AMUR STATE UNIVERSITY
CONFERENCE BOOK
«PHONETICS WITHOUT BORDERS»
(PhwB-2014)
9.06.2014-11.06.2014
Blagoveshchensk
2014
TIME AND EVENTS
07.06-08.06 (Saturday, Sunday)
Arrival
9.06.2014 (Monday)
8.30-9.00
Registration
9.00-10.00
Welcoming speech from the Administration of AmSU
Plenary 1
Plenary 2
10.30-11.00
Coffee Break
11.00-12.00
Session 1
12.00-13.00
Lunch
14.00-17.00
Session 2
10.06.2014 (Tuesday)
9.00-10.00
Plenary 3
10.30-11.00
Coffee Break
11.00-12.00
Session 3
12.00-13.00
Lunch
14.00-15.00
Session 4
15.00-17.30
Poster Session
Regional museum
11.06.2014 (Wednesday)
9.00-10.00
Plenary 3
11.00-13.00
Round-Table Discussion
14.00-16.00
Closing of the Conference
12.06 (Thursday)
Departure
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
(Plenary and Session)
Monday, June 9
Plenary, 9:00 am–10:00 am
1. Phonetics and Writing System of Languages of People of Siberia: 150-year
Experience and Unresolved Issues
Presenter: Alexis Burykin
2. Coordination as the Mechanism of Speech Production: Interaction of
different Phonetic Units in the Syllable
Presenter: Svetlana Androsova
Session 1, 11:00 am–12:00 pm
Session Chair: David Tien
1. The phonetic form of functional words in spontaneous Mandarin Chinese
speech
Presenter: Marina Lobacheva
2. American vowels in terms of word-stress and accent in American
spontaneous speech and singing
Presenter: Yulia Lugantseva
3. Pronunciation Accent as a Matter of Self Identity
Presenter: Svetlana Soboleva
Session 2, 2:00 pm–5:00 pm
Session Chair: Svetlana Soboleva
1. Informational center in spontaneous speech and singing: acoustic and
perceptual study of vowels
Presenters: Victoria Sisoenko
Svetlana Guseva
2. The dependence of vowel duration on the consonant context and
informational structure of an utterance
Presenter: Yulia Ivanashko
3. Duration variation of intervocalic stops in Russian and English in slow and
fast speech
Presenter: Evgeniya Klimenko
4. Accent in the Evenki language: myths or reality
Presenters: Anna Bolelaya
Olga Morozova
5. Peculiarities of realization of vowels and consonants in Russian speech of the
Amur Evenks
Presenter: Elena Protsukovich
6. The role of phonetic symbolism in E. Jandl's poem " Schtzngrmm"
Presenter: Pavel Khoroshih
Tuesday, June 10
Plenary, 9:00 am–10:00 am
Speech Feature Extraction and Data Visualization
Presenter: David Tien et al.
Session 3, 11:00 am–12:00 pm
Session Chair: Nellie Zaporozhskaya
1. Automatic transcription of taps in American English
Presenter: Svetlana Androsova et al.
2. Creating web-corpus of Standard American and South American English
Presenter: Oksana Kozachkova
3. Problems of perception of high female voice
Presenter: Tatiana Lobanovskaya
Session 4, 2:00 pm–3:00 pm
Session Chair: Yulia Ivanashko
1. Perception of Contrastive Emphasis in Korean English
Presenter: Nellie Zaporozhskaya
2. Phonetic means to influence the Listener used in British public speech
Presenter: Elena Musaeva
3. The influence of the Japanese phonotactics on the phonetic structure of the
words borrowed from English
Presenters:Valeriy Kisseliov
Tatiana Shapovalova
Poster Session, 3:00 pm–5:30 pm
1. Phonetic modifications in African American English
Presenters: Anna Kasyan
Svetlana Derkach
2. Social Phonetics
Presenter: Vladimir Naumov
3. Allophonic variation of English vowels in words of different semantic value
Presenters: Olga Morozova
Tatiana Shuiskaya
4. Russian Intonation: New Aspects of Acoustic and Perceptual Features
Interaction
Presenter: Pavel Skrelin
5. Phonetic Creolisation in Advertising Discourse
Presenter: Elena Shamina
6. The perceptual study of weak forms in Russian speech produced by Chinese
learners of Russian
Presenters: Victoria Mavletkulova
Svetlana Guseva
7. Intercultural Communication Perspective on Lingua Franca Phonology
Presenters: Oksana Primak
Victoria Zavyalova
8. Some phoneme distribution rules in the Southern-Siberian Turkic languages
Presenter: Iraida Selyutina
9. Guttural consonants in Turkic languages of Southern Siberia
Presenters: Iraida Selyutina
Nikolai Urtegeshev
10. Language Contact Phonology: Phonological Neighborhood Effects in
Bilingualism
Presenter: Victoria Zavyalova
11.Prosodic and Syntactic Strategies in Communicative Structure Realization (a
Cross-Linguistic Study)
Presenter:Elena Makarova
Wednesday, June 11
Plenary, 9:00 am–10:00 am
Preserving Phonetic Characteristic Features of Endangered Languages
Presenter: Alexandra Lavrillier
Round-table discussion “Phonetics. Written Language. Semiotics”,
11:00 am–1.00 am
Speakers: Alexis Burykin
Andrei Zabiyako
Sergei Philonov
Closing Ceremony, 2:00 pm–4:00 pm
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
 Sessions will be in Rooms 110, 111, Building 7 of the Amur State
University.
