Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics
No. 7, 1999
Edited by Paul Foulkes
- PAUL
FOULKES, GERRY DOCHERTY & DOMINIC WATT
Tracking the emergence of structured variation: realisations of (t) by Newcastle children - ANTHONY
FOX
A note on intonational typology - MARTINE
HÄCKER
And him no more than a Minister's man: the English subordinating and-construction in cross-linguistic perspective - BARRY
HESELWOOD & LOUISE MCCHRYSTAL
The effect of age-group and place of L1 acquisition on the realisation of Panjabi stop consonants in Bradford: an acoustic sociophonetic study - VASSILIA
KAZAMIA
How tolerant are Greek EFL learners of foreign language ambiguities? - GHADA KHATTAB
A sociophonetic study of English-Arabic bilingual children - CARMEN
LLAMAS
A new methodology: data elicitation for social and regional language variation studies - LOUISE
MULLANY
Linguistic politeness and sex differences in BBC Radio 4 broadcast interviews - DIANE
NELSON
Events, arguments, and causative psych predicates in Finnish - BARBARA SETTINERI
The turn-taking system of buying and selling conversation in Sicily: analysis of shop and market talk - MARK
SHUTTLEWORTH
New perspectives on old problems: a Hallidayan approach to copulative constructions in Russian - DOMINIC
WATT & JENNIFER TILLOTSON
A spectrographic analysis of vowel fronting in Bradford English
TRACKING THE EMERGENCE OF STRUCTURED VARIATION - REALISATIONS OF (t) BY NEWCASTLE CHILDREN
Paul FOULKES, Gerry DOCHERTY & Dominic WATT
This paper describes an investigation of the speech of children aged 2 to 4 from Newcastle upon Tyne. Our aim is to understand how variant phonetic patterns come to be acquired. These patterns include both phonologically governed alternations, such as the aspirated allophone of word-initial (t), and also sociolinguistically correlated variants. A baseline for this study is provided by a previous project focusing on Newcastle adults, which revealed variation and change in the pronunciation of several consonants and vowels. We concentrate here on 10 children's productions of (t), a particularly complex variable in adult speech. The children demonstrate a sophisticated mastery of many aspects of the adult patterns, producing qualitatively different phonetic variants in appropriate phonological contexts. The acoustic qualities of the allophones in general closely resemble those of adults. Where gender-based differences occur in the local adult community, both boys and girls adhere more closely to the patterns typical of women. This suggests that at this stage of development children are most influenced by the phonological/phonetic patterns of their mothers. We conclude that it is problematic to view acquisition of language-specific phonological units as separate from the accent-specific variation which is important in the construction of a sociolinguistic identity. We also suggest that structured variation in the adult input, although usually characterised as dysfunctional in child-centred research, may in fact serve a positive function in the acquisition process. Specifically, children may exploit recurrent patterns in the input signal to help them locate the phonological components of words and achieve the transition from a system of holistic lexical representation to one involving more abstract categorial units. .
Full text with clickable spectrograms in pdf format
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A NOTE ON INTONATIONAL TYPOLOGY
Anthony FOX
This paper examines some evidence for a claim that the intonation systems of English and German differ typologically, the former being a 'compressing' language, the latter a 'truncating' language. It is shown that the evidence for this claim is unconvincing, since the two languages do not differ significantly in respect of this particular parameter. Furthermore, the basis for the claim is shown to be insecure, since the forms compared are not equivalent. The paper concludes with some general reflections on the status of typological parameters in intonation.
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AND
HIM NO MORE THAN A MINISTER'S MAN:
THE ENGLISH SUBORDINATING AND-CONSTRUCTION
IN CROSS-LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE
Martina HÄCKER
This article investigates the origins of subordinating and. Based on a detailed semantic and syntactic description of the construction, it points out the differences from the co-ordinating use of and which justify the additional classification of and as a subordinator. Two hypotheses of the origins of the construction are considered: (i) that the construction is a calque on a Celtic construction, and (ii) that the construction is the result of a native English development. On the basis of structural, semantic and geographical evidence the first of these two hypotheses is dismissed and possible explanations for the functional extension of and are discussed from a pragmatic and cross-linguistic point of view.
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THE EFFECT OF AGE-GROUP AND PLACE OF L1 ACQUISITION ON THE REALISATION OF PANJABI STOP CONSONANTS IN BRADFORD: AN ACOUSTIC SOCIOPHONETIC STUDY
Barry HESELWOOD and Louise McCHRYSTAL
This paper describes a cross-sectional spectrographic sociophonetic study carried out on three groups of speakers, with a follow-up study on a fourth group (48 subjects in all), to investigate the possible effects of age and of place of L1 acquisition (Pakistan or UK) on the realisation of stop consonants in first-language Panjabi speakers living in the Manningham area of Bradford. Results indicate that while no changes are evident in the realisation of voiceless and aspirated stops, the voiced stops are undergoing a process of devoicing amongst speakers below the age of about 25 who acquired Panjabi in Bradford. We suggest that the phonetics and phonology of English stops, and the vocal tract dynamics of voicing, are having a clear influence on the manner in which this change is taking place.
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HOW TOLERANT ARE GREEK EFL LEARNERS OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE AMBIGUITIES?
Vassilia KAZAMIA
This study is part of a larger research project that was conducted at the National Center of Public Administration of Greece. The aim of this paper is to identify and assess the degree of tolerance of ambiguity Greek civil servants demonstrate when learning English as a foreign language. The concept of tolerance of ambiguity is introduced and its relevance to language learning is discussed. Qualitative analysis of research data indicates that Greek adult learners do not show the same tolerance in all skills, and are particularly intolerant of ambiguities stemming from communicating their ideas in English.
