Doctoral Dissertation Research: The role of listener experience in perception of conditioned dialect variation

博士论文研究：听者体验在条件性方言变异感知中的作用

• 批准号: 1823972
• 负责人: Kathryn Campbell-Kibler
• 金额: $ 1.54万
• 依托单位: Ohio State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-15 至 2021-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1823972&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; role; listener

Although humans often take for granted our ability to understand other people when they talk, anyone who has ever used a voice assistant like Siri or Alexa will be aware that understanding speech is in fact enormously difficult. One reason for this difficulty is that different speakers have different accents, so two speakers might pronounce the same word differently (e.g. 'car' in American versus British English), while pronouncing different words identically (e.g. 'gloss' in American English can sound identical to a Londoner's 'glass'). While humans are typically able to adapt to these accent differences, little is known about how this adaptation works. A further puzzle is how humans adapt to accents socially: listeners can improve not only in how well they understand a new accent, but also in how well they use the subtleties of that accent to pick up on a speaker's social characteristics. For example, many Americans cannot distinguish between accents from the north versus south of England, or between upper-class and working-class British accents, but upon moving to the UK can learn to make such distinctions. Again, little is understood about how this adaptation works. This project investigates how listeners adapt to accents over time--both in terms of how well they can understand an accent and in their social knowledge about that accent--and explores the relationship between these two types of adaptation.Long-term adaptation to accents is investigated by comparing how Americans in the US versus Americans living in the UK process southern British English. The project focuses on words like 'bath', 'grass', and 'pass' which are pronounced with "short-a" (the vowel in 'cat') in American English but with "long-ah" (the vowel in 'father') in southern British English. It investigates: (1) how well do Americans know which words have "long-ah" in southern British English? (2) how does this knowledge change as they gain more experience with British English? and (3) what does this tell us about their mental representations of British accents? Americans in the US and UK, along with a control group of British participants, will be recruited for several perception experiments. Crucial items will include words that are similar to long-ah words, but pronounced with "short-a" in British English. For example, 'grass' and 'gas' rhyme in American English, so if 'grass' is pronounced with long-ah in southern British English, one might expect 'gas' to also be pronounced with long-ah--but, in fact, southern British speakers pronounce 'gas' with short-a. Do Americans know that short-a is the correct British pronunciation, or do they incorrectly generalize from 'grass' to 'gas'? If Americans hear 'gas' with long-ah, do they think it sounds refined and British--or do they know that it sounds like someone faking an accent? Comparing the answers to these questions for listeners with different amounts of exposure to British English will tell us what kinds of linguistic generalizations listeners make as they adapt, which will provide an important step in understanding how humans are so easily able to adapt to new accents, and may inform technological advances in language processing.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

尽管人类通常认为我们理解他人说话的能力是理所当然的，但任何使用过Siri或Alexa等语音助手的人都会意识到，理解语音实际上非常困难。这种困难的一个原因是不同的说话者有不同的口音，所以两个说话者可能会对同一个词发出不同的发音（例如，美式英语中的“car”与英式英语中的“car”），而对不同的词发出相同的发音（例如，美式英语中的“gloss”听起来与伦敦人的“glass”相同）。虽然人类通常能够适应这些口音差异，但人们对这种适应的原理知之甚少。另一个难题是人类如何在社会上适应口音：听者不仅可以提高对新口音的理解程度，还可以提高他们如何利用口音的微妙之处来了解说话者的社会特征。例如，许多美国人无法区分来自英格兰北部和南部的口音，或者上层阶级和工人阶级的英国口音，但在搬到英国后可以学会区分这些口音。再一次，人们对这种适应是如何工作的知之甚少。这个项目调查了听众如何随着时间的推移适应口音--既包括他们对口音的理解程度，也包括他们对口音的社会知识--并探讨了这两种适应之间的关系。通过比较美国人和英国人对英国南部英语的处理，研究了对口音的长期适应。该项目的重点是“bath”、“grass”和“pass”等词，这些词在美式英语中发音为“short-a”（“cat”中的元音），但在英国南部英语中发音为“long-ah”（“father”中的元音）。本文调查了：（1）美国人对英国南部英语中哪些单词有“long-ah”的了解程度如何？(2)当他们获得更多的英式英语经验时，这些知识是如何变化的？（3）这告诉了我们什么关于他们对英国口音的心理表征？在美国和英国的美国人，以及沿着一组英国参与者，将被招募进行几项感知实验。关键项目将包括类似于长啊词的单词，但在英式英语中发音为“短a”。例如，在美国英语中，“grass”和“gas”押韵，所以如果在英国南部英语中，“grass”的发音是长ah，人们可能会认为“gas”也是长ah-但事实上，英国南部的人用短a发“gas”。美国人知道短字母a是正确的英式发音吗？还是他们错误地将“grass”概括为“gas”？ 如果美国人听到“gas”和“long ah”，他们会认为这听起来很优雅，很英国化，还是他们知道这听起来像是有人在假装口音？比较不同程度接触英式英语的听众对这些问题的回答，将告诉我们听众在适应时会做出什么样的语言概括，这将为理解人类如何如此容易地适应新口音提供重要的一步，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得支持的，使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。