 Certificates of Attendance will be handed out at the Closing Ceremony.
 Please fill out the conference evaluation forms. We appreciate your
feedback.
PAPER ABSTRACTS
Androsova, Svetlana (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
androsova_s@mail.ru)
Coordination as the Mechanism of Speech Production: Interaction of different
Phonetic Units in the Syllable
In the global sense coordination is the way we all exist in interaction. We interact with each
other using spoken language. Speaking is a well-automatically-coordinated action. The
question is: Which units do we coordinate and how to make a speech sample that is
perfectly understandable to people who speak the same language? The theory of
coordination was developed by Nicolas Bernstein in 1950s. In Linguistics the notion of
coordination is rarely addressed with the exception of specific timing within the Syllable in
the English language. There, coordination is traditionally interpreted as governing of
duration of elements within the Syllable. I argue that it is too complicated to be limited just
to manipulations with duration. In this paper I will try to present a different understanding
of coordination and a different type of syllable as its minimal unit. I define coordination as
the way that phonetic and phonological units of different levels interact to build the
allophonic model of a phrase during speech production process. The results of the study of
allophonic variation in American spontaneous speech suggest that phrasal allophones are
much more adequately predicted within open syllable in terms of allophone type and its
duration.
Key words: coordination, spontaneous, phrasal allophone, syllable
Androsova, Svetlana (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
androsova_s@mail.ru)
Androsov, Evgeniy (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
eugeni_ap@mail.ru)
Chala, Rostislav (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation)
Automatic transcription of taps in American English
The current paper touches upon the algorithm of automatic transcription of taps in American
English. Three positions for taps are programmed: 1) intervocalic within a word and on the
word boundary, 2) before syllabic 'l', 3) between rhotic and non-rhotic vowels. The factor of
stress determining the choice of whether or not to transcribe a tap within a word is
considered by means of tagging stressed vowels in the text. This helps differentiate between
intervocalic -t-/-tt- a) in words like 'attention', 'eternal' where no taps are used, b) in words
like 'getting', 'photo' where /t/ is tapped. Mute vowels from '-ion' and '-ed' suffixes that
disallow intervocalic position and mute 'h' consonant that on the contrary contributes into
creating intervocalic position are taken into account. Exceptions from intervocalic position
concerning assibilation processes like in the word 'individual' etc are added. The program is
written in Free Pascal. The result of the program performance is the output file with the
necessary -t-/-tt- and -d-/-dd- letters removed and the tap symbol in square brackets inserted
instead.
Key words: taps, intervocalic, Free Pascal.
Bolelaya, Anna (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation), Morozova,
Olga
(Amur
State
University,
Blagoveshchensk,
Russian
Federation,
morozova_olga06@mail.ru)
Accent in the Evenki language: myths or reality
There are many opinions about accent in the Evenki language among scientists. The paper
focuses on the results of the experiment that involved a list of individual words and frame
sentences containing those words. It aimed to find out differences in realization of phonetic
characteristics of accent between a word in citation form and a word in connected speech in
different position of the utterance. The experiment illustrated the absence of tonic accent in
the Evenki language. The analysis of intonation patterns demonstrated different types of
pitch fluctuations in the same word realized in the initial, medial, and final positions of the
utterance.
Key words: accent, intonation, pitch fluctuations
Burykin, Alexis (Linguistic Research Institute at Russian Academy of Science, St. Petersburg,
Russian Federation, albury@rambler.ru)
Phonetics and Writing System of Languages of People of Siberia: 150-year
Experience and Unresolved Issues
The studies of Phonetics of Siberian languages began forming into a separate scientific field
since the second third in mid 19th century. Elaboration of writing systems for Siberian
languages began even earlier: first editions in the Chukchi language appeared in 1810s.
