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Copyright of Revista Electrónica de LEEME is the property of Institut de Creativitat i Innovacions Educatives and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Estudos da Linguagem is the property of Revista de Estudos da Linguagem and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper examines methodological approaches to sixteenth-century settings that do not have a cantus firmus and are not based on vocal models, such as toccatas, intonations, preludes, and similar forms. In the first part of the paper, the results of these analytical methods as they relate to instrumental music genres before 1600 are summarized and critically examined. In the second part, the author proposes another methodological approach for this repertoire, namely, the use of musical commonplaces, thus fundamentally altering the perspective of how this repertoire is viewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intonation of broad focus declaratives in the Afro-Peruvian Spanish spoken in Chincha, based on two elicitation tasks. The objectives were to investigate the intonation of Afro-Peruvian Spanish broad focus declaratives, as compared to non-Afro-Peruvian Spanish, and to compare the findings across genders and age groups. The data came from a Story Builder Action Cards task and a Frog Story task. The participants were thirteen Afro-Peruvians (seven female; 21–54 years), who were divided in two age groups. For comparison, data were collected from three speakers who did not identify as Afro-Peruvian. The data were analyzed in Praat, following Spanish ToBI. Specifically, pitch accents in prenuclear and nuclear positions, and intermediate and final boundary tones were analyzed. The results showed a lack of downstepping in prenuclear and nuclear positions, early-aligned peaks in prenuclear position, a high frequency of falling tones, high and rising boundary tones, and circumflex contours. These characteristics were found in males and females, and younger and older speakers, suggesting that the characteristics of Afro-Peruvian Spanish intonation are not limited to elderly male speakers as suggested in previous research. Interestingly, circumflex contours were especially frequent in younger males, possibly as a marker of their identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Electrónica de LEEME is the property of Institut de Creativitat i Innovacions Educatives and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sintagma: Revista de Linguistica is the property of Sintagma: Revista de Linguistica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Due to their addressing nature, vocatives and imperatives have been said in multiple occasions to have the same function and similar phonological characteristics. The aim of this paper is to examine the intonational link between these two kinds of sentences in Peninsular Spanish considering sociopragmatic and situational factors like the level of formality and the degree of insistence. In order to do so, twenty-eight native speakers of Peninsular Spanish produced isolated names and verbs in formal and informal settings followed by insistent productions. The phonetic and phonological analyses of 1232 one-word productions indicate that both speech acts share multiple contours; namely L* H%, L + H* HL%, L + H* !H%, L + H* L%, L + H* H%, L + H* LH%. Nevertheless, L + H* L% was the most used contour for both speech acts regardless of the sociopragmatic and situational factors. Interestingly, speakers modified the phonetic properties of intensity and F0 depending on the situation since informal and insistent productions had a higher F0, wider pitch excursions and more intensity than their formal and non-insistent counterparts. As alternatives, L* L% contours were attested in formal imperatives while L + H* LH% and L + H* HL% were more common in informal ones. After L + H* L% contours, L + H* HL% and L* H% were the preferred options in formal vocatives but the latter was hardly attested in informal ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Moenia: Revista Lucense de Lingüística & Literatura is the property of Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper discusses three aspects of the relation between discourse and technology. The first is the influence of new communication technologies on the agenda of linguistics and discourse analysis. The beginning of radio broadcasting led to new theories of intonation and the beginning of television created an interest in linguistically inspired approaches to non-verbal communication. The second is the use of technologies as tools for discourse analysis. The move from film to the tape recorder and the subsequent birth of conversation analysis diminished the earlier interest in non-verbal communication, while today corpus linguistics challenges approaches that focus on the analysis of single, whole texts. Finally, contemporary software not only builds in spelling and grammar rules, but also text structure rules (templates), and systematic options for the use of layout, typography, colour, animation and other non-linguistic means of expression, leading to a renewed interest in multimodality. The paper concludes with the view that considerations of technology should be integrated with discourse analysis and cites the work of Ron and Suzie Scollon as an early example of this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genres