The graphical basis of phones and phonemes
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Robert F. Port
Abstract
The notion of phonetic segment, phone and phoneme are closely related and all are intuitively appealing. At least one of them seems like the right description for speech. But all those who report these intuitions happen to be people who learned to write using a phonetic alphabet in early childhood. Speech is difficult to attend to because of its rapidity, its variability, and the invisibility of the most important body movements, so some cognitive scaffolding for attending to speech accurately is required. The technology of alphabetic writing was modified for this purpose about a hundred years ago. Our alphabet experience accounts for the persuasiveness of our intuitions but segments (phonemic or phonetic) are probably not important units in the psychological representation of language.
Abstract
The notion of phonetic segment, phone and phoneme are closely related and all are intuitively appealing. At least one of them seems like the right description for speech. But all those who report these intuitions happen to be people who learned to write using a phonetic alphabet in early childhood. Speech is difficult to attend to because of its rapidity, its variability, and the invisibility of the most important body movements, so some cognitive scaffolding for attending to speech accurately is required. The technology of alphabetic writing was modified for this purpose about a hundred years ago. Our alphabet experience accounts for the persuasiveness of our intuitions but segments (phonemic or phonetic) are probably not important units in the psychological representation of language.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Dedication ix
- Alphabetical List of Contributors xi
- Acknowledgments xv
- Biographical Note xvii
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PART I: The nature of L2 speech learning
- The study of second language speech learning 3
- Nonnative and second-language speech perception 13
- Cross-language phonetic similarity of vowels 35
- Investigating the role of attention in phonetic learning 57
- You are what you eat phonetically 79
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PART II: The concept of foreign accent
- Nativelike pronunciation among late learners of French as a second language 99
- Second language acquisition of a regional dialect of American English by native Japanese speakers 117
- Acoustic variability and perceptual learning 135
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PART III: Consonants and vowels
- Strategies for Realization of L2-Categories 153
- Temporal remnants from Mandarin in nonnative English speech 167
- Cross-language consonant identification 185
- The relationship between identification and discrimination in cross-language perception 201
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PART IV: Beyond consonants and vowels
- Music and language learning 221
- Behavioral and cortical effects of learning a second language 239
- The perception of tones and phones 259
- Prosody in second language acquisition 281
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PART V: Emerging issues
- Implications of James E. Flege’s research for the foreign language classroom 301
- Speech learning, lexical reorganization, and the development of word recognition by native and non-native English speakers 315
- Phonemic errors in different word positions and their effects on intelligibility of non-native speech 331
- The graphical basis of phones and phonemes 349
- References 367
- Author Index 399
- Subject Index 405
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Dedication ix
- Alphabetical List of Contributors xi
- Acknowledgments xv
- Biographical Note xvii
-
PART I: The nature of L2 speech learning
- The study of second language speech learning 3
- Nonnative and second-language speech perception 13
- Cross-language phonetic similarity of vowels 35
- Investigating the role of attention in phonetic learning 57
- You are what you eat phonetically 79
-
PART II: The concept of foreign accent
- Nativelike pronunciation among late learners of French as a second language 99
- Second language acquisition of a regional dialect of American English by native Japanese speakers 117
- Acoustic variability and perceptual learning 135
-
PART III: Consonants and vowels
- Strategies for Realization of L2-Categories 153
- Temporal remnants from Mandarin in nonnative English speech 167
- Cross-language consonant identification 185
- The relationship between identification and discrimination in cross-language perception 201
-
PART IV: Beyond consonants and vowels
- Music and language learning 221
- Behavioral and cortical effects of learning a second language 239
- The perception of tones and phones 259
- Prosody in second language acquisition 281
-
PART V: Emerging issues
- Implications of James E. Flege’s research for the foreign language classroom 301
- Speech learning, lexical reorganization, and the development of word recognition by native and non-native English speakers 315
- Phonemic errors in different word positions and their effects on intelligibility of non-native speech 331
- The graphical basis of phones and phonemes 349
- References 367
- Author Index 399
- Subject Index 405
