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The 24th Annual Graduate Student Conference of the College of Languages, Linguistics & Literature (LLL) at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa was held online on Saturday, April 18th, 2020. This annual conference provides an opportunity for students to become socialized into academic practices, such as presenting at a conference and producing a paper for publication in these proceedings. It also allows graduate students to take on various roles in the academic community, as conference chairs, proceedings editors, coordinators, and volunteers. This year's conference did not have a specific theme to attest that one theme could not be enough to define the diverse, creative, and intellectual work that the students had done. Following a preface (Victoria Lee, Denis Melik Tangiyev, & Chau Truong) and plenary highlights (Atsushi Hasegawa), papers in these proceedings include: Homeless or Houseless: Terminology Changes for Home Owner Agency (Jenniefer Corpuz); Positing a Hybrid Exemplar Model for L2 Intonation (Bonnie J. Fox); A Look at Prosody in Nasal (Jacob Hakim); Flying in English (Michaela Nuesser); Subtitled Videos as a Learning Tool in an L2 Classroom (Lucia Camardiel Sardiña); An Interactive Analysis on Indirect Conversational Closing Strategies in Chinese (Yunhe Sun); and Emerging Phenomena on Epistemic Marker - "Ketun" in Korean Conversations (Boeui Woo). [Cover title varies: "2020 Proceedings: Selected papers from the 24th Annual Graduate Student Conference, College of Languages, Linguistics & Literature." For the 2019 proceedings, see ED612291.]

The theme of this year's conference was "Check Your Vision for the Future" with papers highlighting emerging changes in language use and literature, as well as suggestions for improving language teaching and maintenance in the future. The plenary speech was given by Dr. Katie Drager, followed by student presentations. Following a preface from the editors and plenary speaker highlights from Britney Carey, contents of these proceedings include nine presentations: (1) Let's Talk EFL and ESL Textbook Story: Looking Back and Moving Forward (Cheryl DiCello); (2) Chuck Norris Jokes: Manifestations of Gender Stereotypes in American Society (Kate Hardeman); (3) An Acoustic Study of the Neutral Tone in Taiwan Mandarin (Karen Huang); (4) "Masculine" "No": Japanese Men's Use of Sentence-Final Particle "No" (Kristyn Martin); (5) Language Shift: A Case Study of a Family Spanning "3.5 Generations" (Monica Vidal); (6) From Consumption to Community in the Beginning Writing Classroom (Amanda Adams-Handy); (7) Light and Darkness in "The Time Machine" (Madoka Nagado); (8) The Post-Postmodern? A Millennial Sensibility in Ethnic American Fictions (Nicole Myoshi Rabin); and (9) The Role of Motivation in Performing as a Writer in Liminal Spaces (Melinda Smith). Individual papers contain references.

This paper examines the problem of whether tonal representation should be considered segmental or suprasegmental. Woo's hypothesis that tone features are to be specified segmentally is discussed as well as Leben's statement that in some languages tone is suprasegmental. The following are criteria suggested as a basis for tonal representation: where tone is a feature of units larger than a segment, or if contour tones fall on single vowels, the representation should be suprasegmental; where phonotactic constraints refer to both tonal and nontonal constraints, the representation should be segmental. However, it is not yet clear what features are generally needed to represent tone either suprasegmentally or segmentally. Furthermore, there are indications that a viable theory of language will have to take into account varying types of tone languages which require further classification beyond that of requiring segmental or suprasegmental representation. (AM)

Collaborative learning is a complex process during which two or more learners exchange opinions, construct shared knowledge, and solve problems together. While engaging in this interactive process, learners' satisfaction toward their partners plays a crucial role in defining the success of the collaboration. If intelligent systems could predict peer satisfaction early during collaboration, they could intervene with adaptive support. However, while extensive studies have associated peer satisfaction with factors such as social presence, communication, and trustworthiness, there is no research on automatically predicting learners' satisfaction toward their partners. To fill this gap, this paper investigates the automatic prediction of peer satisfaction by analyzing 44 middle school learners' interactions during collaborative coding tasks. We extracted three types of features from dialogues: (1) linguistic features indicating semantics; (2) acoustic-prosodic features including energy and pitch; and (3) visual features including eye gaze, head pose, facial behaviors, and body pose. We then trained several regression models to predict the peer satisfaction scores that learners received from their partners. The results revealed that head position and body location were significant indicators of peer satisfaction: lower head and body distances between partners were associated with more positive peer satisfaction. This work is the first to investigate the multimodal prediction of peer satisfaction during collaborative problem solving, and represents a step toward the development of real-time intelligent systems that support collaborative learning. [For the full proceedings, see ED623995.]

Three categories of audio recordings, a web service platform, and commercial software were involved in this analysis process. The three categories of audio recordings included eight filtered student recordings, an audio recording provided by a Mandarin instructor from University Malaysia Sabah, and an audio recording generated by Text-to-Speech MP3, available at https://ttsmp3.com/. All ten recordings will be uploaded into the NCH WavePad Sound Editor to build a spectrum image. This will allow us to compare and identify differences in tone reading, emotion reading, etc. You can download the NCH WavePad Sound Editor from https://www.nch.com.au/WavePad/index.html. This information is beneficial for all Mandarin language beginners and their teachers, as it can be used for comparison purposes. With this knowledge, they can further undertake a pilot study. This study provides a foundation for investigating differences in human and machine reading from multiple perspectives. Furthermore, this dataset can be used to analyze reading speed. It serves as a crucial starting point for spectrum, voice wave, and reader behavior research. [For the full proceedings, see ED654100.]

The teaching of spoken Chinese in the context of post-primary education in Ireland faces several complexities. Learners of Mandarin Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL), including both Irish and heritage learners, have demonstrated difficulty in learning spoken Chinese. This exploratory research is part of a larger project which aims to develop appropriate ad hoc intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning (iCALL) solutions by providing visualised instruction and a gamified feedback system for Mandarin tone acquisition, and using a spoken dialogue system to create a simulated virtual environment for practising spoken Chinese. This paper presents a qualitative needs analysis, in the form of semi-structured interviews, which has been conducted with 12 CFL teachers with various linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds. It aims to investigate learners' difficulty in learning spoken Chinese and teachers' willingness to implement technology in CFL curricula. [For the complete proceedings, see ED600837.]

