the speech rhythm and phonology of standard indian english · the speech rhythm and phonology of...

The Concept of Speech RhythmThe Speech Rhythm of IndE

The Phonology of Standard IndE

The Speech Rhythm and Phonology of StandardIndian English

Workshop on Norms and Standards in Indian English andOther South Asian Englishes

Robert Fuchs

02 June 2014

Robert Fuchs Speech Rhythm and Phonology of Standard Indian English



1 The Concept of Speech Rhythm

2 The Speech Rhythm of IndE

3 The Phonology of Standard IndE




What is speech rhythm?

I Stress-timed languages (English, German) vs. syllable-timedlanguages (Spanish, French) (Abercrombie 1967; Pike 1945)

I Also: varieties - British/American English vs. Indian, Singapore,Nigerian English

I Definition of speech rhythm is controversialI Two most recent definitions:

I Duration (Low 1998; Low et al. 2000; Ramus et al. 1999)I Prominence




Rhythm and variability

Syllable-timing

Stress-timing

I Syllable-timing: Durations of syllables and vowels more similar toeach other

I Stress-timing: Durations less similar to each otherI How can durational variability be measured?

I Standard deviation of durations of vocalic intervals/syllables(normalised for speech rate)

I Stress-timed languages have more/longer consonant clusters-> less time taken up by vowels (percentage of vowel duration overtotal utterance duration)




Beyond vowels and syllables

I Distinction between vowels and consonants not very salient(e.g. /w/ vs. /a/ and /w/ vs. /p/)

I Better: Sonorant vs. obstruent durations

I Voiced vs. unvoiced durations (Dellwo et al. 2007)

I For each of these, measures of durational variability and ofpercentage of utterance duration can be derived




Prominence and rhythm

I Correlates of prominence: Duration, intensity/loudness, f0/pitch,sonority

Syllable-timing

Stress-timing

I Also: Variability in intensity, loudness, f0, variation in sonority

I Rate of pre-vocalic glottal stop insertion (e.g. <town is> pronouncedas [taUnPIz])

I Speech rate (Dellwo 2008)




Data

I Read and spontaneous speech

I 20 speakers of educated IndE (L1 Hindi, Bengali, Telugu,Malayalam), 10 speakers of BrE (Fuchs 2013)

I Representative of standard IndE and BrE




Results

I Is IndE more syllable-timed than BrE?

I Acoustic correlates of speech rhythm that suggest IndE is morestress-timed than BrE

I Acoustic correlates of speech rhythm that suggest IndE has a similarrhythm to BrE

I Acoustic correlates of speech rhythm that suggest IndE is moresyllable-timed than BrE




IndE more stress-timed than BrE

I Speech rate: lower in IndE




Similar rhythm in IndE and BrE

I Percentage of vocalic and sonorant durations over total utteranceduration

I Variability of syllable durations: sometimes equal in both varieties

I Variability of voiced and sonorant durations

I Variation in sonority: similar in both varieties in spont. speech




IndE more syllable-timed than BrE

I Variability of vocalic durations: smaller in IndE

I Influence of differences in f0 on perceived duration(Fuchs 2014/submitted)

I Variability of syllable durations: sometimes smaller in IndE

I Percentage of voiced durations over total utterance duration:higher in IndE

I Variation in sonority: less in IndE read speech

I Variability in intensity and loudness: smaller in IndE

I Simultaneous variability in duration and loudness reinforcing eachother: less frequent in IndE (Fuchs 2014/submitted)

I Prevocalic glottal stop insertion at word boundaries:more frequent in IndE




Summary

I Very good evidence that Standard IndE is more syllable-timedthan BrE

I Difference is perceptually relevant: Speakers of both varieties assigntalkers to an Indian or British group on the basis of rhythmdifferences (Fuchs 2014/to appear)

I Difference between Standard IndE and BrE not greater than thatbetween some dialects of BrE (Ferragne 2008)




Supra-segmental characteristics

I More syllable-timed rhythm

I Pre-vocalic glottal stop insertion at word boundaries (absence oflinking)

I Frequent use of L* and L*H phrase accents (for references for thisand the following points, see Fuchs 2013)




Segmental characteristics (acoustic studies)

I Variable rhoticity

I Variable realisation of /r/ as [ô ∼ R ∼ r ∼ ôfi]