Later, missionary work on translating the Holy Bible into different Siberian languages was
developed. Its results were taken into consideration while creating new alphabets for the
languages of native tribes of Siberia. The work on developing alphabets that used Latin
graphics was based on phonemic principle of graphics. Introducing alphabets that use
cyrillic script presupposed syllabic elements of graphics and the use of one symbol for
several phonemes. Since 1980s, writing systems of Siberian languages start approaching the
phonemic model, thus the phonemic principle became desirable for the writing systems.
Contemporary problems of Siberian languages writing systems are the following: 1) the low
level of writing systems use; 2) national language-Russian or three-language interference;
3) ignoring or not knowing the basic units of writing systems theory while discussing the
condition of a writing system or evaluating the perspectives of reforms of graphics; 4) the
ideas that the problems of writing systems should be resolved only by ethnic groups
themselves.
Keywords: writing system, alphabet, graphics, orthography, interference
Guseva, Svetlana (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
s_guseva@mail.ru), Sisoenko, Victoria (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian
Federation)
Informational center in spontaneous speech and singing: acoustic and perceptual
study of vowels
The subject of the study is a female Russian soprano singer (S1). 20 Russian listeners participated
in the perceptual study. The perceptual study of samples of S1's singing and spontaneous speech
enabled to demonstrate the difference between the number of words classified by Russian listeners
as most important (informational center) — 31% and 17,5% correspondingly. The reason of the
prevalence of the former is attributed to greater loudness, duration, and variation of pitch in singing.
The acoustic study of S1's singing and spontaneous speaking revealed two fundamental
differences in the formant structure of vowels. First, in S1's singing pitch values on vowels
are considerably higher than those in her speaking. Second, in singing, there is the
possibility of F0 and FI merging for close front /i/ and close back /u/ vowels and of FI and
FII merging for open back /a/ vowel. There was no such an effect in S1's speaking. This
merging is obviously determined by the peculiarities of pitch in singing and speaking.
Keywords: informational center, vowels, pitch, merging of formants.
Ivanashko, Yulia (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation, polia80@mail.ru)
The dependence of vowel duration on the consonant context and informational
structure of an utterance
The present article shows the results of acoustic study of stressed monophthongs duration.
The subjects are three male British speakers. The paper analyzes the vowels (followed by
voiced/voiceless labial consonants on the one hand and voiced/voiceless dental, alveolar, and
velar consonants – on the other. The vowels were segmented from theme and rheme parts of
utterances. The results demonstrate that: (i) stressed vowels followed by voiced consonants
are longer than their counterparts followed by voiceless consonants; (ii) stressed vowels are
shorter, if they precede labial consonants and longer, if they are followed by dental, alveolar
or velar ones (both voiced and voiceless); (iii) all stressed monophthongs have bigger duration
within the rheme parts.
Key words: stressed vowels, theme, rheme, tempo, intensity, pitch.
Khoroshih, Pavel (Pedagogical State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation)
The role of phonetic symbolism in E. Jandl's poem " Schtzngrmm"
The paper is devoted to the phonetic analysis of symbolism in E. Jandl's poem. We consider
a certain sound sequence in the acoustic poetic text to allow the recipient to imagine certain
associations. Some poetic images or pictures as well as emotional reactions arise in the
representation process. Thus, Jandl's poem based purely on sound images shaping language
system as a whole contributes to the vivid and expressive intersemiotic war image and
reproduces both inner and outer hero's world and, to some extent, the author's experience.
Key words: sound symbolism, associations, sound images, emotional reactions
Kisseliov,
Valery (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
kvv888@list.ru), Shapovalova, Tatiana (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian
Federation)
The influence of the Japanese phonotactics on the phonetic structure of the words
borrowed from English
The characteristic feature of the Japanese phonotactics is the dominance of open syllables
with the impossibility of any consonant to function as coda except n and m. Therefore, the
words borrowed from American English undergo a certain restructuring to follow the
Japanese pattern: they get extra vowels to form open syllables splitting consonant clusters in
corresponding English words. The formant structure of the extra vowel can either depend on
the quality of the vowel in the previous syllable or on the previous consonant quality.
Besides, vowels and consonants in those words undergo certain changes. Withing vowels
we noticed prolonging glides in some diphthongs and monophthonging of some diphthongs.
Unlike in American English, vowels in borrowed words are not rhotic. As far as consonants,
there is constant change of /l/ to a flap, of /f/ to /h/ but not in the presence of /u/, and
affrication of /t/ and /d/ before /i/.
Keywords: phonotactics, borrowed words, syllable structure.