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A SOCIOPHONETIC STUDY OF ENGLISH-ARABIC BILINGUAL CHILDREN
Ghada KHATTAB
This paper outlines some of the findings from an investigation into the speech production of two English-Arabic bilingual children. The subjects are two Lebanese boys who were born and raised in Leeds and who were aged six and nine at the time of the investigation. Analysis of the subjects' sociolinguistic behaviour with respect to accentual features salient in their community suggests that they are opting for sociolinguistically unmarked variants in their speech. An examination of the children's glottal stop production in English and Arabic shows that the subjects are aware of the different roles [/] plays in each language and of the appropriate phonological contexts for its occurrence; however, the amount of glottalling expected in Leeds English does not seem to have filtered into their production. Auditory analysis of the subjects' production of six English vowels (chosen among vowels that have marked local realisations in Leeds) reveals that few of the subjects' realisations correspond to those found in the Leeds accent. The interpretation of this phenomenon is complex, involving a combination of factors, some of which are related to the bilinguals' sociolinguistic background, and others related to sociolinguistic changes which may be affecting the whole community.
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A NEW METHODOLOGY: DATA ELICITATION FOR SOCIAL AND REGIONAL LANGUAGE VARIATION STUDIES
Carmen LLAMAS
This paper presents a new method of data elicitation for use in large-scale regional language variation studies, and for use in sociolinguistic studies of a given area. The methodology was devised and designed to fit the requirements of a national collaborative venture, the Survey of Regional English (SuRE). It was then expanded for use in a sociolinguistic study of Teesside English currently being undertaken by the author.
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BROADCAST INTERVIEWS
Louise MULLANY
Since the mid-1970s, investigating the difference between male and female speech patterns has come to be a prominent feature of sociolinguistic research. Previous language and gender researchers have found that female interactants are more linguistically polite than their male counterparts, as they favour co-operative discourse strategies. In contrast, males favour competitive strategies. This paper tests the co-operation and competition framework by analysing the amount of attention male and female interviewers and interviewees pay to the norms and conventions of linguistic politeness in Radio 4 broadcast interviews. A pattern consistent with the co-operation and competitiveness framework is found, though there are exceptions, which cast doubt on the adequacy of previous theories that claim to explain why men and women speak differently.
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EVENTS, ARGUMENTS, AND CAUSATIVE PSYCH PREDICATES IN FINNISH
Diane NELSON
In this paper the syntactic and semantic properties of psych predicates in Finnish are examined. Causative morphology in Finnish is shown not to trigger frighten-class (Object Experiencer) argument linking as expected. Instead, causative affixation derives two distinct classes of verb, one stative and one inchoative. Stative (non-delimited) causatives in Finnish turn out to show properties of unaccusatives similar to the Italian piacere-class, while delimited causatives pattern as transitive Object Experiencers. The data are discussed in light of theories of argument linking, particularly those which attribute fear-frighten alternations to thematic and aspectual differences between the two classes. The mapping of arguments to the syntax in these predicates is argued to be predictable not by lexical thematic role assignment, but from the interaction of causative morphosyntax with event structure and structurally-assigned aspectual roles.
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THE TURN-TAKING SYSTEM OF BUYING AND SELLING CONVERSATION IN SICILY: ANALYSIS OF SHOP AND MARKET TALK
Barbara M.G. SETTINERI
Buying and selling conversation occurs only in specific contexts (mainly shops and markets), deals with a main topic (the action of selling and buying a product), and is carried out by speakers who are assigned two precise roles: 'shopkeeper' and 'customer'. This paper seeks to examine to what extent the context in which buying and selling transactions in Sicily are carried out affects the structure of turn-taking.
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NEW PERSPECTIVES ON OLD PROBLEMS: A HALLIDAYAN APPROACH TO COPULATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN RUSSIAN
Mark SHUTTLEWORTH
The article deals with certain aspects of Russian copula clauses from a Hallidayan perspective. The aims are twofold: firstly, to investigate whether his analysis provides a description of the Russian data which is clearer than those which have been previously available, and secondly to consider in what ways the original model may need to be modified in order to account for the different situation which we find in Russian. The greater part of the study is taken up by a discussion of the Attributive and Identifying categories of the Intensive Relational clause, and more specifically the usefulness of the functions of Token and Value in a description of Russian clauses. The analysis, which is based on a corpus of authentic data, produces three general conclusions. Firstly, the apparently consistent conflation of Complement with Value proves to be of use in the disambiguation of syntactically unmarked Subject and Complement. Secondly, since the Russian syntax cuts across the English semantic categories reflected in the model, the possibility of extending the concepts of Token and Value to take in Attributive clauses is discussed. Finally, the point is made that the Attributive/Identifying opposition finds little syntactic reflection in Russian; however, the hope is expressed that it might be possible to identify other semantic distinctions which are more germane to Russian.
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A SPECTROGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF VOWEL FRONTING IN BRADFORD ENGLISH
Dominic WATT and Jennifer TILLOTSON
The
/o/ vowel in the English of Bradford is produced by many speakers as a monophthong
with a clearly fronted or central quality. Description of such a pronunciation
is, however, all but absent from the literature, suggesting that such pronunciations
are a relatively recent development in Bradford speech. The acoustic characteristics
of 337 tokens of /o/ are investigated, with a view to matching acoustic cues to
the auditory impression of fronting. The findings are assessed with respect to
similar fronting patterns in the vowel systems of varieties of English elsewhere
in the UK and worldwide, and to the principles of sound change elucidated by Labov
(1991, 1994). We conclude that 'internal' factors alone are inadequate to explain
the current tendency for varieties of English in northern England to feature /o/
fronting, and suggest that the appearance of this variant in Bradford English
is the consequence of contact-induced spread.
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