The titles of papers in this document on impromptu or spontaneous speech are as follows: "Impromptu Speech, Structure, and Process"; "Non-Verbal Aspects of Impromptu Speech"; "Echanges, interventions et actes de langage dans la structure de la conversation" ("Exchanges, Interventions, and Speech Acts in the Structure of Conversation"); "Phatic, Metalingual and Metacommunicative Functions in Discourse: Gambits and Repairs"; "The Segmentation Problem in the Study of Impromptu Speech"; "The Segmentation of Impromptu Speech"; "The Symbiotic Relationship between Pragmatic Particles and Impromptu Speech"; "The Emergence of Speech Organisers in a Renovated Language: The Case of Hebrew Void Pragmatic Connectives"; "Contrastive Analysis and Impromptu Speech"; "Observations Related to Impromptu Elements in Classroom Discourse and to the Function of Such Elements for Foreign Language Teaching and Learning"; "Why Impromptu Speech Is Easy to Understand"; "Impromptu Speech and Oral Translation"; "Effects of Some Characteristics of Impromptu Speech on Conference Interpreting"; "When Is It My Turn to Speak?"; "Impromptuness and Intonation"; "Exophora in English Conversation"; "From Function to Structure: Some Pragmatic Determinants of Syntactic Frequencies in Impromptu Speech"; "Feedback"; "The Study of Russian Impromptu Speech in Soviet Linguistics"; and "Reports on Projects Relevant to the Study of Impromptu Speech." (MSE)

Considering the contradictory research on explicit teaching of suprasegmentals, the present study aims to investigate the effects of explicit instruction of L2 English learners' perception of prosodically ambiguous intonation patterns, as well as the possible effects of reported musical familiarity on intonation acquisition. A control group and a treatment group of low-intermediate international English students were asked to judge the meaning of three types of sentence-final intonation patterns: declarative sentences, tag questions, and wh- questions. Overall, the group that received explicit instruction during the four-week treatment phase scored higher on the perception post-test than those who received no treatment, although the improvement was not found to be statistically significant. A small number of learners with self-reported musical familiarity in the experimental group did not significantly improve in their perception of intonation patterns compared to their peers. [This paper was published in: "Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech. Concordia Working Papers in Applied Linguistics. Volume 5" (pp. 353-372). COPAL, 2014.]

This study is based on Second Language Acquisition through blended learning and explores the application of new educational technologies in the development of distance education. In particular, the paper focuses on ways to enhance oral, aural, and intercultural skills through learners' engagement, develop authentic social interaction and intercultural awareness in virtual environments and at the same time actively engage the students' powers of perception, communication and reasoning. A speech visualization technology is introduced, specifically tailored to pronunciation training. It provides relevant and comprehensible visual feedback of all three components of speech: prosody-intonation, stress and rhythm. In this paper we stress that the achievement of successful communication should be the main objective of a second language learner, whilst overcoming the foreign accent can be deemed as a secondary goal. A strong or incorrect placement of word stress may impair understanding--from the listener's point of view--of the word(s) being pronounced. On the other hand, acquiring correct timing of phonological units helps to overcome the impression of foreign accent, which may ensue from an incorrect distribution of stressed vs. unstressed stretches of linguistic units such as syllables or metric feet. For these reasons our study looks at how to improve a student's performance both in perception and production of spoken Italian prosodic features, which include the correct position of stress at word level, the alternation of stress and unstressed syllables, the correct position of sentence accent, the generation of the adequate rhythm from the interleaving of stress, accent, phonological rules, and the generation of adequate intonation patterns for each utterance related to communicative functions. [For full proceedings, see ED565044.]

Many students of English language find pronunciation difficult to master. This work in progress paper discusses an incremental and iterative approach towards developing requirements for software applications to assist learners with the perception and production of English pronunciation in terms of phonemes and prosody. It was found that prompts for eliciting target pronunciation should include a visual indication of the meaning of the target word or phrase in addition to the sound, and that the learners should be led through a hierarchy of words. This should start with phonemes of simple (one syllable) words, and adaptively build up to prosody of two syllable words, then increasing the syllables in the target words as the learner improves. A simple representation of prosody was developed and found to be intuitive by students for comparing their pronunciation to that of a native speaker. Students considered that an analysis time of within one second for phonemes and prosody was considered "real time", and requested integration with social media for both enabling competition and celebration of achievement. [For full proceedings, see ED565087.]

The 50 papers on English language and literature included in this compilation are grouped under the following headings: Old English (editing "Judgment Day," the syntactic types "every man" and "each of men," and continuity and variation in psalm glosses); Present-Day English (speech rate and vowel quantity as compared with Finnish): neutralization in generative phonology; nouns ending in "-ee"; embedding in legal English; conversion; term-formation in engineering; lexicology; aspects of dialect space; "go to" and "will" in spoken English; preterite and perfect in British news bulletins; semantics of terminologies; secular, doctrinal, and supernatural illocutionary acts; cohesion and coherence in short expository essays; pronominal chains in conversation; argumentative text structure; content and sentence structure in simplified and abridged texts; the transferred epithet and body language; term papers in research projects; comparison of spoken and written English; adverbials; discourse analysis; English in Sweden); Teaching of English (intonation and Norwegian students; difficulty in English as a foreign language; technological developments; British politics); and literature (controversy over literary theory; comedy and twentieth-century drama; medieval portraiture; the song "Little Son Hugh"; folktales; partition in Indo-English novels; and 12 authors: William Shakespeare, John Milton, Thomas Otway, Mary Wollstonecraft, Samuel Coleridge, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Sewell, Thomas Hardy, Hans Andersen, D. H. Lawrence, Andre Brink, Tom Stoppard). (MSE)

