, changed to дрозки . The change took place in the Poltava region, from where a new phonetic form as a component of the construction of побити на дрозки extended into the adjacent territories. Sporadically written texts recorded the analyzed name before the early 1930s, but later the noun дрозки became obsolete in the Ukrainian language.

6. Повторяемость низших элементов

Author(s): Yuri M. Lotman / Language(s): Russian / Issue: 1/1964

Приступая к анализу природы стиха, мы исходим из предпосылки, что стихотворение - это смысловая структура особой сложности, необходимая для выражения особо сложного содержания. Поэтому передача содержания стиха в прозе, описательно, возможна лишь в такой мере, в какой мы можем, разрушив кристалл, передать описательно - его свойства словами,, охарактеризовав форму, цвет, прозрачность, твердость, структуру молекулы. Описав таким образом кристалл алмаза, мы дадим ему исчерпывающую характеристику. Все, что входит в понятие «алмаз», нам станет известно. Но резать стекла нашим описанием все же будет нельзя. Подобно этому мы можем в прозе исчерпывающе передать содержание любого стихотворения. Мы узнаем о нем всё, но возможности «резать стекло» все же не получим.

60-72 Aylık Çocukların Konuşma Becerilerinin İncelenmesi

Author(s): Begümhan Yüksel / Language(s): Turkish,English / Issue: 1/2021

The aim of the study is to determine the speaking skill levels of children between the ages of 60-72 months. The research group of the study consists of 60 children between 60-72 months in the city center of Antalya. Data were collected using the "Speaking Skills Assessment Scale". For this, the children were watched a short cartoon movie, and then they were asked to describe what they had watched in their own words. The data of the research were obtained by analyzing the conversations acquired from these interviews. Speeches were evaluated in terms of pronunciation, fluency and language competency. According to the findings, it was determined that the speaking skills of the participant children were at a medium level in terms of pronunciation and fluency, and a lower level in terms of language competency. According to the other results obtained from the research pronunciation skill level fluency and fluency level also predict language competency. While girls are more successful than boys in terms of their pronunciation, there is no difference between them in terms of fluency and language proficiency. In addition, the six-month age difference is not a variable that makes a difference in terms of pronunciation, fluency and language consistency. Based on these results, it is recommended to conduct studies in other age groups and with different tools.

A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF THE PHONOLOGY OF GUREZI SHINA

Author(s): Ahmed Musavir / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

Gurezi Shina is a lesser known variety of Shina language being spoken by the inhabitants of Gurez, a remote northern valley in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The paper reports a part of the findings of a major research study, undertaken for the description and documentation of this language with an aim to substantiate efforts for its preservation. The paper is a first attempt to present the sound system of Gurezi Shina in detail; the vowels and consonants of the language have been identified through minimal pair of words. Distribution of sounds in words are given in detail. An introduction to the linguistic classification of the language has also been presented. The data for the study have been collected during several field visits to Gurez valley.

A fonetika tanításának problémái és lehetőségei

Memóriamankók a beszédhangok osztályozásának tanításában

Author(s): Béla Istók,Sándor János Tóth,Szilvia N. Varagya / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2021

With the help of an online questionnaire (N = 101), this study examines the problems and possibilities of teaching phonetics. The study’s primary goal is to collect mnemonics (evocative words and sentences, pseudo-explanations) and recommend them to (future) teachers of Hungarian language, through which they can help their students memorise the classification of vowels and consonants in an easier and more interesting way. The research reveals that phonetics is one of the less popular topics of grammar among students who may think it is abstract, complicated and hardly applicable in real life. Most teachers believe that the complexity of knowledge base that students (of fifth grade) have to acquire is not in accordance with their age (maturity); hence, teaching the levels of language with a synthetic method (i.e. building up from base level) may be the reason why students become alienated from grammar.

A Mixed-principle Rule-based Approach to the Automatic Syllabification of Serbian

Author(s): Aniko Kovač,Maja Marković / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

In this paper we present a mixed-principle rule-based approach to the automatic syllabification of Serbian, based on prescriptive rules from traditional grammar in combination with the Sonority Sequencing Principle. We explore the problems and limitations of the existing rule set and sonority-based approaches, introduce an algorithm that utilizes both means in an attempt to produce a more accurate segmentation of words into syllables that is better aligned with the intuition of the native speakers, and present the statistical data related to the distribution of syllables and their structure in Serbian.

A New General Atlas of Hungarian Dialects is Forthcoming

Author(s): Jenő Kiss / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2010

The author presents the New General Atlas of Hungarian Dialects which is in progress. We get a short review about the necessity of a new general dialect atlas in Hungary. The main reason is the radical decrease of dialect words which was effected by the end of the traditional agricultural way of life. The other reason is that the data of the first general Hungarian Dialect Atlas was collected between 1949 and 1964. The author presents the aspects of the research and the content of the questionnaires; the character und the number of the lexical, morphological, syntactical, and sociolinguistic questions; and the sociolinguistic aspects of the informant selection. The collection was started in 2007 and will be finished in 2011.