Klimenko, Evgeniya (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
jane_7@mail.ru)
Duration variation of intervocalic stops in Russian and English in slow and fast
speech
In the current paper the results of the acoustic study of Russian and English intervocalic
stops are presented. The subjects were two female Russian speakers (RS1, RS2) who read
one and the same text: 1) in slow tempo, 2) in fast tempo. Another two subjects were female
speakers of American English (ES1, ES2) who spoke spontaneously. The results enable to
speak about two strategies of tempo variation: (i) manipulation with the tempo of
articulation, (ii) manipulation with pauses. Both English speakers preferred the second
strategy; RS1 used the first strategy while RS2 – the second one. Duration of stops in
Russian fast reading is comparable with that of English spontaneous speech. There is a
statistically significant difference between the duration for Russian stops in slow and fast
tempo for RS1. The difference between the duration for stops in slow and fast tempo for
RS2, ES1, and ES2 was not statistically significant. The results also demonstrate that
voiceless consonants are more sensitive to tempo variation in the speech of both RS1 and
RS2.
Keywords: tempo, duration, stops, occlusion, burst phase
Kozachkova, Oksana (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
molmes@list.ru)
Creating web-corpus of Standard American and South American English
In the course of globalization computers become an important part of people’s life. Many
gadgets help in operating huge amount of information for comparatively small period of
time. For the sake of faster work some of these gadgets use the voice-activated control. But
in most cases the dialectal variety of the English language is not taken into account.
However, it raises additional obstacles in this sphere. The current paper aims at studying
differential phonetic features of South American English compared to Standard American
English and at creating a fragment of database concerning these two accents.
The first part of the project is devoted to the acoustic analysis of spontaneous speech. The
second part describes the algorithm of creating the database by the way of using the
Hypertext Markup Language and Cascading Style Sheets. This method allows to create a
certain number of web-pages containing the information about characteristic features of the
English language and its dialect, transcription and acoustic images of words and the whole
texts uttered by native speakers. In the sequel, these pages will create web-corpus.
Key words: programming language, web-corpus, algorithm, dialect, spontaneous speech.
Lobacheva, Marina (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
lomarinaa@mail.ru)
The phonetic form of functional words in spontaneous Mandarin Chinese speech
Chinese functional words play an important role in Chinese semantic understanding and
grammatical analysis, since that their usage knowledge base was studied quite properly.
However, the peculiarities of their phonetic form have been rarely addressed and need to be
properly studied. The current paper presents the results of acoustic and perceptual study of
functional words taken from spontaneous speech with the focus on conjunctions,
prepositions, particles (structural, aspectual and modal), and some adverbs that are
characterized by high frequency. The results of the acoustic study demonstrated a number
phonetic changes, including monophthonging, vowel alternations, and elision that occur in
Mandarin Chinese spontaneous speech. The study enabled to show that consonants in those
words can also be subjected to certain changes including elision.
Key words: syllable, spontaneous speech, monophthonging, elision, functional words.
Lobanovskaya, Tatiana (St. Petersburg State Technical University, St. Petersburg, Russian
Federation, tatiana0531@yahoo.com)
Problems of perception of high female voice
The perception of human voices have been studied for a long time by a lot of scientists
beginning with the creation of alphabetic script which was recognition of the autonomy of
speech sounds. Gunnar Fant was the first scientist who having developed the acoustic theory
of speech formation made a great contribution to speech perception. But the subject in all
his experiments was a male Russian actor. The perception of female voice has not been the
focus of Fant's studies. The first problem of high female voice perception is finding out
acoustic characteristics which could be the basis for the implementation of phonemes (e.g.
in case of “high” vowels [u] and [o] FI is relatively low and F0 is rather high). The second
problem is to determine acoustic properties which are the basis for the phoneme
identification performed by the Listener. The third problem is searching the qualities of
perceptual processing of acoustic signals depending on both phonological system of mother
language and universal qualities of human perceptual system.
Keywords: perception, high female voice, formants, fundamental frequency.
Lugantseva, Yulia (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
julialbest@mail.ru)
American vowels in terms of word-stress and accent in American spontaneous speech
and singing
The current research deals with (i) the schwa sound and its behavior in spontaneous utterances and
songs; (ii) formant structure of monosyllabic words pronounced with / without accent.
The subjects were native speakers of standard American English and front-men of American rock
groups/ pop groups and singers.
We hypothesize that (i) the quality of reduced vowels in spontaneous speech depends very
much on the surrounding consonants; (ii) reduced vowels in songs can be prosodically
marked and pronounced according to the rules of reading in corresponding type of syllable
in a stressed position. The results of the acoustic study enable to split reduced vowels in
spontaneous speech into five groups according to their formant structure and surrounding
consonants. Vowels that must be reduced according to the word-stress pattern can be
prosodically marked – prolonged – in singing and can have the similar formant structure
with corresponding stressed vowels in the corresponding syllable type, thus, “clearing up”
in the corresponding full form. This indicates that the specific rhythmic structure in singing
might have greater impact on vowels than it has in spontaneous speech but it works in a
different direction.
