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夏威夷语社区的繁荣，拥有强大的K-12夏威夷语教育系统，以及夏威夷语的大学和教师培训计划。尽管有大量的使用者和历史语言和语音材料，但夏威夷语的语音研究仍然不足。本项目研究了三组说话者的语音系统：（1）在希洛不断增长的现代夏威夷语社区，（2）在希洛现代夏威夷语的中级学习者的成年学生，（3）在20世纪70年代至80年代在广播节目Ka Leo Hawai 'i（KLH）中采访的复兴前夏威夷老人。为了确定儿童和成人学习者所掌握的语言的语音特性，该团队首先检查了熟练的夏威夷语成年人的声学特性。然后，他们转向评估成人语言学习者，目的是识别对这个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文件，包括与语言教师和其他社区成员合作编写教学材料。该项目还有助于正在进行的夏威夷语自动语音识别（ASR）开发工作。目前的研究主要集中在夏威夷语语音的实现和习得方面，包括在多个韵律位置上的口头塞音和声门塞音、夏威夷语中元音长度的区别以及/v/的[w~v]变体。由于以往的研究口头和声门停止检查KLH采访表明，他们的实现受韵律的考虑，在这项研究中的启发材料操纵停止发生在（词汇）词的位置，韵律词的位置，和音节重音。研究韵律和词内部韵律结构在调节夏威夷语音实现中的作用，有助于越来越多的文献关于语音结构的多层次接口与语音实现。这些研究也允许检查第二语言学习者是否对这些细粒度的语音特性敏感。除了生产的研究，感知研究调查什么样的声音质量信息是用来感知字首声门塞音。本研究的最后一个组成部分是继续研究的讲话的KLH扬声器从他们的录音采访，重点是在夏威夷语的元音长度的区别的实施，以及什么因素的条件变化的发音[w~v]/v/的变体。这些研究的结果有助于设计教学材料和视频，这些材料和视频可能会对夏威夷语的成年学习者构成挑战。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

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.