A study assessed the practical use of the simplified speech pattern approach to teaching lipreading in a tone language by comparing performance using an acoustic hearing-aid and a Sivo-aid in a tone labelling task. After initial assessment, subjects were given training to enhance perception of lexically contrastive tones, then post-tested. The test used was audio-video recorded test material in Cantonese used to assess speech receptive ability, which includes a tonal component. For each subject, visual stimuli were presented, some accompanied by an auditory signal (either speech tone or larynx tone) through either acoustic hearing aids or a Sivo-aid. One treatment used lipreading alone. Subjects in the experimental group were four profoundly deaf children; all of their deaf classmates served as a control group. Results indicated that the auditory signal contributes to tonal reception more effectively using the Sivo-aid, but some variation still occurred. It is concluded that the simplification approach allows a better match to the user's hearing capabilities, making better use of residual hearing, and allows gradual development of perceptual skills relating to suprasegmentals as well as segmentals. (MSE)

The properties of one of the structures of politeness in the romance languages, the deference system connected with the use of conditional tenses, are analyzed in this paper. Although only Spanish examples are given, the conclusions also apply to French, Italian and Roumanian. The first part of the paper analyzes politeness in relation to its applicability to different illocutionary acts together with the types of sentences that may express them; the second part relates the conclusions of the first part to linguistic theory. Politeness is possible only in those speech acts in which greater control is assigned to the hearer than the speaker, and where the hearer must do something. Therefore, assertions, commands or acts of granting permission cannot be uttered in the polite form, whereas making suggestions or giving advice can be. Sentences with performative verbs or intonation contours and conditional markers fit easily into a linguistic formal theory of semantics. The case of conveyed illocutionary forces is more problematic. This form of politeness is contextual or pragmatic. This separation into two areas, however, seems artificial, since the rules that have been considered seem to function in a similar way and under similar conditions whether "semantic" or "pragmatic." (CFM)

This paper is a report of two studies of the relationship between intonation and syntax. An analysis of intonation was used to decide whether the pivot-like two-morpheme constructions of a one- and one-half-year-old girl were single lexical items or two separate lexical items. Further, the intonation contours connected with her linguistically diverse open-open constructions were highly similar, suggesting the inadequacy of semantic relations and syntactic constructs in explaining the developmental stage. Finally, a comparative study of the intonation of the same child at two years of age and an abnormal speaker, a fifteen-year-old boy, pointed to differences in their syntactic capabilities that were not obvious from a syntactic analysis. (Author)

Two experiments conducted at the University of Texas at Austin are discussed in this paper. One experiment deals with the production of final syllable lengthening and stress in Spanish and English by native Spanish speakers learning English. The other experiment deals with judgments about the Spanish speakers' production of English by native English speakers. In the former experiment, duration and frequency are measured. From these measurements, final syllable lengthening and duration and frequency ratios between stressed and unstressed syllables are calculated. In the latter experiment, the Spanish speakers are ranked according to their overall English pronunciation ability as perceived by native English speakers. Explanations are given for the durational and frequency adjustments the subjects make from Spanish to English, and the implications of the experimental results for English training programs for Spanish speakers are discussed. (Author/PMP)

Just as a reader must bring an experiential conceptual background to the printed page, so must he bring an ability to recognize the graphic cues that signal meaning. The graphic cues or structural meaning works as a system the description of which can be outlined in three parts as the vocabulary, the structure, and the sound. What has been neglected in the area of vacabulary is the concept that words alone do not carry precise meaning until they are placed in the structural and intonational system of the English language. An individual's sense of structure gives the written work meaning or determines how it means in contrast to what it means. Intonation functions as a controller of meaning. Generally speaking, the structural and intonational signals are not new. What is new is that this description of how meaning is structured is linked to the language that the child already knows intuitively so that the whole system can be taught without technical terminology at an early age and as the child is learning to read. What is also new is that this knowledge of the signals is not isolated as part of a spelling program or a grammar lesson but in the context of meaning in reading. (WR)

This paper argues that the origin of the tonal accents in Low German, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian can be explained on the basis of segmental circumstances, that they may be considered as secondary in the historical development of these languages, and that they arise when the redundant tonal transition in centering diphthongs becomes distinctive when such diphthongs monophthongize. As a corollary, it is argued that centering diphthongs which become tonal monophthongs arise as a result of the disturbance of the timing of disyllabic sequences with one medial consonant. The argument is based on (1) phonetic studies, and (2) historical and comparative examination of Germanic dialects. (Author/AM)

This study was designed to investigate, describe, and compare the intonation patterns of Black English and Standard English speaking children in a reading (formal) and free discourse (informal) situation. Black English was defined as the linguistic code of the subjects sampled from the inner city black poverty area schools, and Standard English as the linguistic code of the subjects sampled from the upper-middle class white area schools. Thirty male Black English speakers and thirty male Standard English speakers, all between 12 and 14 years old, were sampled from junior high schools in two distinct socioeconomic areas of Los Angeles. All interviews were conducted with pairs of informants. Among the main findings of the study were the following: (1) Black English intonation patterns were different from Standard English intonation patterns for all sentence types and situations, except the specific question informal situation. (2) Black English displayed more level or rising terminal intonation contours than Standard English. (3) Black English displayed more rising initial intonation contours than Standard English. (4) The Black English speaker apparently differentiated between reading and free discourse situations by changing intonation patterns, whereas the Standard English speaker did not. (5) Standard English speakers maintain a higher pitch level than Black English speakers. (PP)

This paper focuses on linguistic prosodic units related to boundaries between syntactic units. Specifically, rules for predicting the location of such boundaries, and factors affecting their location, are discussed. Examples are given on how prosodies can be used for syntactic analysis. Addressing the question of prosodic units and their distribution, two theories, both based on a hierarchy of units, are contrasted. A third theory, suggested as a possible basis for further refinement and testing is stated as follows: an NP that is not a single unstressed pronoun ends with a phrase- or clause-level boundary; NP's with embedded clauses have boundaries before the clause. A study conducted to test this rule is described, and several flaws in the rule are pointed out. Areas in the study of prosody that need further research are pinpointed. (AM)

