CAREER: Phonotactics and Articulatory Coordination in Foreign Language Acquisition and Loan Phonology

职业：外语习得和借调语音中的语音策略和发音协调为什么外语学习者尽管经过多年的练习，通常还是无法消除口音？当说英语的人把泡菜品牌的名字读成“Velasic”时，为什么他们最后会读成“Velasic”？很明显，无论是在外语习得中还是在从其他语言中借用单词时，试图发音非母语单词的人都面临着严重的困难。虽然语言习得和外来词借用的研究人员长期以来一直试图了解导致非母语发音的因素，但对产生不熟悉的音序列（或语音策略）有重大影响的一个研究很少的问题是相邻音的协调。协调性指的是说话的时间模式，比如一个音的持续时间（比如“rat”中的/r/），或者相邻音的发音之间存在多少重叠（舌头在发完/r/之前是否开始移动发出/a/ ?）先前的研究表明，协调模式是特定于语言的，这给说话者制造非母语语音序列（如“Vlasic”的/vl/）带来了挑战：说话者不仅要学习哪些声音可以组合成序列，还必须学习这些序列如何在时间上协调。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，丽莎·戴维森博士将研究外语学习者如何学习产生非母语语音序列，以及语言学习者如何将这些序列融入他们的母语。语音记录将与语言过程中舌头运动的超声成像相结合，以了解外语学习者的语言与目的语的预期目标有何不同。另一个对语言习得和借用都很重要的问题是说话者最初是如何感知他们试图发出的声音序列的。来自感知数据的信息和说话者在非母语序列的发音中操纵协调的方式的信息相结合，将为说话者如何学习外语或在母语中采用新词提供重要的见解。对于这个项目的教育部分，将为纽约大学的研究生提供将正式语言学方法与社会语言学和心理语言学相结合的课程，将语言学置于更广泛的跨学科背景下。此外，研究生和本科生都将获得宝贵的实验室经验。本研究亦得益于与具有多年外语教学经验的语言教师的跨部门合作。通过这些伙伴关系，这个项目的成果可以传播给那些参与外语发音教学的人。最后，纽约大学将主办一个名为Ultrafest的研讨会，该研讨会为使用超声波研究语音产生的研究人员提供了一个讨论研究和技术问题的机会。

CAREER: Phonotactics and articulatory coordination in foreign language acquisition and loan phonologyWhy are foreign language learners typically unable to eradicate an accent, despite years of practice? When English speakers say the name of the pickle brand "Vlasic", why do they end up pronouncing it "Velasic"? It is evident that speakers attempting to pronounce non-native words either in foreign language acquisition or when borrowing words from other languages face serious difficulties. While researchers of language acquisition and loanword borrowing have long attempted to understand the factors that contribute to non-native pronunciation, one little-studied issue that has a substantial impact on the production of unfamiliar sound sequences (or phonotactics) is the coordination of adjacent sounds. Coordination refers to timing patterns in speech, such as the duration of a sound (like the /r/ in "rat"), or how much overlap exists among the articulations of adjacent sounds (does the tongue start moving to make the /a/ before it finishes producing the /r/?). Previous research has shown that coordination patterns are language-specific, which presents a challenge for speakers producing non-native sound sequences like the /vl/ of "Vlasic": not only must speakers learn which sounds can be combined into sequences, but they must also learn how such sequences are temporally coordinated. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Lisa Davidson will investigate how foreign language learners learn to produce non-native sound sequences and how language borrowers incorporate these sequences into their native language. Acoustic recordings will be combined with ultrasound imaging of tongue motion during speech to understand how the foreign language learner's speech differs from the intended goal in the target language. Another issue important both to language acquisition and to borrowing is how speakers initially perceive the sound sequences that they are trying to produce. The combination of information from perceptual data and from the way speakers manipulate coordination in the articulation of non-native sequences will provide critical insight into how speakers learn to produce foreign languages or adopt new words into their native language.For the education component of this project, graduate students at New York University will be offered classes that combine formal linguistic methods with both sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics to situate linguistics within a broader interdisciplinary context. In addition, both graduates and undergraduates will gain valuable laboratory experience. This research also benefits from interdepartmental collaborations with language teachers who have years of experience in foreign language classrooms. Through these partnerships, the results of this project can be disseminated to those involved in the teaching of foreign language pronunciation. Finally, NYU will host Ultrafest, a workshop that provides investigators using ultrasound in the study of speech production an opportunity to discuss both research and technical issues.