Page 18 - Summer 2018

Foreign Accent
Conclusion
As an acoustical phenomenon, the speech signal is a remark- ably rich and complex repository of information about an individual’s intent in speaking. But it is also filled with infor- mation about the speaker. We are remarkable in our ability to perceptually evaluate this rich and complex repository, not only in decoding the complex messages that the speaker intended but also in evaluating the similarity of the speech patterning to our native community. In the case of nonna- tive speakers, we often find just how stringent the criteria for native-like speech is and thus how detailed the acoustic information relevant to us as humans is.
Munro, M. J., and Derwing, T. M. (2001). Modeling perceptions of the ac- centedness and comprehensibility of L2 speech: The role of speaking rate. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 23, 451-468.
Park, H. (2008). Phonological Information and Linguistic Experience in For- eign Accent Detection. PhD Thesis, Department of Linguistics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Park, H., de Jong, K. J., and Darcy, I. (2008). The amount of information needed for listeners to detect a foreign accent. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 124, 2593.
Rabiner, L. R., Rosenberg, A. E., and Levinson, S. E. (1978). Considerations in dynamic time warping algorithms for discrete word recognition. IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing 26, 575-582.
Tajima, K., Port, R., and Dalby, J. (1997). Effects of temporal correction on intelligibility of foreign-accented English. Journal of Phonetics 15, 1-24.
Biosketch
Kenneth de Jong is professor of linguis- tics and cognitive science and adjunct professor of second language studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, conducting research into the diversity of processes pertaining to speech produc- tion and perception from motor coordi-
nation to the acoustic structure of linguistic categories to the acquisition of perceptual abilities in a second language. He was editor in chief of the Journal of Phonetics, is currently president of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, and was cochair of the 168th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Indianapolis, IN.
References
Alexander, S. T. (2011). Sincerity, Intonation, and Apologies: A Case Study of Thai EFL and ESL Learners. PhD Thesis, Departments of Second Language Studies and Linguistics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Clopper, C. G., Pisoni. D. B., and de Jong, K. J. (2005). Acoustic characteris- tics of the vowel systems of six regional varieties of American English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 118, 1661-1676.
Flege, J. E. (1984). The detection of French accent by American listeners. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 76, 692-707.
Jacewicz, E., and Fox, R. A. (2016). Acoustics of regionally accented speech. Acoustics Today 12(2), 31-39.
Labov, W., Ash, S., and Boberg, C. (2006). The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change. Mouton de Gruyter, Ber- lin.
MacMillan, N. A., and Creelman, D. C. (2005). Detection Theory: A User’s Guide, 2nd ed. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, NJ.
Did You Hear?
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Special Section on Acoustic and Related Waves in
Did You Hear?
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Extraterrestrial Environments
has published a special issue on
.Advancing Methods for Analyzing Dialect Variation
See these papers at:
http://asa.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1121/1.4994300
See these papers at:
And, be sure to look for other special issues
http://www.acousticstoday.org/extraterrestrial
of The JASA that are published every year. And, be sure to look for other special issues
of The JASA that are published every year.
16 | Acoustics Today | Summer 2018