The development of segmental phonology in a mixed language environment: a case study from Northern East Cree (original) (raw)
Related papers
2014
First Nations children across Canada and the United States run the risk of being over-diagnosed or misdiagnosed for speech and/or language disorders due in part to a lack of knowledge about the culturally and linguistically relevant speech and language patterns of First Nations communities (Ball, Bernhardt, & Deby, 2007). Some children may speak a dialect of Ojibwe or a First Nations English Dialect influenced by Ojibwe and thus, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and other educators need to ensure that each child receives linguistically and culturally suitable service. There are no linguistically and culturally relevant tools to assist in assessment and treatment of speech difficulties in Ojibwespeaking children. This paper provides the first phase in the creation of a tool for speech (phonological) analysis of single-word elicitations from children for the Odawa dialect of Ojibwe. The tool is built on nonlinear phonology, whereby all aspects of the phonological system are represented in a multi-tiered hierarchy allowing for the analysis of speech patterns of both consonants, vowels and their features plus syllable and word structures (Bernhardt, et al., 2010). This paper had two purposes: to better understand the phonological system of this dialect; and to create a word list that could be used to examine the speech development of Odawa-Ojibwe speaking children. The full Ojibwe word list (n=90) consists of three word lists: a basic word list (with representation of most phonemes in all positions and word shapes);
Phonological Development: Models, Research, Implications
Language, 1994
Adults and older children learning the sound system of a second language (L2) differ from young children acquiring the sound system of their native language (LI) in two important respects. The L2 learners are better able to control their speech apparatus than the young children ilcquiring an Ll, ilnd they alreildy possess a phonetic systcm for producing speech. As il result, far more errors in production ilre likely to arise from the inilppropriilte use of !Jrc(liollsly Ilcqllired structllres in L2 learning than in Ll acquisition.' It is well known that adult learners are mrely, if ever, completely successful almaslering the sound system of iln L2. A widely held view is Ihilt when ildults encounter iln L2 word, they attempt to "decompose" it into the phonemic units of the Ll, ilnd then produce the L2 word as if it consisted of phonic elements (illiophones, phonemes) from the LI (I'o/ivilnov 19:11). This chapter provides a brief overvicw of n.'seiHch Ihill hilS de-'We use the term L2tCll/llil/,'i r.lther than /1c'1l1isili"l/b,'C.HISI• 01 till' view th ••t I'honelic systel11s, e\'l'n those of adults, undergo constant change in till' laC(' 01 new phonetic input. Thus, speech is never fully /1cqllired. The terl11 sl't't'dllcnmi'J,'i as used here refers to all aspects 01 learning that affect the production and I,,'reeption of the sounds 111.1 king up words. II is used in preference to 1,11I11/(1/o,'ii((/III'/1/11ill,'i because lI1ueh 01 our res(',uch to date has focused on phonetic-level processes. The preparation of this chal'tl'r was supported by NIII grant IJC00257. TI1<' author thanks wlkagues (0.-5. Bohn, W. Eplting, M. Munro). graduate students (K. Fletcher, S. Jang, C. Wang), and research assistants (L. Cueva, C. 1\1l'na, L. Skelton) who h'l\'e p,utieipated in work reported here. Thanks arc also extended to O.-S. lIohn. C. Ferguson, and 1\. Walle)' lor editorial C0Il11111'nts.
Review of "Patterns in Child Phonology"
Non-disordered acquisition of phonology tends to receive relatively little attention in general texts on language acquisition. The topic is given twelve pages in book-length language acquisition text, twenty in O' Grady's (2005), and a single chapter out of nineteen, in Ritchie and Bhatia's (1999) child language acquisition handbook (Clark 2009 is an exception, with much more extensive phonological coverage). Johnson and Reimers' contribution of an entire volume dedicated to the acquisition of phonology (and phonetics) is a welcome and important remedy for this gap.
A case study in phonological development
2011
The emergence and later fading of two phonological templates-a 'palatal' template and consonant harmony-are investigated in the first 500 words produced by a child acquiring Estonian and English. Throughout the period the child's use of palatal forms, in particular, considerably exceeds their frequency in Estonian, the child's dominant language. Regression in accuracy is also traced, both overall and in individual word forms. Changes in frequency of use of the template patterns are related to growth in the size of the lexicon, the consonant inventory, and the length in syllables of words attempted. Articulatory difficulty is found to play at best a minor role in motivating pattern use, which is ascribed instead to the challenges of planning and recall.
