Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of phonological contrast on phonetic variation

博士论文研究：语音对比对语音变异的影响

• 批准号: 1823869
• 负责人: John Kingston
• 金额: $ 0.38万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Amherst
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-01 至 2020-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1823869&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Effects; phonological

Every time someone speaks, they produce complex sound waves. Understanding the acoustic details of these sound waves can help improve voice recognition technologies and provide insight on language differences which can potentially aid in language learning. A large body of work in linguistics and related disciplines has shown that speakers do not always pronounce sounds in the same way. For example, the sound "p" in English will be pronounced differently in different contexts (beginning of a word vs. end of word) and at different times simply because talkers are humans. People do not usually hear these differences, but they are present in the acoustics and can be measured. Variation in speech is natural and happens in every language. However, less is known about exactly how much variation occurs in different languages. This research seeks to address this gap by investigating whether speakers of some languages have more variable pronunciation than speakers of other languages and what might explain the difference.One frequently assumed hypothesis says that speakers of languages with more sounds will show less variation (be more precise) when they pronounce those sounds. The researchers will gather data from different languages to test and revise this hypothesis. They will also develop concrete methods for measuring acoustic variability in language which can then be applied to future work. The experiments compare stop sounds in Hindi ("b", "bh", "p" and "ph") and English ("b" and "p"), and sibilant sounds in Polish ("s", "ś", and "sz") and French ("s" and "sh"). Both experiments examine multiple acoustic cues to the contrasts in each language. The second portion of the project will use the conclusions from these experiments to investigate whether speakers imitate the variability of other speakers that they hear. It is well documented that speakers change their pronunciation based on speech they have recently heard, but it is not known whether speakers will change the amount of variability in their speech based on what they have heard. To address this question, the researchers will carry out an imitation study where speakers listen to speech before being prompted to speak to see if the variability in their speech changes after listening. The results of these studies will increase understanding of variability in pronunciation across different languages and contexts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

每当有人说话时，他们都会产生复杂的声波。了解这些声波的声学细节有助于改进语音识别技术，并提供对语言差异的洞察，这可能有助于语言学习。语言学和相关学科的大量工作表明，说话者并不总是以相同的方式发音。例如，英语中的“p”音在不同的上下文（词首与词尾）和不同的时间会有不同的发音，因为说话者是人类。人们通常听不到这些差异，但它们存在于声学中并且可以测量。言语的变化是自然的，并且在每种语言中都会发生。然而，人们对不同语言到底有多少变化知之甚少。这项研究旨在通过调查某些语言的使用者是否比其他语言的使用者具有更多的发音差异以及如何解释这种差异来解决这一差距。一个经常假设的假设是，发音较多的语言的使用者表现出的差异较小（更准确地说） ）当他们发出这些声音时。研究人员将收集不同语言的数据来测试和修正这一假设。他们还将开发测量语言声学变异性的具体方法，然后将其应用于未来的工作。实验比较了印地语（“b”、“bh”、“p”和“ph”）和英语（“b”和“p”）中的停音，以及波兰语中的咝音（“s”、“&#347”） ;”和“sz”）和法语（“s”和“sh”）。这两个实验都检查了每种语言中对比的多种声音线索。该项目的第二部分将利用这些实验的结论来调查说话者是否模仿他们听到的其他说话者的变化。有据可查的是，说话者会根据他们最近听到的语音改变发音，但尚不清楚说话者是否会根据他们听到的内容改变语音的变化量。为了解决这个问题，研究人员将进行一项模仿研究，说话者在被提示说话之前先听语音，看看听后语音的变异性是否发生变化。这些研究的结果将增进对不同语言和环境中发音差异的理解。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。