A note on the strength of vowels

Author(s): Guillaume Enguehard,Xiaoliang Luo / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

This paper is a modest contribution to the understanding of vocalic strength. Our aim is to show that the strength of consonants and the strength of vowels can be unified. For this, we propose that the only factor of strength is length. More precisely: branching segments are stronger and segments sharing their positions with other segments are weaker. We discuss several examples of phenomena related to vowels which illustrate this strength hierarchy.

A phonetically-based approach to the phonology of [v] in Hungarian

Author(s): Zsuzsanna Bárkányi,Zoltán Kiss / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2006

We propose a unified, surface-based functionalist analysis of the phonology of Hungarian v, which is shown to fare better than past generative formalist/representational models. The model introduced can account for the two-fold patterning of v with respect to voicing assimilation without evoking exceptional means. Furthermore, it can also explain certain asymmetries as well as graduality displayed by v's phonotactic distribution, namely, that some clusters are more frequent in the lexicon, whereas others are marginal. The analysis is grounded in the aerodynamics of v's articulation (which involves inherently contradictory targets) as well as in the relative perceptibility of its contrast in various contexts. It is shown with the help of quantitative experiments that v's phonological patterning is directly derivable from these phonetic factors.

A plea for teaching writing as an integrative process meant to serve a functional purpose

Author(s): Cristina-Silvia Vâlcea,Ecaterina Pavel / Language(s): English / Issue: 14/2021

In the Romanian context, writing is in a paradoxical situation: it is claimed to be important though it is one of the skills that is little invested in and moreover it undergoes strong opposition from the parents who would opt for digitalization as a preventive opportunity for their children in the future. Mistreated by both school and society, writing is given meagre chances of proving its determining role in the intellectual formation of the young generation. In this line of thought this paper aims at mapping writing as a school-taught skill by first outlining the Romanian approach to school writing (as product or process) and secondly by carrying out an analysis of the writing tasks regularly assigned, with a view to emphasizing their ups and downs and to suggesting changes that might improve not only the perception on writing in the Romanian curriculum, but also the quality of the educational output. In order to obtain a good representation of how writing is viewed by the Romanian educational system, it is deemed as appropriate to analyse the school curriculum issued and approved by the Ministry of National Education and to evaluate the implementation of the official guidelines into school textbooks. The justification for the interest of the authors in writing is related to the high rates of functional illiteracy, to the preponderant evaluation type of the pupils (a written one) and to the largely acknowledged inability of pupils to successfully manage their written tasks.

A Possible Slavic Etymology of Hungarian komor ‘gloomy’ and komoly ‘serious’

Author(s): Ádám Galac / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2018

The Hungarian words komor ‘gloomy’ and komoly ‘serious’ are of unknown origin. The present paper aims to elucidate this question from various angles: it gives an overview of what the Hungarian etymological dictionaries say on this topic, shows that komoly is a relatively late development out of komor, spread by the language reformers (especially by Ferenc Kazinczy) at the end of the 18th century, and presents the attempts to prove the Turkic origin of komor. Finally, it offers a Slavic etymology based on the Slavic stem *chmur-, demonstrates that semantically the two words match perfectly, and dissolves the phonological doubts that may arise at first sight.

A QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION INTO EFL PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION AND THE EVALUATION OF THEIR PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS, PROBLEMS AND DIFFICULTIES

Author(s): Canan Aksakalli,Oktay Yağiz / Language(s): English / Issue: 21/2021

The purpose of this study is to investigate EFL pre-service teachers’ perceptions toward English pronunciation and pronunciation teaching, their phonological awareness, difficulties and problems regarding English pronunciation. The study was conducted using qualitative research design and a semi-structured interview format. 6 EFL pre-service teachers participated in the study. The participants received pronunciation training before conducting semistructured interviews. This allowed them to develop certain ideas regarding English pronunciation and its teaching. The syllabus of the instruction included the teaching of segmental and suprasegmental features of English. After pronunciation teaching procedure was completed, the qualitative data were collected through interviewing the participants. The results revealed that EFL pre-service teachers had generally positive attitudes toward pronunciation. Also, it was found that they had certain difficulties and problems in English pronunciation at the segmental level and suprasegmental level such as intonation, stress and rhythm which are different phonological patterns from Turkish pronunciation.

A Semantic Description of the Combinability between Verbs and Nouns (on Material from Bulgarian and English)

Author(s): Svetlozara Leseva,Ivelina Stoyanova,Maria Todorova,Hristina Kukova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

This paper represents a methodology for defining restrictions on the semantic combinability between different semantic classes of verbs and the sets of nouns corresponding to the elements of their conceptual frame (i.e. the major participants in the situation described). Our observations focus on verb synsets from WordNet and their assigned FrameNet frames which mutually inform each other. We analyse the semantic information typical for each of the studied verb classes and define semantic restrictions on the nouns they combine with. The theoretical and empirical value of the provided semantic representations and restrictions lies in the enhanced modelling of verb-noun combinability which is universal enough to be applicable not only to the languages exemplified (English and Bulgarian), but (with possible modifications) to various other languages for which wordnets are available.