This paper is a critical survey of the work of various linguists in the field of English intonation studies. Crystal's work is cited as being particularly influential in the author's work. It is argued that there is a lack of progress in this field because of a preoccupation on the part of scholars with their own studies and their application and because of the variety in the kinds of notation used in the United States and the United Kingdom. As a solution to the latter problem, an amplification of the Kingdom notation is advocated, combining the Kingdon simplicity with American efficiency and thoroughness. (AM)

This paper describes a training course for oral skills devised for the intermediate and advanced students of the Japanese language, utilizing the media of the Wesleyan University campus broadcasting station, WESU. The training starts with correcting the students' pronunciation and pitch accent and goes to the higher level of skills, such as intonation, prominence, pause, speed and change of pace. Instructional materials consist of the educational tapes called "Classroom for Announcing," made by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation in Tokyo for training Japanese junior and senior high school students to be announcers in their school broadcasting stations. The excellent examples and drills for pronunciation and other speech skills are recorded by the professional announcers and voice actors and actresses. One of the tapes includes some actual performances of announcements and interviews by Japanese students. The teaching method is explained step by step, using these tapes. The first Japanese radio program was broadcast on December 11th, 1977. (Author/CLK)

Since 1971 the approach adopted in the teaching of English phonetics in Denmark has been a contrastive one. In this paper it is argued that although the original contrastive hypothesis (Lado 1957) has to be modified and weakened, a contrastive approach is highly useful in learning and teaching the pronunciation of a foreign language. Selected features of English and Danish phonetics are discussed. Within the area of consonants special attention is devoted to the transference to English of the Danish voicing neutralization, i.e., of the suspension in word-final and -medial position of the opposition between /p t k/ and /b d g/. As a result of this neutralization Danes find it difficult to distinguish between English words like "bicker" and "bigger,""cap" and "cab," etc. A section on English and Danish vowels is primarily devoted to a discussion of the difficulties which Danes have in keeping words like "luck" and "lock,""hut" and "hot," etc. apart, in spite of the fact that they possess vowels of nearly the same quality in their own language. The paper concludes with a report on a recent acoustical investigation of Danish intonation, which may provide the basis for a contrastive analysis of English and Danish intonation. (Author/AM)

Second language pronunciation and listening comprehension are inherently linked. Furthermore, they are bound by a system in which the individual sounds are related. The focus of second language instruction should be the framework of intonation within which the sounds are organized. Instruction should be based on the way English speakers depend on intonation to organize thoughts and highlight important words. Students should be taught how to determine which words to emphasize and how to recognize and produce the three most useful signals of stress: pitch change, vowel lengthening, and clarity of stressed sounds. They should learn that native speakers deliberately deviate from a basic emphasis pattern in order to call attention to a new focus of thought. Minimal word pairs can be used for teaching both pronunciation and meaning by presenting them in sentences that require meaningful responses. (RW)

In Sofia, Bulgaria, at the Institute of Suggestology headed by Dr. Georgi Lozanov, yoga relaxation has been combined with the Mauger oral method to produce a unique system of foreign language teaching: Suggestopedia. In a pleasant classroom, 12 students sit in specail chairs in front of a teacher individually trained in the foreign language and in "suggestion." Classes meet six days a week for four hours. Each of the three courses in a given foreign language lasts a month. During the initial course, students memorize some 2,000 word-groups and corresponding grammar. A class session consists of three parts: (1) conversational review of previous lessons; (2) presentation of new material in the form of "realistic" dialogues; (3) the seance or relaxation session during which the new material is reinforced by the following techniques: coordination of sound and image; various intonations in the repetition of a given phrase; a background of 18th century baroque music; the acting out of the text. The seance features a coordination of breathing rhythm, speaking rhythm, and music rhythm and produces both relaxation and concentration. It is claimed that suggestopedia speeds up the assimilation of the basic elements of a foreign language and eliminates the stress of an intensive course. (Author/AM)

An important feature of the sentence in any language is its thematic structure, new/given information organization. It has been found that in English, where word order is grammatically determined, the thematic structure is signalled by the place of the sentence stress. If an indefinite noun (new information) is present in the sentence, it bears the stress in non-contrastive intonation, no matter what its function and position is. In the presence of a definite noun, the stress falls on the element in sentence-final position, or on the preceding element if nothing follows the noun. Any violation of word order or the place of the stress gives a contrastive reading. In Polish, where grammatical functions are indicated by endings, the thematic structure is signalled by word order and sentence stress. Neutrally, the stress falls on the new information, i.e., on the non-coreferential noun, and it is placed as far to the end of the sentence as possible, new information moving with it. Thus, in English, the stress on new information and SVO order are constants, given/new information organization a variable; in Polish, stress on new information and given/new order are constants, SVO order a variable. Any violation of one of the constants leads to a contrastive reading. (Author)

Punctuation serves as a system of visual markers that contradict previously generated false grammatical expectations. Word order conditions define the redundant or critical aspect of punctuation cues to visual display. Parsing (grouping) sentences into meaningful phrases and clauses aids language comprehension, and children who have reading problems have often been shown to lack parsing skills. There is also evidence to suggest that visually marking subject, predicate, and phrase boundaries results in an improvement in children's reading comprehension. If text segmentation or end of line punctuation is related to an improvement in developing children's reading comprehension, it might be worthwhile to redesign some texts so that (1) modified terminal punctuation is used for beginning low ability readers, (2) punctuation is used to determine the boundaries between chunks of text, (3) printed intonation cues in texts are eliminated, (4) chunked text due to lack of space is not broken at right margin, and (5) line breaks are made between phrases or toward the end of the sentence. New technologies, specifically microcomputers and word processing software, can help children to become more cognizant of these language patterns that affect comprehension. (HOD)

