the partner effect in non- native speech speech accommodation group jiwon hwang may 9, 2007

The partner effect in non-native speech

Speech Accommodation Group

Jiwon Hwang

May 9, 2007

Introduction

Ambiguous Utterances and Disambiguation

e.g., ‘Put the dog food in the bowl on the floor’ (Kraljic & Brennan, 2005)

Phonetic Ambiguity in Non-Native Speech

Partner Effect

Korean speakers

Would they try to disambiguate their phonetic forms only with English partner?

English partner

Korean partner

Materials

English words (some nonsense) containing [] and [b] in coda position. (e.g.,‘sack’, ‘sob’)

English phonology: /p/ and /b/, /E/ and /ae/ Korean phonology: only /p/ and /E/

They are likely to be neutralized to [p] and [E] in Korean accented English. phonetic ambiguities (e.g, ‘nib’ as ‘nip’)

Method

A card arrangement task with both English and Korean partner (confederate-matcher, subject-director)

8 rounds in total per partner Last four rounds in priming condition

Con

NickNeckSateBate

AgeMigMeep

CowNobSeep

SeekHobBut

TepTapHum

RetMimMot

Con

NickNeckSateBate

AgeMigMeep

CowNobSeep

SeekHobBut

TepTapHum

RetMimMot

Con

NickNeckSateBate

AgeMigMeep

CowBobSeep

SeekMimBut

TepTapHum

RetMimMot

Con

NickNeckSateBate

AgeMigMeep

CowBobSeep

SeekMimBut

TepTapHum

RetMimMot

Baseline Priming Condition

Acoustic Measures /b/ targets:

Acoustic Measures /ae/ targets:

Partners’ productionReport

212.64 58.18 75.66 88.42

80 80 80 48

84.93 20.34

80 80

Mean

N

Mean

N

partnereng

kor

v_dur cvperct_

closrvoice r

Report

172.80186 991.80 1857.79

80 80 80

95.84624 731.55 2081.29

80 80 80

Mean

N

Mean

N

partnerEng

Kor

Duration(ms.) F1 F2

/b/ priming words

/ae/ priming words

Prediction

Disambiguation only for English partner

: longer vowel duration, closure voicing for /b/ targets with English partner

: longer vowel duration, higher F1 and lower F2 for /ae/ targets with English partner

Results for /b/ targets

Vowel duration was the only cue that varied systematically (statistically significant).

Significant:Partner, Partner*Priming

/b/ targets

*

Partner effect

/b/ targets

*

*

No partner effect

Partner effect

/b/ targets

Korean speakers didn’t have the partner effect when they played the game with the English partner first.

Korean speakers had the priming effect only with the English partner regardless of the order of the partner.

Results for /ae/ targets

Outliers (tokens outside SD=2) in formant measures were excluded.

Only vowel duration was significant.

/ae/ targets

*

Partner effect

/ae/ targets*

Partner effect

No partner effect

* *

/ae/ targets

Korean speakers didn’t have the partner effect when they played the game with the English partner first.

Korean speakers had the priming effect with the English partner regardless of the order of the partner, and they had the priming effect with the Korean partner when she was the second partner – but the direction is the opposite.

What does it mean?

Korean-EnglishThey come in with the Korean phonology.They keep their phonology for the Korean partner.They realize that they need to disambiguate the ambiguous targets for the English partner.-----------------------------------------

English-KoreanThey come in with the Korean phonology.They realize that they need to disambiguate the ambiguous targets for the English partner. They don’t need to go back to the Korean phonology for the Korean partner because either way is fine.

What does it mean?

They adjust to the partner only when it is necessary.

They adjust to the partner through priming.