|
The condition of the rhythm classes in England| old_uid | 10135 |
|---|
| title | The condition of the rhythm classes in England |
|---|
| start_date | 2011/09/05 |
|---|
| schedule | 11h-12h30 |
|---|
| online | no |
|---|
| details | Invité par l'équipe Parole |
|---|
| summary | Both adult listeners and young infants can discriminate certain languages, such as English and Spanish, when segmental information is impoverished or eliminated. Such findings have been interpreted as support for categorical distinctions between language groups, the so-called “rhythm classes”. Parallel speech production studies have attempted to quantify language rhythm, specifically the durational marking of stress. By contrast with the categorical rhythm class distinctions suggested by perception experiments, metrics of temporal stress contrast have indicated gradient language distinctions.
We attempted to reconcile these divergent findings in a series of experiments probing the prosodic timing factors that predict language categorisation. We used an ABX categorisation task, with flat sasasa-type utterances used to focus specifically on the temporal cues to linguistic distinctions. Results showed that English adult listeners can distinguish languages within as well as between rhythm classes, using a variety of timing cues for the task. Speech rate differences are consistently exploited, where available, in preference to other cues. We interpret this in the light of findings indicating the importance of rate for listeners’ understanding of segmental and prosodic structure. We further suggest that infants may exploit sensitivity to speech rate and other timing cues, rather than categorical rhythmic distinctions, in early language acquisition. |
|---|
| responsibles | Rämä |
|---|
| |
|