Papers include: "Length and Structure Effects in Syntactic Processing"; Nantong Tone Sandhi and Tonal Feature Geometry"; "Event Reference and Property Theory"; "Function-Argument Structure, Category Raising and Bracketing Paradoxes"; "At the Phonetics-Phonology Interface: (Re)Syllabification and English Stop Allophony"; "Interpreting Reflexives in Coordinate NPs"; "Resultative 'de' as an Inflectional Morpheme in Chinese"; "Against an Ergative Analysis of Eastern Javanese"; "What Determines Anatipassive in Dyirbal?"; "In Defense of [plus or minus FOC]"; "The Bermuda Triangle of Syntax, Rhythm and Tone"; "Complement Structure of 'Tough' Constructions"; "Frequency, Markedness, and Morphological Change: On Predicting the Spread of Noun-Plural '-S' in Modern High German--and West Germanic"; "Discourse-Linking and the Wh-Island Extraction Asymmetry"; "One Word's Strength is Another Word's Weakness"; "Two Analyses of Korean Verb Inflections"; "Is INFL Universal? A Case Study of Korean"; "Vowel Underspecification in Jiyuan Chinese"; "Italian Psych Verbs in a Theory of Predication"; "Thematic Roles and French Dative Clitics: 'Lui' vs. 'Y'"; "Focus and the Discourse Dimension in Autolexical Theory"; "Aspectual Content of Compound Verbs"; "Thematic Structure and Verb Preferences"; "A-bar Movement in Spanish: Wh-questions, Focalizations, and Relative Clauses"; "Role of Plasticity in the Association of Focus and Prominence"; "A Unified Explanation of Deponent Verbs in Ancient Greek"; "Intonation and Focus in American Sign Language"; "'Any': Its Context Sensitivity and Meaning"; and "Negation and Aspect." (MSE)

To assess the success of third grade readers in segmenting written text into the ideational groupings judged appropriate by adult readers, 22 students were given two prose selections and told to mark each location where a good reader might pause or take a breath while reading a story out loud. Their pausal locations were then compared to those marked by 31 college students. The parsing performances of the third graders were analyzed according to the logic of signal detection theory, and the scores were compared with the readers' subtest scores on standardized achievement and reading diagnostic tests. The results indicated that, as a group, the third graders were surprisingly accurate in designating the correct pausal locations. Individually, poorer readers made more errors than good readers. There was also evidence that parsing performance bore a statistically significant relationship to the standardized achievement and diagnostic subtest scores. The ability to correctly segment words into syllables appeared to be the same ability that permitted readers to correctly segment the words of a text into constituent phrase structures. The results also support the hypothesis that the development of reading skills may be mediated through the development of a spatio-ideational ability called "cognitive demarcation," which may play a critical role in learning to read. (FL)

A method for teaching French oral reading is presented. Prior to the actual oral reading, the student should: (1) read the text attentively for meaning and in order to decide on the appropriate tone; (2) determine the rhythm appropriate to the text; (3) indicate, by means of arrows, the general intonational curve; (4) indicate the "liaisons" to be made or to be avoided; (5) study the silent "e's"; (6) indicate syllabic divisions; (7) indicate assimilations created by the dropping of final "e"; and (8) identify syllabic semi-vowels. Following individual or group reading, a tape recording could serve as means of checking the performance. (AM)

This paper attempts to identify some of the reasons for problems in American-British communication, particularly in the use of intonational contours by male and female speakers. One major contrast between British and American speech is found in the use of heads. Rising heads seem to be more frequent in British English, whereas a neutral head is more prevalent in American speech. The British rising head is interpreted by Americans as a tone used with children, while the rising head in American speech is used to show doubt, and is used mostly by women. The British falling nuclei convey either hostility or involvement (the Low Drop and the High Drop, respectively), whereas in American English this is true only for women. The low drop in American English is often a pleasant pattern, without the negative implications associated with the British pattern. An upglided nucleus is rare in American male speech, but more common in American female speech. Since rising nuclei are common in both men's and women's speech in British English, that could account for the fact that British men often sound effeminate to Americans. These and other tentative findings could be important factors in the English as a second language classroom. (AM)

Pacing in the teaching of English as a second language (ESL) is considered. It is suggested that the problem of pacing is almost entirely a matter of teachers covering material so rapidly that the student frequently does not have the opportunity to integrate it. Since the recognition of sounds, symbols, and sentences is not mastery of them, it is important that students master the simpler structures on which the more complex English structures are based. Pacing begins in the goals the teacher sets for students and is enhanced through classroom drilling. The repetition drill per se is largely a matter of listen and repeat. By adding systems of visual cues, the exercise can also be used to teach reading skills, intonation patterns, and correct versus incorrect variations in sentence patterns. The teacher can drill oral and written questions and answers and at the same time provide intonation practice to a highly literate student (i.e., capable of structural substitutions). For a student who is semiliterate (particularly one who is unfamiliar with the spatial order of English), the teacher must combine oral drill with visual cues that encourage left-to-right movement across the page. Finally, for a barely literate student, the teacher must combine oral skills with those that develop discrimination of sentence, word, and letter boundaries, in that order. An instructional approach involving slot substitution for parts of sentences is illustrated. (SW)

In an analysis of stress and intonation, stress is shown to distinguish semantic and grammatical meaning on every level of language. It is suggested that the distinction between stress and intonation is particularly important in teaching English as a second language. Written texts and fabricated examples of dialogue are used, with a focus on speech as oral production of texts. It is proposed that a regular correlation can be seen between the degree of semantic meaning attached to a syllable and the degree of stress it carries. Rules for the distribution of functionally contrastive degrees of stress are shown to operate on the word level where roots are stressed in constrast with affixes. On the phrase level, lexical and structural words are distinguished by stress, and the semantic focus of the phrase is marked by primary stress. Stress operates beyond the phrase on the text level to link sentences and groups of sentences in connected discourse. Anaphoric stress is a cohesive device that expresses the relationship between referents and references. On the other hand, intonation is a nonstructural feature that utilizes pitch contours projected on phrase stress groups. This involves a culturally conditioned expression of attitude to the speaking situation. (SW)

