First Phon&Phon in 2009–2010, 27 Oct 2009

The Department of Contemporary English Language (DoCELu) invites you to the first Phon&Phon meeting in the academic year 2009–2010:

Tuesday, 27 Oct 2009, 18:30, Room 601A

Marta Marecka

How does perception influence the way we speak? L1 and L2 speech of individuals with sensorineural hearing loss

Abstract

Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SNHL) is a hearing disorder which impairs the perception of the frequencies and resolution of speech sounds. The perceptual impairment of individuals with SNHL is mirrored in their speech production. As SNHL affects especially high frequency sounds, SNHL speakers have problems with the articulation of sibilants. This is especially prominent in languages with many sibilant phonemes, such as Polish. In a previous study by Marecka and Połczyńska (2009), we discovered that SNHL speakers have a tendency to produce the sibilants with an articulatory off-shot and we called the process “sibilant imprecision”. We also found that SNHL speakers centralise vowels because these sounds do not provide sufficient tactile cues which are of crucial importance for people with limited auditory feedback. The study presented here was aimed at analysing speech production of Polish speakers of English with SNHL. It was expected that (1) sibilant imprecision and vowel centralisation should be the most frequently applied processes in both Polish (L1) and English (L2) speech of those individuals, and that (2) phonological processes should be more frequent in L2 speech. The subjects were three native speakers of Polish: one with moderate SNHL, acquired at the age of seven months (S1) and two with profound congenital SNHL (S2 and S3). Their average age was 24.6 years (SD=3.39). Their L2 proficiency level was assessed with The Clinical Test of Proficiency in English as the Second Language (Połczyńska 2009). The tests used for the speech analysis were the Polish Dysarthria Test (Połczyńska-Fiszer and Pufal 2006) and the English as the Second Language Test in Dysarthria (Połczyńska 2009). The speech of the subjects was recorded, analysed acoustically using PRAAT, and transcribed. As predicted, the most frequent phonological processes applied by the subjects were sibilant imprecision (29% of all the processes applied) and vowel centralisation (27% of all the processes applied). The tendency was reiterated in both languages, in all of the subjects and for most of the tasks. The less proficient speakers (S1 and S3) applied more processes in their L2, while the more proficient L2 learner (S2) applied more processes in his L1. The speakers applied most of the processes in word-medial position (49%), which might be indicative of a random distribution of processes in the speech of the SNHL individuals.

Submitted by J Weckwerth

Phon&Phon home page