Key words: schwa-sound, formant structure, accent, reduction, full form.
Musaeva,
Elena
(Amur
State
University,
Blagoveshchensk,
Russian
Federation,
blagmeg@yandex.ru)
Phonetic means to influence the Listener used in British public speech
Persuasiveness of public speech is its coherent feature. Communication in public political
speech presupposes intentional production of utterances to generate certain behavior of
recipients, influence their standpoint or values. Effective communication in the sphere of
politics is achieved by using different linguistic means. Phonetic analysis of political speech
is, first of all, aimed at its prosodic features. Much attention is paid to the division into
syntagmas, accent and pauses which have pragmatic importance in the speech of politicians.
Apart from the careful selection of prosodic means political speech is particular in its sound
arrangement which, on the one hand, follows the rules of standard pronunciation and, on the
other hand, adapts some peculiarities of the colloquial speech.
Key words: public speech, political speech, intonation, speech sounds.
Protsukovich, Elena (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
amursea@mail.ru )
Peculiarities of realization of vowels and consonants in Russian speech of the Amur
Evenks
Differences in phonological systems of typologically different Russian and Evenk languages
create conditions for the impact of the Evenki sound system on Russian speech of the
Evenks. The article focuses on the results of the acoustic study of phonetic peculiarities of
Evenki-accented Russian speech of bilingual Selemdzha Evenks. According to the research
the most characteristic features of such speech are: the lack of quality reduction of vowels;
the change of vowels order or replacing of vowels in Russian words in accordance with the
Evenki law of the harmony of vowels; realization of a soft fricative /s / instead of the
consonant combination /st / word-finally; replacing of the round-fricative consonants /s, s ,
z, z / by flat-fricative ones; realization of implosive occlusive consonants /t˺ / and /k˺ /
prepausally; realization of the occlusive consonant /t / instead of the affricate /ʧ / and the
replacing of the affricate by the fricative consonant /ʃ :/. The acoustic analysis of
modifications of Russian vowels and consonants in the Evenki speech demonstrates that the
majority of changes are caused by interfering effect of the sound system of the Evenki
language and the peculiarity of its articulatory basis.
Key words: Evenki-accented, vowels, consonants, modifications, replacing
Soboleva, Svetlana (Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, Russian Federation,
kredimmer787@hotmail.com)
Pronunciation Accent as a Matter of Self Identity
Phonetic competence of foreign language learners seems to have been underestimated both
in the curricula and in the classrooms. It appears that foreign language instructors approach
the articulation aspect of the target language very easily and neglect it. Students take this
attitude for granted and explain their reluctance to practice foreign speech habits by their
inherent Russian accent. Thus the methodological flaws in the syllabus and performance
become legalized and start to be viewed as a part of the national identity of Russian learners
of English. The recent survey has proved that the tendency to look at the pronunciation
aspect of the English language as something irrelevant is shared by many English language
teachers in Asian countries. Unlike their European colleagues who fear lest the English
language should jeopardize their national identities and so they reject it as a lingua franca,
Asian teachers of English insist that international students of English should be exposed to
the whole range of accents from which to pick up the one they like best irrespective of
whether the preferred accent is that of the native speaker or of the non-native speaker.
Key words: speech habits, national identity, lingua franca, foreign accent.
Tien, David (Charles Sturt University, Australia, dtien@csu.edu.au), Ayushi Sisodiya, Yung
C. Liang
Speech Feature Extraction and Data Visualization
Signal processing is playing a key role in the area of speech and language processing, and it
has merged into the fields of electrical engineering, computer science, cognitive science,
and artificial intelligence (AI). However, the recorded sound files needed to be processed
keep growing in numbers. Collected data requires intensive manual processing and the end
result is hard to understand. This paper proposes to examine the traditional annotation,
abstraction & analysis processes and apply signal processing technology to optimise the
processing processes. And hence by applying the traditional signal processing approach and
visualisation techniques this project aims to make data processing automated and easily
understandable. This paper examines abstraction & analysis processes of speech and applies
signal processing technology to optimise the feature extraction and processing. The paper
proposed algorithms for feature extraction and identification which were implemented under
Matlab. The major highlight and findings of the paper are: 1) The development of the
software ‘The Speech Analysis Toolbox’. This software provides visual analysis of speech
features, which are: Pitch, Intensity, Formant frequency, Log- Frequency power Spectrum,
Log Energy, Mel-Frequency Spectrum. 2) Vowel Recognition: The algorithm using Formant
Frequency is implemented to identify the vowels in a speech. After examining the results
the algorithm had 60% success rate and is expected to grow more accurate with more
speech samples 3) Language analysis: The paper highlighted the phonological analysis of
four languages- Indian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. The analysis is also done in the
software coded; it provides a general cover graph for every feature (mentioned above) for
all the four languages. The the difference and similarity between the four languages have
been discussed.