Documented sex differences in speech and their significance are considered. The research literature on sex-differentiated speech reveals the influence of sex-role stereotypes and assumptions about the relation of speech to sex-differentiated socialization. The more substantiated differences form three clusters: (1) the production of esteemed variants, (2) the degree of dynamism in pitch and intonation, and (3) conversational dominance. The best documented is the claim that women are more likely to produce the socially-esteemed pronunciation and syntax. In addition, both pitch and intonation appear to distinguish male/female speech. Differentiation in conversational dominance is produced by overlap, interruption, verbosity, and the ability to introduce topics that are sustained by others. It has been assumed that differentiated socialization produced differentiated behavior, that speech differentiation was naturally a part of this process, and that utterances and behaviors were likely to be mutually consistent. By stressing the purposeful, intentional dimension of naturally occurring utterances, the three clusters of substantiated differences may be treated as accomplishing certain ends. It is suggested that each of these clusters pertains to the tenor of discourse, and that they collectively show the attempt to define interaction, capture an audience, and affirm relations of dominance. (Author/SW)

One characteristic of Japanese pitch accent is that there is the so-called "flat" accent, which has no fall or nucleus. This type of accent exists not only in Standard Japanese but in many dialects, including Kyoto. But the flat types are different in the Tokyo and Kyoto dialects. In the Tokyo dialect, the first syllable always has a low tone and the second a high tone. In the Kyoto flat type, the first and second syllables have the same high tones. Acoustic measurements were made on 144 di-syllabic Kyoto-accented words with the help of a Honeywell 906 C Visicorder. The results indicate that: (1) there are three vowel pitch levels--high, mid and low, but the mid tone linguistically loses its "raison d'etre" because it appears in the flat type or before a high tone, and it does not have any relationship with the nucleus; and (2) the flat type is acoustically unstable in pitch and amplitude. This instability may be one of the reasons why the historical changes in Japanese accent are more conspicuous in the flat type than in the non-flat types. (Author/KM)

Linguistic research has paid little attention to "fillers." These so-called "hesitation forms" can be classified as being either "buffers" or "back channel elicitors," the former being self-primers, and the latter being other-directed. These forms are difficult to distinguish without access to kinesic and paralinguistic information. A pilot study was conducted to observe the type of adjustment the hearer makes to different types of fillers. Thirty-six subjects from 3 to 18 years of age, all Black Americans, were videotaped and observed in various conversational actions. Observation indicated that buffers and back channel elicitors were clearly distinguished by the hearers. In addition, it was demonstrated that the identical verbalization might appear as buffer or elicitor and that this distinction on the part of the hearer was made possible by a combined interpretation of verbal and nonverbal signs. A transcript of one videotaped interaction is appended. (AM)

Middle Eastern students face cultural conflicts in adapting to the western value system. While feeling obligated to maintain their native culture they also need to feel comfortable with the culture of their target language. In attempting to identify with a new group, ESL students may sense a loss of membership in their native group. Culture stress may arise when individuals reach a state of not belonging to either their native or second language group. ESL teachers and administrators need to be aware of this conflict so they may help these students function in a foreign society. A questionnaire was given to higher level intensive ESL students to ascertain their major positive and negative reactions to adjusting to American society and intensive ESL coursework. ESL students have problems with differences in stress, intonation, dialect variation, social register, idiomatic usage, and conversational strategies. These problems can disrupt communication. In the classroom, ESL instructors need to be aware of Middle Easterners' cultural biases to develop effective classroom strategies. Matters of religion, diet, hygiene, sex roles, proxemics, and punctuality reveal cultural differences and may cause problems that must be handled with empathy in order to ease the foreigner's transition into society. (JK)

Although intonation has been said to be one of the first meaningful units of language that a child acquires, it is difficult to say just what this really means. How does the child learn to distinguish the various grammatical meanings that an intonation can have? It was hypothesized that the child first acquires question and request forms on the basis of intonation contours, but gradually comes to recognize other linguistic markers (illocutionary markers) marking the sentence to be a question or a request. At a later stage of development, therefore, the hypothesis was that the child will answer questions and requests even if the intonation contour did not by itself denote the utterance to be a question or request, as long as there were other markers present to signify to the child that the utterance was a question or request. It was also hypothesized that the adult also uses more intonation-determined questions to the child at a younger age than at an older age. The results support these hypotheses. (Author/CLK)

This research deals with a series of preliminary studies of the management of questions by second language learners of Swedish. Question management here refers to the ability to produce an utterance which successfully elicits a response from an interlocutor, and the ability to determine correctly when a response is required. The three exploratory studies involve a listening test, a production task, and input studies. The listening test compared native and non-native listeners' ability to detect questions in Swedish. The study concentrated on the perception of rising intonation as a question marker. The second phase addressed the question of learners' reliance on intonation as a marker in the production of questions, as well as the way this compares with native performance. The input studies concerned observation of the speech of a native speaker of Swedish teaching Swedish as a second language. Her speech behavior in class was compared with her speech in conversation with another native speaker. Results indicate that transfer from English to Swedish and input influences account for some of the data, but not all of it. Therefore, it might be useful to consider the differences between native and non-native speech as a function of the differences in purpose of the native and the learner. (AMH)

Papers from the Proceedings of the 17th meeting of the AIMAV (Association internationale pour le developpement de la communication interculturelle) are collected in this volume. Conference papers appear either in English, in French, or in Russian. For purposes of this abstract, all titles below have been translated into English. The English-language papers presented here are: "My Method of Studying Russian," (Maria T. Bella); "The Teaching of Russian in the USSR: World-Wide Window for Soviet Non-Russians," (Goldie Blankoff-Scarr); and "Grammatical Interference of the Native Language in Russian Language Learning," (E. Popoff-Bocker). Papers in French are: "A Tentative Analysis of the State of Russian Language Instruction in France," (Irene Commeau); "The Problem of Teaching Russian Literature in Translation," (Claude De Greve); "Ann Attempt at Teaching Some Elementary Structures of Russian: Phonology and Phonetics, Transcription and Orthography," (Danielle Konopnicki-Miot); and "The Semantic Approach of the Russian Culture," (N. Stange-Zhirovova). Papers in Russian are: "The Advancement of Russian Language Teacher Qualifications with Regard to the Communicative Tasks of Instruction," (T. M. Dorofyeeva); "Some Aspects of My Teaching an Advanced Russian Literature Class in a French College," (O. M. Grabovskaya); "On Minimizing Classroom Materials," (Arto Mustajoki); "An Accounting of the Progress of Comparative Literary Criticism in the Teaching of Russian Literature," (Michai Novikov); "Two Intonation Contours in Contemporary Russian Language," (Cecilia Ode);"Teaching Russian Language in the Non-Russian European Parts of the USSR," (Shegun Odunuga); "Comprehension Tests of Russian Texts," (C. Petri); and "The Status of Russian Language Instruction in West German Schools, 1984," (Kai Sieveking). (LMO)

