LCD720 – 03/11/09 Review Looking at sound

Announcements Midterm assignment will be available on Blackboard after class –Submit on Blackboard or hand in in class –Due Wednesday, March 18, 6:30pm –30% of the final grade Next week: Lab session in PH 212 at 6:45pm Today: –Finishing intonation patterns & homework –Review –Looking at sound

From last week Remember: Intonation units and prominence Common intonation patterns: –Declarative statements and wh-questions –Yes/no questions –Closed or open choice (e.g., coffee or tea) –Tag questions: eliciting agreement or signalling uncertainty (e.g., doesn’t he) Your suggestions for: –Pedagogical priorities –Types of activities

Teaching intonation patterns: Pedagogical priorities Intonation patterns that can change the meaning of a sentence –Declarative pattern when a question is intended She’s gone vs. She’s gone? –Open-choice intonation for closed-choice question Do you want coffee or tea? –Intonation signaling uncertainty when agreement was requested He usually arrives around noon, doesn’t he? Intonation patterns that can make sentences difficult to understand, e.g., –Using rising pattern for wh-questions (instead of rising-falling)

Teaching intonation patterns (1) Consciousness raising –Illustrate the four pitch levels –Explain the link between punctuation and intonation (although not always very clear) Especially. and ? and ! Listening discrimination exercises –Add. or ? or ! based on intonation –Classify tag questions or choice questions

Teaching intonation patterns (2) Controlled practice and feedback –Reading dialogues; indicate intonation contour in written text and/or use hand movements –Mirroring / shadowing (with or without transcript) Guided practice and feedback –Follow-ups on dialogues or shadowing Communicative practice and feedback –“Twenty questions” (yes/no questions)

Practice Draw the intonation contours for these two sentences: –Where are you going? –I’m going to the store. Write 3 pairs of open-choice and closed-choice questions. Draw their intonation contours. Write 2 sentences with tag questions that elicit agreement, and 2 that express uncertainty. Draw their intonation contours.

Intonation and meaning

Intonation can signal whether a speaker is done speaking, or wants to hold the floor a little longer –Perception: when to start speaking –Production: how to hold the floor

Focus The intonation rises on the word that is in focus –John cooked DINner vs. JOHN cooked dinner –Did John cook DINner? vs. Did JOHN cook dinner? In unmarked cases, the word in focus is the last content word –This is often the new information

Additional intonation patterns Remember: yes/no questions –Did John cook dinner? To signal an expectation of an affirmation, or impatience (like declarative pattern): –Did John cook dinner?

Additional intonation patterns Remember: question intonation on regular sentences –She’s gone? To signal surprise or disbelief: exaggerated intonation –She’s gone?

Additional intonation patterns Remember: wh-questions –Who will help? To ask someone to repeat part of the information: –Who will help? To signal surprise or disbelief –Who will help? Display questions (often used by teachers) –Two plus two is what?

Intonation and meaning: Pedagogical priorities Aim mostly for comprehension of: –The different intonation patterns, e.g., Open/closed choice questions –Words in focus I bought a new SWEAter vs. I bought a NEW sweater

Homework Practice homework: intonation Select an intonation pattern and construct a listening discrimination exercise.

Overview History and background of teaching L2 pronunciation Consonants, vowels, and IPA Word stress, rhythm, and adjustments in connected speech Sentence intonation

History and background of pronunciation teaching Age and exposure Aptitude and motivation L1, L2, and language universals Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis Interlanguage

Consonants, vowels, and IPA Phonemes and allophones Consonants –Place, manner, and voicing –Positional variation Aspiration vs. release (tea vs. eat) –Syllabic consonants –Clusters

Consonants, vowels, and IPA Vowels –Tense vowels are often diphthongized (= get a glide) –Vowel lengthening before voiced consonants, and in stressed syllables –Nasalization –Vowel reduction Unstressed syllables Unstressed (function) words

Word stress, rhythm, and connected speech Stress patterns are related to positional variation –Flapping, aspiration, vowel reduction Connected speech –Linking, assimilation, deletion

Sentence intonation Prominence and intonation units Four pitch levels Rising-falling vs. rising intonation