Key words: Speech Signal Processing, Pitch Intensity Analysis.
Zaporozhskaya, Nellie (Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, Russian Federation,
mermaid79@mail.ru)
Perception of Contrastive Emphasis in Korean English
Languages vary according to their prosodic typologies – the types of accents (tone, pitch,
stress accents) and types of rhythm (stress-, syllable-, mora-timed). Exploring how the
native language of a listener influences perception of prosody of another language is a
useful way to understand the phonetic characteristics of a language. The paper examines the
perception by Korean listeners of American English contrastive stress. Contrastive focus is
used by speakers of languages to maximally differentiate a word in an utterance so the
contrasting information will be more likely to be perceived by listeners. The results suggest
that the phonetic correlates of contrastive emphasis in the English phrase perceived by
Koreans such as duration and/or pitch modulation are background of positive transfer of
Korean contrastive accentuation into American English. Fundamental frequency as a
prosodic parameter is a contributing factor in this case.
Key words: Korean English, comtrastive focus, perception
POSTER ABSTRACTS
Derkach, Svetlana (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
svetich_d2000@mail.ru)
Kasyan, Anna (Amur
nutella_0207@mail.ru)
State
University,
Blagoveshchensk,
Russian
Federation,
Phonetic modifications in African American English
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety formerly known as Black
English Vernacular. While some features of AAVE are apparently unique to this variety, in
its structure it also shows many commonalties with a number of standard and nonstandard
English varieties spoken in the US. AAVE has sparked and sustained debates among
linguists. AAVE shares parts of its grammar and phonology with Southern American
English, which is spoken by many people in the United States.
The article presents a complex analysis of phonetic modifications in AAVE based on
theoretical points and experimental data. Part of the article gives a description of AAVE
phonetic features. The data were taken from academic publishing and internet resources on
the subject.
Another part focuses on phonetic modifications in AAVE, which haven’t been fully
investigated. An acoustic experiment was conducted to illustrate tendencies in realization of
some phonemes in AAVE. The analysis shows that some trends are already becoming
apparent: palatalizing of sonorant /l/, diphthonging of some monophthongs, advancement or
retraction of some vowels, different pronunciation of fricatives [], [] in different
positions in a word.
Key words: consonants, vowels, modifications, palatalizing, diphthonging
Makarova, Elena (Ural State University of Economics, Ekaterinburg, Russian Federation,
makarovayn@mail.ru)
Prosodic and Syntactic Strategies in Communicative Structure Realization (a CrossLinguistic Study)
Nucleus placement and word order are considered to be major means of signaling an
utterance communicative structure. However, their functioning for this purpose vary in
different languages - either prosodic or syntactic means can prevail. Comparative study of
English (rigid word order) and Spanish (free word order) provides grounds for revealing
common and specific features in the usage of both means in realization of communicative
structure. The descriptive analysis of English and Spanish utterances introduced in the
article can serve as foundation for further experimental research in this field.
Key words: communicative structure, nucleus, word order.
Mavletkulova,Victoria (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
lukomorye_more@mail.ru ), Guseva, Svetlana (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk,
Russian Federation, s_guseva@mail.ru)
The perceptual study of weak forms in Russian speech produced by Chinese learners
of Russian
The current paper presents the results of the study of weak forms of the Russian language
that are characterized by considerable phonetic and phonological changes as a result of
reduction. The perception of such words by Chinese learners of Russian is of our particular
interest. The subjects of the study are 18 learners, aged 17-24 whose skills of Russian can be
evaluated as suitable for studying at Russian universities. During the perceptual study four
experiments were carried out: (i) the perception of weak forms pronounced by a Russian
speaker in isolation, (ii) the perception of the same forms taken from the flow of speech in
context, (iii) the perception of the same weak forms in isolation after a special training
program, (iiii) the perception of the same forms taken from the flow of speech in context
after a special training program. The results demonstrate considerable increase of the
number of correct answers during the discrimination task in experiment 3 compared to
experiment 1 from 28% to 74% correspondingly and in experiment 4 compared to
experiment 2 from 55% to 89% correspondingly. Among those weak forms, frequent words
of Russian colloquial speech are in the focus of our attention.