The papers include: "Applied Linguistics and Comunicative Language Teaching" (Christopher Brumfit); "Evaluation of the East Midlands Graded Assessment Feasibility Study" (Elaine S. Freedman); "Aspects of Standardisation within a Communicative Assessment Syllabus" (Nicola Lees); "Experimenting with Interaction" (Roy Dunning); "The Evaluation of a 'Communicative' French Course" (Brian Parkinson); "The Teacher's Use of First Language and Foreign Language as Means of Communication in the Foreign Language Classroom" (Rosamond Mitchell); "Discourse in a Television Language Teaching Programme: Implications for Learning" (Thomas Bloor); "Yes, But What Do You Mean by 'Communication'?" (John L. M. Trim); "Defined Syllabus: Crutch or Straitjacket" (Brian Page); "Contrastive Pragmatics and the Foreign Language Learner's Personality" (William T. Littlewood); and "Speaking English with the Appropriate Degree of Conviction" (Janet Holmes). (MSE)

The proceedings include: (1) "Communicative Competence Reconsidered," by M. Doushaq; (2) "Scenarios for Enhancing Communicative Competence," by G. Salah; (3) "Oral Style Strategies in EFL Written Discourse: Implications for Teaching College Composition," by O. Atari; (4) "Arabic and English Imperative Structures," by M. Anani; (5) "Simplification and Reduction as Foreign Language Learning Strategies: Implications from Jordanian Arabs Learning English," by Y. El-Halees; (6) "The Stressing of Final Superheavy Syllables by Saudi Learners of English: Implications for the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis," by M. Younes; (7) "Achievement Testing and Foreign Language Teaching," by A. Abdrabou; (8) "Educational Theory and TESL/TEFL: Where the Antipathy Has Led to," by H. El Fadil; (9)"Linguistic Analysis as an Input to Course Design," by T. Khalid; (10) "Basic Academic Requirements of Foreign Students in Departments of English," by G. Salamah; (11) "On the Notions 'Standard' and 'Prestigious' in Arabic Sociolinguistics," by M. Ibrahim; (12) "Arabicization and the Role of English Language Teaching in Arab Universities with Special Reference to the Iraqi Experiment," by L. Barkho; (13) "Subject-Object Relations and Word Order in Standard Arabic," by S. Suleiman; (14) "Definiteness in Arabic from an Axiomatic Functional Point of View," by S. Hadj-Mohamed; (15) "Adjectives, Nouns, and Copredication in English," by J. Bunnaq; (16) "Palestinian Arabic Vowels," by J. Cormick; and (17) "Consonant Assimilation in Arabic: An Autosegmental Approach," by I. Abu-Salim. (MSE)

