Week 1 - Applications

Question 1

Phonetics Definition

Answer 1

P.PP.TRA
(the study of) the Production, Physical Properties and Transmission, and Reception of the Acoustic signal of speech

• ARTICULATION,
• ACOUSTICS,
• PERCEPTUAL properties

Question 2

Phonology definition

Answer 2

the way languages use/organise these sounds to encode meaning

• Simple: how differences in sound are used to differentiate words in a language
• How sounds are sequenced within words, etc.

Question 3

APPLICATIONS OF PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

Answer 3

• Language analysis and description
• First language acquisition
• Second language acquisition
• Bilingualism
• Speech Pathology
• Electronic speech processing
• Forensic Phonetics
• Orthography issues

Question 4

Language analysis and description

Answer 4

o DESCRIBING sound system of lang and dialects
♣ Not been well-described before
♣ Social and other variation
♣ Undergo change
o BASIS for other studying other aspects of lang (MORPHOLOGY, SOCIO_LING, LANG CHANGE)
o Phonetic and phonological study = important in DEVELOPMENT OF ORTHOGRAPHY
previously unwritten systems + reform in existing systems

Question 5

First Language Acquisition

Answer 5

o Ability to produce adult-like pronunciation of words = key aspect of early lang acq.
o Child Language forms which differ from adult forms = “ERRORS”
o Provide basis for describing ‘systematic errors’

Question 6

Second language acquisition

Answer 6

o Relevant in understanding general processes of SLA and SL education
o A learners acquisition of an unfamiliar speech sound and can often be made easier if its demonstarion is accompanied by a phonetic description
♣ The sounds written “rt”, “rn” and “rl” are pronounced with the tip of the tongue touching a bit higher…… (insert)

Question 7

Bilingualism

Answer 7

o Knowledge of phonetics n phonology provudeds understanding made by learners/bilinguals
o Eg. Arrernte does not use differences in
♣ [p] v [b]
♣ [t] v [d]
♣ [c] v [g]
o English ‘errors’ for L1 Arrernte speakers –
♣ Desk = tesk
♣ Todd creek = Dot Greek

Question 8

Speech Pathology

Answer 8

• Speech Disorders
  congenital physical
  developmental
  acquired thru injury
• Hearing impairment

Question 9

SPEECH DISORDER - how does the IPA help ?

Answer 9

Extended IPA represents common types of mis-articulation, eg
[ʪ] - lateral lisp
[t\t\t] - stutter (reiterated artic.)
[s!!] - ventricular voicing of [s]
[ʩ] - velopharyngeal fricative (cleft palate)

Question 10

HEARING IMPAIRMENT

Audiology and Phonetics

Answer 10

Human hearing is not equally sensitive to sounds of different frequencies.
most sensitive = 2-5kHz
People become less and less sensitive to sound intensity as they age

AUDIOLOGY - sounds like [s] and [ʃ] have nearly all energy at higher frequencies (3-10kHz)

    - a person only able to hear lower frequencies wld have trouble hearing these phones at normal speech vols
   - consequences for speech development, english = /s/ or /z/ plurals

Question 11

Forensic Phonetics - uses and definition?

Answer 11

the application of phonetics in the legal context, especially but not only in the criminal law.

• speaker identification
• speaker profiling
• expert transcription (of speech sample)
  TELEPHONE THREATS, INTERCEPt tAPES, VOICE DISGUISE, FOREIGN LANG SPEAKER IDENTITY

ANALYSES OF:

• ear witness evidenece
• voice line-up
• issues of time-delay

Question 12

Forensic phonetics - speaker profiling

Answer 12

Inferring likely attributes of speaker from speech sample:

• age estimation
• gender
• dialect n e.g. Yorkshire Ripper - Second language accent (L1/L2 )

Question 13

Electronic Speech Processing

Answer 13

Elec. device increasingly able to produce/process human speech
- still behind human performance

• SPEAKER RECOGNITION
• NATURAL speech production
• SPEECH RECOG (siri, ok google, dictation)
• DIALOGUE SYSTEMS