Sentence intonation Common intonation contours: –Declarative statements –Questions: Yes/no Wh Open/closed alternative questions Tag questions –Contrastive stress Signaling impatience or surprise

Transcribe 1.Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid 2.Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant 3.Together they’re powerful beyond imagination (Einstein)

ESL speakers the topic is shopping for food in your &coun my country the same as in USA my country food usually spicy food but USA food is usually swee(t) is sweet usually sweet and … also USA an(d) my country country's food are usually eat [= eaten] vegetable I think vegetable is same thing my my country's food food food is rice some side dishes but USA food is usually vegetable an(d) spaghetti our best food ah I think so I I like I like USA's USA US food but US ah food is ah unhealthy I think ah but so healthy &m my country's food an(d) Example of an ESL speaker –L1 Korean –What do you notice about her pronunciation? –What would you do to help these students improve their pronunciation?

Indicate intonation groups, prominence and intonation contours A: Excuse me I was wondering if you could help me? B: Sure. What’s up? A: I need to find this office. Do you know where it is? B: Oh yeah. You’re going to want to go up this street and make a right. A: I’ll turn right at the light on the corner? B: Right. Go down that street and it’s in the middle of the block. A: That’s where the building is? B: Yeah the office is on the first floor so go down the stairs and it’s right there. A: Got it. Thank you! B: No problem!

Looking at sound (preparation for PRAAT lab next week)

Looking at sound Sound can be made visible by waveforms and spectrograms Speech sounds are created by vibrations of the vocal cords, which produce a wave –Variation in air pressure The air pressure can be plotted into a graph to produce a waveform How did we get this wave? Time  Pressure 

Production of sound waves by a loudspeaker Sound waves are like waves in a coil (like a Slinky)

The individual air molecules only vibrate back and forth locally, they do not travel from the source to the receiver The red line is like your vocal cords

Measuring the wave (pressure) Loudness depends primarily on the amplitude

Time  Pressure  The sound wave of articulated

Complex waves The sound wave of speech is much more complex than the waves we’ve seen so far –The wave of a speech sound is always a combination of multiple other waves with different frequencies and different loudness –These waves are ‘added up’

Adding waves

This is how a synthesizer works

Frequencies To see which sound is produced, we can’t just look at the waveform itself –We need to find the different waves in the waveform –More specifically, we need the frequencies of those waves Frequency is the number of times one wavelength comes by in one second –If it comes by 10 times per second, its frequency is 10 Hertz (Hz) Humans can hear 20 to 20,000 Hz. Most phonetic information is below 8,000 Hz.

Which wave has a higher frequency? 0 sec 1 sec2 sec3 sec4 sec

Spectrograms The waveform can be analyzed into its frequencies Frequencies can be made visible with spectrograms Time  Frequency  articulated

Time  Frequency  Dark areas indicate louder frequencies Voiced sounds have three or four major frequencies F1 articulated F0 F2 F3 əd ɑrɑr thth ɪ k ɾ yu ley

əd ɑrɑr Time  Frequency  You can recognize vowels thth ɪ k ɾ articulated yu ley

Time  Frequency  You can recognize stops: /p, t, k, b, d, g, ɾ / articulated əd ɑrɑr thth ɪ k ɾ yu ley

də Time  Frequency  You can recognize aspiration Little puff of air Big puff of air articulated ɑrɑr thth ɪ k ɾ yu ley

Time  Frequency  articulated You can recognize pitch əd ɑrɑr thth ɪ kyu ley ɾ yu ley

Which word is this? a.whose b.pseudonym c.judgment d.dessert How did you know?

What would you do? Your students consistently pronounce this as /d ɪ s/. Your students consistently pronounce back as /b ɑ k/. Your students have a tendency to insert /ə/ between words in phrases like cold, drink, wet towel, and gas station. A student asks you for advice, saying: “People can’t tell whether I’m saying thirteen or thirty. What should I do?” One of your ESL students has many young American peers who regularly use rising intonation with statements. This student asks you about the conflict between this observation and what has been taught in the class.

Next week Submit or hand in midterm assignment –On BB or in class –March 18, at beginning of class Lab session in PH212 at 6:45pm