One of the main aims of economic professional discourse is to achieve the goals set by business circles, financial institutions, banks and other economic organisations. The range of verbal means fulfilling these goals is an object of thorough analysis of sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, pragmatics and discourse studies. In this context the sphere of prosody is of special interest for linguistic research, as, according to researchers, around 30% of information is transmitted with the help of intonation. The purpose of the present paper is to describe the prosodic peculiarities of the strategy of solution search applied in English economic discourse and to analyse how intonation benefits to more effective speech impact. Research was carried out by methods of continuous sampling, functional and auditorial intonation analysis. Excerpts from the speech of representatives of international economic organisations and businessmen served as empirical basis for the study. As a result of the study the following tactics realizing the solution search strategy were singled out: brainstorming, getting support, opinion expression, request, specification, agreement and offer. The following prosodic peculiarities are characteristic of these tactics: word-by-word emphasis, marked localization of nucleus, prosodic emphasis of personal pronouns. The strategy in general is characterised by short intonation groups, high and middle tone level, prevailing narrow and middle range, a large number of high falling terminal tones. The functions of intonation in realization of the abovementioned strategy are: expressive, pragmatic, constitutive and distinctive. The range of prosodic means corresponding to specific tactics is preconditioned by the necessity of varying the degree of pragmatic impact, formality / informality of communication, the degree of categoricalness. These are the skills essential for any register of professional communication. That is why the results of this research can be used in practical training of economists and businessmen, as well as in theoretical courses in English for Specific Purposes, phonetics, speech pragmatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates performance and perception of microintervals in first movement (Hora lunga) from György Ligetis' Sonata for Solo Viola. The 2.5 bar excerpt was performed live by the professional viola player - the author of this paper, with intention to test the performance and perception of two intonational versions - one containing equally tempered semitones B3-C4 (100 cents), and the other containing microintervals, which should be performed by lowering pitch B3 by 49 cents, or about a quartertone (149 cents). Finally, the entire Hora lunga was performed. Two hypotheses were tested: 1) non-musicians will not be able to tell the differences between the two excerpts; 2) those who will be able to tell differences would perceive microintervals as "out of tune". 26 participants, among those only 2 were professional musicians, participated in study. They gave their answers in specially prepared questionnaires, and 17 also described the effect of microtonal intonation in Hora lunga in after-concert interviews. Frequency analysis of performed music showed that there was always a tendency to play B3 higher as a target in both versions, but equally tempered and microinterval sizes were achieved by adjustment of the next pitch - C4. The range of sizes of the two types of intervals showed a strict difference between them (69-97.4 cents for equally tempered and 113-198 cents for microintervals). The major part of subjects (85%) asserted that differences between the two versions of excerpts were audible. Thus, hypothesis that non-musicians will not be able to perceive microtonal differences was not confirmed in this study. On the other hand, the hypothesis that microtonal difference could sound as out of tune for listeners, was partly confirmed as true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the tone structure of Bodo and Rabha language have been studied. These two languages have the syllable structures such as (V, CV, VC, CVC). The variation of pitch (Fo) contour of three types i.e. Rising, Falling and Flat has been considered. In the study the following observations have been made for Bodo language, in case of vowels, Fo contour is rising, except the high back un-rounded vowel (/w/) which shows a falling trend. But for vowels of Rabha language, Fo contour always show a rising. It is found that most of the pitch contour starts at a little higher position, (depending on speaker's initial vocal condition) and falls gradually to a low pitch and then shows a slight rise at the end of the syllable. If the nucleus is followed by tail syllables the falling part of the pattern is accompanied by the nucleus itself. The overall intonation pattern for both the languages, in case of sentences, are found to be composed of local rises and falls of tones across words or syllables i.e. the perceptions of a sentence is dependent on the tone pattern or pitch pattern of the syllables or words and intonation in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The thesis aims to investigate the intonational characteristics of specific sentences of the speech discourse delivered by Queen Elizabeth II. In the study, pitch comparison, pitch events and intonation contours are taken into consideration. Results show that while saying related sentences, the Queen provides support of the theme, spotlight mutual beliefs, search for recognition and achieve some related goals, with the use of intonation contours H*L-L%, L* L-H%, and H*H-L%, as well as pitch accents H*, L*+H and L+H*. Reasonable and ingenious employment of different tones of sentences makes 2017 Christmas speech delivered by Queen Elizabeth II more fantastic and full of affinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expressive speech synthesis has a wide variety of applications. Compared with general speech synthesis for Chinese, this paper focuses on prosody and intonation. Prosody is described from three aspects, accent, pause and speaking speed. Accent can be stressed by modifying fundamental frequency and amplitude. Pause is achieved by interpolating some frames which parameter value is zero. Speaking speed is controlled by copying or deleting some frames in specified location. Mandarin is a tonal language, so intonation is significant in the synthesis. There are four patterns of intonation, rising intonation, falling intonation, flat intonation and sinuate intonation. Use polynomial fitting function to model each intonation pattern. Apply the intonation model to convert one pattern to another. It can be seen from the experimental results, the proposed method can achieve a good quality on the conversion of tune and it can highly improve the naturalness of the speech. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In earlier work, we present corpus and experimental evidence indicating that (i) appositives and expressives are generally speaker-oriented oriented - i.e., they are generally intended to convey speaker commitments and generally interpreted as such - but that (ii) certain discourse conditions can counteract this preference to such a degree that non-speaker-orientation becomes the dominant interpretation. In this paper, we seek to better understand the factors that produce non-speaker-oriented readings. Focussing on appositives, we present comprehension and production studies indicating that speakers employ a variety of morphosemantic, prosodic, and gestural devices to convey this perspectival information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exclamatives are difficult to deal with exclusively from the viewpoint of truth-conditional semantics; indeed, we do not even have a clear-cut definition of what constitutes an exclamative, so the term refers to a wide range of syntactic constructions. In this paper, I focus on a few puzzles regarding the semantics and pragmatics of wh-exclamatives in Catalan and English, namely: (i) In what way is the semantics of wh-exclamatives different from the semantics of wh-interrogatives? (ii) In what way is the discourse contribution of wh-exclamatives different from the contribution of declaratives? I consider three major approaches, which I call the question approach (Gutiérrez- Rexach 1996, Zanuttini & Portner 2003), the degree approach (Castroviejo 2006) and the non-exclamative approach (D'Avis 2002, Abels 2005). More specifically, I claim that the different pragmatic behavior of wh-interrogatives versus that of wh-exclamatives stems from differences in parameters such as speaker commitment and the contribution of intonation. Moreover, I argue that wh-exclamatives make expressive speech acts insofar as they are meaningful contributions thanks to Evaluative Intonation. Third, I propose that Evaluative Intonation composes at the Conventional Implicature tier with a set of propositions, only if they involve a linear order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores linguistic means of cohesion and coherence, as well as means of intonation manifestation in popular economic discourse in terms of their functional and pragmatic importance. It also provides main approaches to the concepts of discourse and intonation manifestation both in oral and written discourse in modern linguistics. With economy being one of the essential areas of society and with the processes of economic globalization, the language of economy becomes one of the most explored in present-day linguistics. Particular attention should be given to the discourse functioning in mass media as being the most influential phenomenon in society. The article presents an analysis of linguistic means of coherence and intonation manifestation in popular economic discourse on the material of The Economist magazine articles. The total volume of the material under study amounts to 150 pages from resent issues of the magazine. Descriptive, comparative, syntactic and discourse analysis were applied in the study. Our research has shown that linguistic means of coherence in the analyzed material include various units from three fundamental language levels - grammatical, lexical, and stylistic. Among the grammatical means of cohesion, the most relevant proved to be the usage of predicative constructions, inversion, aspectual and temporal system of verbs, parentheses, and parallel constructions. Lexical and semantic means included lexical repetition, the usage of synonyms and antonyms, genus-species relations, words of the same semantic field, and deictic words. The most relevant and commonly used stylistic device proved to be a rhetorical question. Analysis of speech allusions, precedent statements found in economic discourse showed their effectiveness in intonation manifestation that helps much profounder understanding of the main idea implied in a piece of discourse. In conclusion we'd like to point put that the results of our study can have practical application both for those who create economic discourse and for those who wants to get the most understanding of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to evaluate the validity of PENTA model in simulating the emotional intonation of Mandarin Chinese. Based on the previous analysis on the Mandarin emotional intonation, it suggested that two target tones are needed in some conditions, such as the condition for the successive addition boundary tone (SUABT). It is a new encoding scheme in Chinese PENTA model, which means one syllable should have two tonal targets, one for lexical tone and the other is for the expressive tone. The numeric and perceptual assessments on the performances of simulating Mandarin Chinese emotional intonation with the new encoding schemes are evaluated. The results indicated that two targets are necessary and efficient to simulate boundary tones, in other words, the new encoding scheme is required to realize some kinds of emotional boundary tones by setting two target tones to convey expressive emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]