are constituted by stages that fulfil different functions within the whole text and each stage has particular realizations at the lexico-grammatical and semantic strata in relation to that function. Genre studies describe these patterns with little or no reference to their realization at the level of phonology. On the other hand, phonological studies rarely refer to communicative functions in terms of linguistic genres. There are studies that refer to different choices in tonality and tonicity which affect stretches of discourse larger than the tone unit. Some of these studies relate intonation choices to the textual structure positing the notion of paratone. The aim of this paper is to enquire whether it is possible to find correlations between phonological realizations and specific generic functions in different stages of the discourse. It explores the relationship between prosodic and generic configurations in general interest interviews from a BBC programme. The corpus is analysed showing generic configurations and both auditory and instrumental analysis are used for the phonological study. The preliminary conclusions reached show that intonation choices tend to have a role in signalling textual and interpersonal meanings within generic structures together with, and independently from, lexico-grammatical choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines peak alignment in Veneto-Spanish bilinguals in the small community of Chipilo, Mexico. We have two goals: First, to provide a description of the peak alignment patterns present in bilingual Chipilo Spanish. As Chipilo Spanish is in contact with a northern Italian variety (Veneto), we hypothesize that changes in peak alignment from monolingual norms, specifically regarding early peak alignment, may be due to transfer from Veneto. Second, we seek to compare the present data, based on controlled speech, to the results of a previous study on semi-spontaneous speech in Chipilo Spanish, contributing to the literature that compares methodologies in intonation research. Our results show that bilinguals demonstrate early peaks in controlled speech, although to a lesser extent than in semi-spontaneous speech. We attribute this to contact with Veneto and a strong sense of ethnolinguistic identity that leads speakers to maintain features of a Chipileño variety of Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics is the property of Universidade de Vigo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Alfa: Revista de Lingüística is the property of Alfa: Revista de Linguistica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The current training techniques on English pronunciation put emphasis on isolated words or sentences, resulting in the lack of opportunities for EFL learners to practice intonation. It has been noted that the importance and necessity of intonation training have been undervalued, and empirical studies on developing second language (L2) intonation pedagogy are urgently needed. This preliminary study aims to find out whether shadowing technique from interpretation practice can be used to promote English intonation acquisition. Fourteen non-English major students from National Taiwan University (NTU) were recruited and divided into control and experimental groups. The result from a SPSS Independent Sample T-test revealed significant differences between the two groups in intonation, fluency, word pronunciation, and overall pronunciation. The paper ends with a discussion on the implication of applying interpreting skills to intonation training and directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Alfa: Revista de Lingüística is the property of Alfa: Revista de Linguistica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

THE AUTOSEGMENTAL-METRICAL APPROACH (Pierrehumbert 1980) paved the way for the investigation of intonation as a linguistic characteristic of non-tonal languages such as Spanish (e.g. Face 2002, Hualde 2003). However, most studies deal with native Spanish and have not yet extended the approach to nonnative Spanish, particularly in non-study abroad contexts. This paper uses the AM approach to analyze the phonetic characteristics of key intonational events in nonnative Spanish. The participants were five native English speakers involved in romantic relationships with native Spanish speakers. The results indicate that, to a certain degree, nonnative acquisition of Spanish intonation does occur. The speakers' successful acquisition can be attributed to their identification of their partners' dialect as the specific intonation target and their motivation to use Spanish as the primary language of communication in the relationship. The results lend support to the importance of apperceived input in the process of second language acquisition (Gass 1988). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper proposes linguistic, production and prosodic constraints for modeling the intonation patterns of sequence of syllables. Linguistic constraints are represented by positional, contextual and phonological features, production constraints are represented by articulatory features, and prosodic constraints are represented by durations and intensities of syllables. Neural network models are explored to capture the implicit intonation knowledge using above mentioned features. The prediction performance of the neural network models is evaluated using objective measures such as average prediction error (μ), standard deviation (σ) and linear correlation coefficient (γX,Y).The prediction performance of the feed-forward neural network (FFNN) models is compared with other statistical models such as Classification and Regression Tree (CART) and Linear Regression (LR) models. The performance of the intonation models is also analyzed by conducting listening tests to evaluate the quality of synthesized speech after incorporating the models in baseline TTS system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper describes certain findings of intonation and intensity study of emotive speech with the minimal use of signal processing algorithms. This study was based on six basic emotions and the neutral, elicited from 1660 English utterances obtained from the speech recordings of six Indian women. The correctness of the emotional content was verified through perceptual listening tests. Marked similarity was noted among pitch contours of like-worded, positive valence emotions, though no such similarity was observed among the four negative valence emotional expressions. The intensity patterns were also studied. The results of the study were validated using arbitrary television recordings for four emotions. The findings are useful to technical researchers, social psychologists and to the common man interested in the dynamics of vocal expression of emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the research on the phonology of aphasics has neglected the suprasegmentals. Therefore, this paper examined the suprasegmental features of the phonology of 20 bilingual Nigerian adult aphasics, who were bilingual in Nigerian English and Yoruba. Their renditions of a normative text were tape-recorded. Optimality Theory served as the theoretical framework. Syllable simplification and modification were noticed. The stress and intonation patterns were not significantly affected, except in few cases. The rhythm of their speech was characterized by syllables and pauses occurring at roughly regular intervals. Thus, Syllable-Pause Timing is proposed to account for the rhythm of their speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of whether intonation plays a linguistic role in Cantonese, a language known for its rich inventory of lexical tones and if so, what specific forms it may take and what functions it may serve. Applying a combination of auditory and instrumental analyses to several sets of sound recordings, it was found that it is possible to establish a system of intonation for Cantonese comprising two main components: utterance body intonation and utterance final intonation. The former is best described using gradual declination from a mid-high pitch to a low pitch as a baseline, with possible variation along the parameters of pitch height, range and slope. A higher onset was noticeable in interrogatives as opposed to declaratives, and in utterances with an 'excited' tone of voice as opposed to ones said in a 'quiet' tone. In addition to the general phenomenon of utterance declination one also finds phrase declination effects which have clear syntactic functions. As far as utterance final intonation is concerned, four patterns are recognised: 'neutral', falling, rising, and rising-falling. These help distinguish sentence-types (declarative, interrogative, imperative), and, through variations in pitch height, may convey gradient expressive implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Musicology of Lithuania / Lietuvos muzikologija is the property of Lithuanian Academy of Music & Theatre and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Contributions to Oriental Philology / Prilozi za Orijentalnu Filologiju is the property of Orijentalni institut and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper reports on an investigation about the relation between a student's conscious awareness of the structure of a sentence and the degree of his/her intonation accuracy as well as his/her reading comprehension. The research was done based on the hypothesis that: "if the students are made conscious of the infrastructure of lengthy sentences i.e., of subject and predicate division and of the relative and other WH-clauses, they are more likely to read the sentences 'correctly and with greater comprehension. To examine the validity of the hypothesis, different groups of ESP students of different years were observed at Shahid Bahonar university of Kerman. They were, first, taught how to divide a sentence into subject and predicate and also about the form and function of WH-clauses. Next, the application of the student's knowledge of sentence was examined whenever one of them seemed unable to read a sentence correctly. At this point, the student was asked to show the borderline between the subject and the predicate by identifying the verb at the beginning of the predicate. The next thing to do was to ask the student to read the sentence again. If he/she succeeded to read the sentence with the correct intonation, then he/she would be asked to translate it into L1. In case there were words that were unfamiliar to the student, they were ignored and the main idea of the sentence would suffice. At last, the cross-tabulations of their immediate response to consciousness-raising with reading comprehension and intonation showed a 100% of improvement. This hypothesis proved the hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]