Training the Brain to Weight Speech Cues Differently: A Study of Finnish Second-language Users of English

Ylinen, Sari; Uther, Maria; Latvala, Antti; Vepsäläinen, Sara; Iverson, Paul; Akahane‐Yamada, Reiko; Näätänen, Risto

doi:10.1162/jocn.2009.21272

Cited by 90 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…It was initially designed to train phonetic discrimination in Japanese speakers of English, but later has been extended to other language groups as well. High variability phonetic training has proven to be a very successful, theoretically well-grounded and popular technique for speech training (see Bradlow et al 1997Bradlow et al , 1999Giannakopoulou, Uther, and Ylinen 2013;Iverson, Hazan, and Bannister 2005;Iverson and Evans 2009;Lively, Logan, and Pisoni 1993;Lively et al 1994;Uther et al 2007;Ylinen et al 2010) and is the technique behind one of the mobile device applications studied in this research project (the UCL Vowel Trainer).…”

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confidence: 99%

The influence of affordances on user preferences for multimedia language learning applications

Uther

Banks

2016

Behaviour & Information Technology

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This study investigates the influence of sensory and cognitive affordances on the user experience of mobile devices for multimedia language learning applications. A primarily audio-based language learning application -'Vowel Trainer', was chosen against a comparison, text and picture-based language learning application -'Learn English for Taxi Drivers'. Impressions of the two applications were assessed on two different devices that have virtually the same interface and identical sound output (when headphones are used), but differ in physical size: the iPhone and the iPad. A mixed design was chosen, with native language as a group factor and device type (iPad vs. iPhone) and language application type (audio vs. video) as within groups factors. Assessments of sensory and cognitive affordances were made, along with measurement of learner preferences of each application. Data from 41 participants (21 native English speakers, 20 non-native English speakers) were analysed, revealing device differences in both audio and visual subjective quality ratings, despite only visual quality being affected by the device's physical limitations. We suggest that sensory affordances (indexed by subjective quality) are not simply a function of physical limitations, but are heavily influenced by context. The implications for developing design guidelines for language learning and other multimedia applications are discussed. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of affordances on user preferences for multimedia language learning applications

Uther

Banks

2016

Behaviour & Information Technology

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“…Speaking a language other than the native one requires the speaker to adapt to different speech sounds and prosodic systems and to the vocal ideals of other cultures [1]. Contrastive research in language learners' production and perception of a foreign language has to a large extent focused on the accuracy of performance in the target language or the influence of the native language on the target language [for examples, see [2,3,4,5]; for examples of differences between Finnish and English, see [6,7,8]]. Voice parameters are prone to be affected by a language change between native and foreign languages.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Finnish intonation, the highest peak in the F0 contour is typically located at the start of a sentence and the end of the sentence is low. Also, the intonation range is narrower in Finnish than in English [6,30,31,32]. …”

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confidence: 99%

Vocal Loading in Speaking a Foreign Language

Järvinen¹,

Laukkanen²

2015

Folia Phoniatr Logop

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Aims: This study investigated whether speaking a foreign language affects the subjective notions of vocal fatigue, and whether acoustic measurements reveal a higher vocal loading. Methods: The speech samples of 20 native Finnish-speaking and 23 native English-speaking subjects were recorded in Finnish and in English. From the speech samples, fundamental frequency, equivalent sound level, total duration of voiced speech, speech rate, alpha ratio and L1-L0 level difference were analyzed. Vocal doses were calculated. Results: According to subjective notions, the voice gets tired more quickly when speaking a foreign language. The mean fundamental frequency increased but the speech rate and total duration of voiced speech decreased significantly when speaking a foreign language. Thus, the vocal doses decreased. Conclusions: The subjective sensationsof increased vocal fatigue may be due to increased mental stress rather than to higher vocal loading. However, a trend that speaking a foreign language may involve more loading was found in L1-L0 level difference and in the doses normalized to time dose. Longer speech samples should be studied. Voice quality-based indicators of vocal loading are worth testing in addition to the measures based on the amount of voicing in speech.

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“…Peltola et al (2014) showed that university English students produced English vowels in a more native-like manner after explicit pronunciation teaching and the learning effect was best reflected in /ɪ/. A study by Ylinen et al (2010) has also provided evidence that native Finnish speakers tend to use duration cues rather than spectral cues in the discrimination of the English /i:/ -/ɪ/ contrast, which can also be expected to be reflected in the production of these vowels. Looking at the results of the present study, it seems that the control group assimilated the English lax /ɪ/ to Finnish /i/ category and produced it as more frontal than the early learners, resulting in higher F2 values.…”

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confidence: 99%

Finnish Children Producing English Vowels — Studying in an English Immersion Class Affects Vowel Production

Immonen

Peltola

2018

JLTR

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Abstract-The aim of this study was to examine how earlier second language teaching affects Finnish school children's pronunciation of British English vowels. Two groups of Finnish children between the ages of eleven and thirteen were tested. The early learners studied in an English immersion class in a Finnish elementary school while the control group attended a regular Finnish speaking class at the same school. The task consisted of twenty three English stimulus words which included the twelve monophthong English target vowels in voiced and voiceless environments. The words were repeated seven times during the task. The participants produced the words after a native model and the target vowel qualities were then acoustically analysed. Statistical analysis revealed a group main effect. More specifically the analysis showed that the groups differed significantly in the way they produced target vowel second formant (F2) values. The F2 difference was only significant in the voiced context. Closer examination of the groups' vowel qualities revealed that the control group tended to produce the F2 values higher than the early learner group in most of the target vowels. The higher F2 values can be an indication of more frontal tongue position or less lip rounding during vowel production.Index Terms-children, vowel production, second language learning I. INTRODUCTIONWhen learning to produce a second language (L2) an individual can face various challenges depending on the similarities and differences between the sound systems of his or her mother tongue (L1) and the target language. According to second language learning theories, although completely new speech sounds are evidently challenging to learn, the most difficult L2 sounds to acquire are the ones which acoustically and motorically resemble L1 sounds. For example, the Speech Learning Model (SLM, (Flege, 1987;Flege, 1995)) and the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM, (Best, 1994)) state that L2 sounds that are similar to L1 sound categories are most likely to be assimilated to one or more L1 categories, thus causing maximal learning difficulties in the perception and production of L2 sounds. When an L2 sound is similar to an L1 category, the L2 sound is assimilated to, i.e. perceived as an exemplar of, an L1 sound category. This assimilation of L2 sounds causes the speaker to replace the difficult L2 sounds with similar L1 sounds, resulting in possible difficulties in communication. These difficulties continue until the speaker learns to perceive and thereafter produce the L2 contrasts that are irrelevant in his or her L1.Although L2 learning poses different challenges to speakers of all ages, previous research has provided evidence that children are, in fact, often faster and more successful L2 learners than adults. For example, Giannakopoulou et al. (2013) discovered that Greek children (7-8 years) showed more improvement in English phoneme identification and discrimination than Greek adults (20-30 years) after high-variability perceptual training. This suggests ...

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Training the Brain to Weight Speech Cues Differently: A Study of Finnish Second-language Users of English

Cited by 90 publications

References 49 publications

The influence of affordances on user preferences for multimedia language learning applications

The influence of affordances on user preferences for multimedia language learning applications

Vocal Loading in Speaking a Foreign Language

Finnish Children Producing English Vowels — Studying in an English Immersion Class Affects Vowel Production

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