Phonetic studies of Hawaiian speakers and learners

自20世纪70年代至80年代以来，现代夏威夷语的复兴导致了今天讲夏威夷语的社区的蓬勃发展，拥有强大的K-12年级前夏威夷语教育体系，以及夏威夷语言的大学和教师培训计划。尽管讲话者的数量达到了临界值，历史语言和演讲材料的可获得性也很高，但对夏威夷语的语音研究却没有得到充分的代表。这个项目考察了三组说话者的语音系统：(1)希洛日益壮大的现代夏威夷人社区，(2)在希洛学习现代夏威夷语的中级成人学生，以及(3)在20世纪70-80年代接受广播节目Ka Leo Hawai‘i采访的复兴前夏威夷长老。为了确定儿童和成人学习者习得的语言的语音特性，研究小组首先检查了熟练讲夏威夷语的成年人的声学特性。然后，他们转向评估成人语言学习者，目的是识别对这一群体来说可能更具挑战性的声音。该项目有助于夏威夷语言的语音记录，包括与语言教师和其他社区成员合作创建教学材料。该项目还有助于为夏威夷人开发自动语音识别(ASR)的持续工作。目前的研究集中在夏威夷语音的实现和习得上，包括多个韵律位置的口语和声门停顿，夏威夷语中元音长度的区分，以及/v/的[w~v]变体。由于先前关于口语和声门停顿的研究表明，他们的实现受到韵律考虑的影响，本研究中的启发式材料操纵停顿发生在(词汇)词位置、韵律词位置和音节重音的位置。研究韵律结构和词内部韵律结构在制约夏威夷语音语音实现中的作用，有助于发展一种关于多层次语音结构如何与语音实现相互作用的文献。这些研究还可以检验第二语言学习者是否对这些细微的语音特性敏感。除了发音研究外，还有一项感知研究调查了哪些语音质量信息被用来感知单词开头的声门停顿。这项研究的最后一个部分是对KLH说话人的语音进行继续研究，重点是在夏威夷语中元音长度区分的实施情况，以及哪些因素影响/v/的[w~v]变体的发音。这些研究的结果有助于设计有关声音习得的教学材料和视频，这可能会对夏威夷的成年学习者构成挑战。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The revitalization of Modern Hawaiian since the 1970s-80s has led to a thriving community of Hawaiian speakers today, with a robust system of pre-K-12 Hawaiian-medium education, as well as university and teacher training programs in the Hawaiian language. Despite the critical mass of speakers and availability of historical language and speech materials, phonetic research on Hawaiian is underrepresented. This project examines the sound system of the speech of three groups of speakers: (1) the growing community of Modern Hawaiian speakers in Hilo, (2) adult students who are intermediate-level learners of Modern Hawaiian in Hilo, and (3) pre-revitalization Hawaiian elders interviewed in the 1970s-80s on the radio program Ka Leo Hawai'i (KLH). To establish the phonetic properties of the language being acquired by children and adult learners, the team first examines the acoustic properties of proficient adult speakers of Hawaiian. They then turn to assessing adult language learners, with an aim toward identifying sounds which may be more challenging for this group. This project contributes to the phonetic documentation of the Hawaiian language, including work with language teachers and other community members to create pedagogical materials. The project also contributes to ongoing work in the development of automatic speech recognition (ASR) for Hawaiian. The advancement of ASR helps to alleviate the shortage of Hawaiian transcribers, who play a critical role in US educational, government, and entertainment contexts.The current research focuses on the realization and acquisition of Hawaiian sounds including oral and glottal stops in multiple prosodic positions, the vowel length distinction in Hawaiian, and the [w~v] variants of /v/. Since previous research on oral and glottal stops examining the KLH interviews indicated that their realization affected by prosodic considerations, the elicitation materials in this study manipulate where the stops occur with respect to (lexical) word position, prosodic word position, and syllabic stress. Studying the role of prosodic and word-internal metrical structure in conditioning the phonetic realization of Hawaiian sounds contributes to a growing literature regarding how multiple levels of phonological structure interface with phonetic implementation. These studies also allow for an examination of whether second language learners are sensitive to these fine-grained phonetic properties. In addition to the production studies, a perception study investigates what voice quality information is used in perceiving word-initial glottal stops. A final component of this research is a continued study of the speech of the KLH speakers from their recorded interviews, focusing on the implementation of the vowel length distinction in Hawaiian, and on what factors condition variation in the pronunciation of [w~v] variants of /v/. The outcome of these studies contributes to the design of instructional materials and videos regarding the acquisition of sounds that may present a challenge for adult learners of Hawaiian.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.