Infancy, 2011
Languages instantiate many different kinds of dependencies, some holding between adjacent elements and others holding between non-adjacent elements. During the past decades, many studies have shown how infant initial languagegeneral abilities change into abilities that are attuned to the language they are acquiring. These studies have shown that during the second half of their first year of life, infants became sensitive to the prosodic, phonetic and phonotactic properties of their mother tongue holding between adjacent elements. However, at the present time, no study has established sensitivity to nonadjacent phonological dependencies, which are a key feature in human languages. Therefore, the present dissertation investigates whether infants are able to detect, learn and use non-adjacent phonotactic dependencies. The Labial-Coronal bias, corresponding to the prevalence of structures starting with a labial consonant followed by a coronal consonant (LC, i.e. bat), over the opposite pattern (CL, i.e. tab) was used to explore infants sensitivity to non-adjacent phonological dependencies. Our results establish that by 10 months of age French-learning infants are sensitive to non-adjacent phonological dependencies (experimental part 1.1). In addition, we explored the level of generalization of these acquisitions. Frequency analyses on the French lexicon showed that the LC bias is clearly present for plosive and nasal sequences but not for fricatives. The results of a series of experiments suggest that infants preference patterns are not guided by overall cumulative frequencies in the lexicon, or frequencies of individual pairs, but by consonant classes defined by manner of articulation (experimental part 1.2). Furthermore, we explored whether the LC bias was trigger by maturational constrains or by the exposure to the input. To do so, we tested the emergence of the LC bias firstly in a population having maturational differences, that is infants born prematurely (± 3 months before term) and compared their performance to a group of full-term infants matched in maturational age, and a group of full-term infants matched in chronological age. Our results indicate that the preterm 10-month-old pattern resembles much more that of the full-term 10-month-olds (same listening age) than that of the full-term 7-month-olds (same maturational age; experimental part 1.3). Secondly we tested a population learning a language with no LC bias in its lexicon, that is Japanese-learning infants. The results of these set of experiments failed to show any preference for either LC or CL structures in Japanese-learning infants (experimental part 1.4). Taken together these results suggest that the LC bias is triggered by the exposure to the linguistic input and not only to maturational constrains. Finally, we explored whether, and if so when, phonological acquisitions during the first year of life constrain early lexical development at the level of word segmentation and word learning. Our results show that words with frequent phonotactic structures are segmented (experimental part 2.1) and learned (experimental part 2.2) at an earlier age than words with a less frequent phonotactic structure. These results suggest that prior phonotactic knowledge can constrain later lexical acquisition even when it involves a non-adjacent dependency. Acquisition of non-adjacent phonological dependencies: From speech perception to lexical acquisition xi Contents Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow If we spoke a different language we would perceive a somewhat different world Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it Language is the mother of thought not its handmaiden Language shapes the way we think and determines what we can think about Change your language and you change your thoughts Language is not only the vehicle of thought it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas Language is a process of free creation its laws and principles are fixed but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow If we spoke a different language we would perceive a somewhat different world Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it Language is the mother of thought not its handmaiden Language shapes the way we think and determines what we can think about Change your language and you change your thoughts Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it Language is the mother of thought not its handmaiden Language shapes the way we think and determines what we can think about Change your language and you change your thoughts Language is a part of our organism and no less Nayeli González Gómez 2012 6 Early speech perception Many studies have shown that during the second half of the first year of life many changes occur in infants' initial speech perception abilities. More importantly, the kinds of changes that happen in this period seem to be specifically linked to the input to which infants are exposed. In this section, we review the literature on this topic, underlying the kinds of changes that occur during this period at the segmental and suprasegmental levels. Prosodic information Prosody makes reference to the suprasegmental properties of language, including stress, rhythm and intonation of speech. Developmental research at this level investigates whether or not, and if when, infants react to differences in tones, stress patterns, rhythms and other prosodic dimensions. Initial abilities Many studies have shown that sensitivity to prosodic properties can be found very early in life, even before birth. Different studies have shown that near-term fetuses are able to distinguish low from high musical notes (Lecanuet, Granier
From first words to segments: A case study in phonological development
The emergence and later fading of two phonological templates - a 'palatal' template and consonant harmony - are investigated in the first 500 words produced by a child acquiring Estonian and English. Throughout the period the child's use of palatal forms, in particular, considerably exceeds their frequency in Estonian, the child's dominant language. Regression in accuracy is also traced, both overall and in individual word forms. Changes in frequency of use of the template patterns are related to growth in the size of the lexicon, the consonant inventory, and the length in syllables of words attempted. Articulatory difficulty is found to play at best a minor role in motivating pattern use, which is ascribed instead to the challenges of planning and recall.