Last updated by kprzemek on 2018-11-09. Originally submitted by tomski on 2018-11-05.
WA Distinguished Professors' Lectures Series features internationally renowned scholars visiting the Faculty of English to share their research and professional expertise with WA faculty and students. The Faculty of English welcomes everyone to a lecture: Investigating phonological development: An international crosslinguistic study by Barbara M. Bernhardt and Joseph P. Stemberger, Professors Emeriti, University of British Columbia. The lecture will take place on November 8, 2018, at 6:30 p.m. in room 109A, Collegium Novum.
Investigating phonological development:
An international crosslinguistic study
by
Prof. Barbara M. Bernhardt and Prof. Joseph P. Stemberger
Thursday, November 8, 6:30 p.m.
room 109A, Collegium Novum
An international crosslinguistic study of both typical and protracted phonological development (TD/PPD) has been underway since 2006, including: Romance languages (Canadian French, Granada and Chilean Spanish, European Portuguese); Germanic (German, Canadian English, Swedish, Icelandic); Semitic (Kuwaiti Arabic); Asian (Mandarin, Japanese); South Slavic (Bulgarian, Slovenian); and other, e.g., Greek, Valley Zapotec (Mexico). In addition, phonological assessment tools have been created for other languages or dialects: Akan (Ghana), Tagalog, Punjabi, Anishinaabemowin (First Nations language, Canada), Brazilian Portuguese. The study has two major objectives: (1) to determine universal and language-specific patterns in phonological development across diverse languages; and (2) to develop and disseminate clinical tools for speech-language therapy, i.e. picture-based elicitations, phonological analysis procedures, criterion reference data, intervention activities. The framework for the study derives from constraint-based nonlinear phonology, allowing description of a child's strengths and developmental needs across the phonological hierarchy, from the phrase, through feet, syllables and timing units (Cs, Vs) to segments and their phonological features. Each team creates a word list for elicitation of approximately 100 words representative of the language's phonology in consultation with the project leaders. Data are then audio- and sometimes video-recorded from children aged 2 or 3 to 6 years (TD, PPD). Phonetic transcription conventions are developed for each language by the international team and project leaders, and analyses conducted with support of the phonological analysis program Phon (www.phon.ca). Comparison of data across languages presents its own set of challenges, with questions as to the degree to which different languages can validly be compared. The presentation will provide an overview of the study methodology and examples of findings to date within and across languages. Within-language data will be exemplified with Mandarin (consonants), Spanish (word structure) and French (structure-segment interactions). Between-language data will be presented for word-initial fricatives (Germanic languages), trilled /r/ (several languages) and whole word match. Major findings of the study to date suggest that children are subject to similar types of constraints across languages in speech production. However, the inventories of the language (word length, stress, syllable complexity and segmental inventory) and relative frequencies of structures and phonemes provide different opportunities for resolving those constraints and developmental timelines. The presentation will end with brief overview of the project website with its free assessment materials and analysis and intervention tutorials and examples.
Barbara May Bernhardt, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Registered Speech-Language Pathologist
School of Audiology and Speech Sciences
University of British Columbia
bernharb@mail.ubc.ca
Barbara May Bernhardt is a retired Professor Emerita in the School of Audiology and Speech Sciences at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She is also a speech-language therapist. Her areas of academic specialization are language development, assessment and intervention with a focus on phonology and phonetics. Her major research area is the application of nonlinear phonology to phonological assessment and intervention, with an ongoing crosslinguistic project (15+ languages) in collaboration with Dr. Joseph Stemberger at UBC and many international colleagues. Her research has also included evaluation of the use of ultrasound in speech intervention, early prediction of language impairment through infant word learning tasks and issues in service delivery to people of indigenous heritage in Canada. Outside of post-retirement academic pursuits, she is focusing on family, music, dance, and the great outdoors.
Joseph Paul Stemberger, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus,
Department of Linguistics
University of British Columbia
joseph.stemberger@ubc.ca
Joseph Stemberger is a professor emeritus in the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia. His primary interests involve language processing, focusing especially on phonology and morphology, and interactions between them and with phonetics. He has done extensive work on morphological and phonological processing in adult language production. Current projects focus on first-language acquisition, with one goal being to identify what things are similar across language and what things are different, and to attempt to explain why. The current cross-linguistic project focuses on typical versus protracted phonological development in a gradually increasing number of languages. Another project on the Mexican language, Valley Zapotec, focuses on phonological and morphological development of children from 1;3 to 6;0. He also does traditional dancing (English and Slovenian), is in two choirs, and likes to go hiking and cycling.