Keywords: weak forms, reduction, perception, context, discrimination task
Morozova,
Olga
(Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russian Federation,
morozova_olga06@mail.ru), Shuyskaya, Tatiana (Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk,
Russian Federation, t.shuiskaya@mail.ru )
Allophonic variation of English vowels in words of different semantic value
The phonetic characteristics of Canadian and Australian English vowels change depending
on informational structure of an utterance. We hypothesized that: (i) vowels in words,
carrying new information are longer, more intensive and less reduced in quality; (ii) vowels
in words carrying less important information are more likely to be reduced in quality; (iii)
the pattern of allophonic variation of vowels in words of different semantic value is similar
in the English accents mentioned.
The results of duration study suggest that Canadian and Australian vowels are longer within
the Rheme. Consequently, the vowel duration is reduced within the Theme. The degree
reduction proved speaker-dependent (5-50 ms). Vowel intensity within the Rheme and the
Theme does not seem to work the way we hypothesized: vowels in a number of words with
less semantic value were more intensive.
As for the formant structure, the more informative the part of an utterance is, the more stable
quality Canadian and Australian vowels have. Within the Theme part of an utterance open and
front vowels have a strong tendency to become closer and more centralized in both accents.
However, Canadian back vowels are likely to become closer and more retracted while
Australian ones are more centralized.
Key words: Rheme, theme, duration, intensity, formants.
Naumov, Vladimir (St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg, Russian
Federation, vladimir_naumov_@mail.ru)
Social Phonetics
Close ties of Phonetics with physiology, acoustics, sociology, and psychology determine
complicated and ambiguous ways of solving its problems. The social aspect is a key part of
the issues that Phonetics and Phonology deal with.
Speech is one of the basic obligatory forms of social behavior. On the one hand, people
should adhere to rules and standards accepted in that particular society. On the other hand,
every speaker has a possibility to choose a pattern of realizing a certain language unit. Is it
possible to overcome the variance of the standard which is determined by social
heterogeneity? Is this unification really necessary? Unilateralism of usage patterns inherent
in the system indicates the decrease of the selective function of the standard. Losing the
features of ethnic identity as a function of growing multiculturalism damages the language.
The basic features of the standard is its variance. Variance provides dynamics of the
standard as opposed to its statics. Changing the standard is a natural process: the usage
enriches the language system with new elements. However, deliberate distortion of the
standard must be subjected to correctional actions of state and social institutions. It is the
only way to exercise catharsis of the language standard.
Keywords: standard, orthoepy, variance, multiculturalism, catharsis of the standard
Primak, Oksana (Far-Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, Russian Federation),
Zavyalova, Victoria (Far Eastern Federal University, Russia, zavyal@mail.ru)
Intercultural Communication Perspective on Lingua Franca Phonology
The development of global economy and the advancement of English as the International
language impose strong demands on specialists in achieving high English communication
proficiency. However, it has been taken for granted that native-like competence of English
is unlikely to be achieved by speakers of other languages. Therefore, numerous non-native
accents of English are flooding the intercultural communication environment today. Thus,
successful intercultural communication involves the ability of English native and non-native
speakers to cope with de facto phonetic variation of the lingua franca. The article
demonstrates the importance of exposing learners to non-native standard varieties in the
classroom setting to avoid unintelligibility that might occur when English phonemes and
their sequences are substituted by other phonemes by interlocutors and in many other cases.
Examples of critical incidents due to phonetic variation in intercultural communication
contexts are given. The authors also discuss the nature and content of phonetic
representations in late bilingualism and the related issues. The phonetic material of a
language is viewed as a source of cultural information, or as a marker of its ethnocultural
specificity.
Key words: Non-native varieties of English, intercultural communication, lingua franca
phonetic variation
Selyutina, Iraida (Institute of Philology, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences,
Novosibirsk, Russian Federation, siya_irina@mail.ru)
Some phoneme distribution rules in the Southern-Siberian Turkic languages
The current paper focuses upon some rules of phonemes distribution determined by the type
of synharmonism in the language. In modern Sayan-Altai languages the choice of the
vowel's allophone is a function of the previous consonant. The Khakass language is an
exception: any consonant can be followed by any palatalizing vowel (front, central, centralback, and mixed) with varying degree of consonant palatalizing. In Southern-Siberian
languages front vowels cause the strongest palatalizing and can not be proceeded by
forelingual «t, d, ʃ, ʒ, n», while central and mixed vowels can not be proceeded by a
number of palatal consonants and forelingual «l». «T, d, ʃ, ʒ, n» can not be proceeded by
front vowels. These consonants correlate with palatal or front-palatal consonants which can
be accompanied only by front palatalizing vowels. Forelingual «s, z, r», bilabial «p, b, m»
can be accompanied by any vowel. Lateral «l'» is always palatalized and can be followed
only by front vowels. These assimilation processes are parallel to those in Ugric-Samodic
languages. The interaction of Turkic and Ugric-Samodic systems cause disruption in
synharmonism. Certain distribution peculiarities are also characteristic of guttural
phonemes. In multisyllabic words assimilation occurs within the syllable but not within the
word.