I FACE vowel realised as [e]

I GOAT vowel realised as [o]

I Variable merger of the STRUT, COMMa and NURSE vowels, realisedas [2 ∼ 5 ∼ @]

I Tense - lax distinction not consistently maintained

I Variable /v/ - /w/ merger, realised as [V ∼ w]




Segmental characteristics (no acoustic studies)

I Retroflex consonants in the place of /t/ and /d/

I No aspiration in pre-vocalic plosives

I Pronunciation of the BrE dental fricatives /D/ and /T/ as dentalplosives [d”] and [t”h]




Acro-, meso-, basilect

I Crucial distinction between acro-, meso- and basilectal speakers

I Acrolectal speakers = Attended English-medium schools +university education

I Lectal differences might explain conflicting findings of previousstudies (e.g. lax-tense distinction)

I Acrolectal speakers are relatively homogeneous in phonology (Sirsaand Redford 2013) and (at least some features of) syntax (Lange2012)

I Homogeneity of acrolectal/standard IndE is commensurate withplacing IndE in phase 3 (nativisation) of Schneider’s Dynamic Modelof Postcolonial Varieties of English (Schneider 2007)




Regional differentiation

I Mukherjee (2007) argues that IndE entered phase 4 (endonormativestabilisation) in the 1960s - this would imply regional differentiation

I If differences are found between educated L1 Hindi speakers of IndEvs. L1 Telugu speakers - are they due to L1 influence or regionaldifferentiation within IndE? (cf. Sirsa and Redford 2013)

I Comparison of L1 Hindi speakers of IndE from, for example, Delhiand Hyderabad might answer this question




References I

Abercrombie, David (1967). Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press.

Dellwo, Volker (2008). “The role of speech rate in perceiving speechrhythm”. In: Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2008. Campanela,pp. 375–378.

Dellwo, Volker, Adrian Fourcin, and Evelyn Abberton (2007). “Rhythmicalclassification of languages based on voice parameters”. In:Proceedings of ICPhS XVI. Ed. by Jürgen Trouvain andWilliam J. Barry. Dudweiler: Pirrot, pp. 1129–1132.

Ferragne, Emmanuel (2008). “Etude Phonétique des Dialectes Modernesde l’Anglais des Iles Britanniques: Vers l’Identification Automatique duDialecte”. PhD thesis. Université Lumière Lyon 2.




References II

Fuchs, Robert (2013). “Speech Rhythm in Educated Indian English andBritish English”. (available upon request from the author). PhD thesis.University of Münster.

– (2014/submitted). “Towards a perceptual model of speech rhythm:Integrating the influence of f0 on perceived duration”. In: Proceedingsof Interspeech 2014. Ed. by Helen Meng and Bin Ma. Singapore.

– (2014/to appear). “You’re not from around here, are you? - A dialectdiscrimination experiment with speakers of British and Indian English”.In: Prosody and Language Contact. Ed. by Elisabeth Delais-Roussarie,Mathieu Avanzi, and Sophie Herment. Berlin: Springer.

Lange, Claudia (2012). The Syntax of Spoken Indian English.Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Low, Ee Ling (1998). “Prosodic Prominence in Singapore English”.PhD thesis. University of Cambridge.




References III

Low, Ee Ling, Esther Grabe, and Francis Nolan (2000). “Quantitativecharacterization of speech rhythm: Syllable-timing in SingaporeEnglish”. In: Language and Speech 43.4, pp. 377–401.

Mukherjee, Joybrato (2007). “Steady states in the evolution of NewEnglishes: Present-day Indian English as an equilibrium”. In: Journalof English Linguistics 35.2, pp. 157–187.

Pike, Kenneth Lee (1945). The Intonation of American English. AnnArbor: University of Michigan Press.

Ramus, Franck, Marina Nespor, and Jacques Mehler (1999). “Correlatesof linguistic rhythm in the speech signal”. In: Cognition 73, pp. 265–92.

Schneider, Edgar W. (2007). Postcolonial English: Varieties Around theWorld. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press.




References IV

Sirsa, Hema and Melissa A. Redford (2013). “The effects of nativelanguage on Indian English sounds and timing patterns”. In: Journal ofPhonetics 41.6, pp. 393–406.


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