Keywords: synharmonism, consonants, vowels, assimilation, palatalizing
Selyutina, Iraida (Institute of Philology, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences,
Novosibirsk, Russian Federation, siya_irina@mail.ru), Urtegeshev, Nikolai (Institute of
Philology, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation,
urtegeshev@mail.ru)
Guttural consonants in Turkic languages of Southern Siberia
Experimental studies of Siberian linguists enabled to reveal phonetic parallels in the sound
systems of Ugric-Samodic and Turkic languages in Altai-Sayan region. The basic relevant
feature of consonants is fortis/lenis/super-lenis one (short/long/with unclear length). Fortis
and lenis differ in their distribution with the former being word-initial or word-final while
the latter being only word-internal. The articulatory study was performed with the help of
magnetic resonance tomography. The results indicate that voiceless stop /k/ occurs in
palatalizing-vowel word forms. It can be articulated as interstitial-lingual-velar, mid-lingualinterstitial-lingual, mid-lingual-interstitial-lingual-velar and even uvular always having two
loci with the place of articulation being variable within the hard and soft palate. The
consonant can be either fortis or mid-fortis. In most languages mentioned it is characterized
by more or less palatalizing with very few exception. In some languages labializing can
occur. Uvular and pharyngeal additional articulation is also possible. While pronouncing
voiced stop /g/ the back of the tongue, the root of the tongue or the middle of the tongue can
function as the main articulators. The place of articulation varies withing different parts of
the hard and soft palate. The consonant can be either fortis or mid-fortis. Labializing is
always present. Palatalizing is variable.
Key words: consonants, fortis, lenis, labializing, palatalizing.
Shamina, Elena (St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation,
elena_shamina@hotmail.com)
Phonetic Creolisation in Advertising Discourse
The paper deals with phonetic representation of creolisation processes that are taking place
in Russian language advertising discourse. The material for discussion is taken from both
written and oral sources of different kinds (advertising slogans, posters, TV commercials,
etc.). It is shown that phonetic creolisation in advertising texts takes different forms,
including direct borrowing, corrupt sound word forms, original or mock accented
pronunciation. It can involve both segmental and suprasegmental levels and several sound
systems. It may also influence the perception of the content and the target of the
advertisement.
Key words: advertising, creolisation, phonetic accent.
Skrelin, Pavel (St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation,
skrelin@phonetics.pu.ru)
Russian speech culture and standard pronunciation
Accepted Standard Pronunciation is a clear indicator of how much of all the abundance of the
literary language the speaker possesses and follows.
Three aspects — (i) correct arrangement of a rhythmic group, (ii) standard phonemic and allophonic
sequences, and (iii) adequate intonation of an utterance — have different impact on the speaker's
judgment about the closeness of a speech sample to a certain ideal model.
The most noticeable and widely discussed issue is the one of the accent placement in words and
their grammatical forms.
Our society is more tolerant to the use of some phonemes instead of others: delabialization of both
post-tonic and pretonic /u/, elision of consonants, etc. phenomena unnoticed by non-linguists. At the
same time everyone notices the distinctive feature change: f. ex. the use of a hard consonant instead
of a soft one and vice versa.
The lack of an official intonation standard can give rise to the variants of intonation that can
cause unexpected emotional and expressive reaction of a listener. Thus, late timing of a tonic
syllable in non-final and question intonation patterns has become a certain "young age"
marker that results in negative emotional reaction of older generation to such utterances.
Key words: standard of pronunciation, culture of speech, phonology, word-stress, intonation.
Zavyalova, Victoria (Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, Russian Federation,
zavyal@mail.ru)
Language Contact Phonology: Phonological Neighborhood Effects in Bilingualism
Phonological typology classifies languages according to the phonological substance, i.e. a
set of features or segments, and phonological rules that organize those features into a
phonological whole, with the entire system being constrained by particular articulatory,
perceptive, and cognitive factors. The paper addresses theoretical issues of typological
effects in language contact phonology and studies the effects of the phonological
neighborhood/remoteness on second language acquisition. The author examines sparse Vs
dense sound neighborhood across several languages by applying comparative phonology
methods in drawing the sound matrix of English Vs Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and
Korean. The attention is drawn to the implications of phonological typology research for the
study of the non-native accent phenomenon. Some neurophysiological aspects of L2 sound
acquisition and the typology of phonological generalizations in bilingualism dependent on
the phonological typology of languages involved in contact is discussed.
Key words: language contact phonology, phonological typology,
interlanguage sound neighborhood.