Previous research has mainly considered the impact of tone-language experience on ability to discriminate linguistic pitch, but proficient bilingual listening requires differential processing of sound variation in each language context. Here, we ask whether Mandarin-English bilinguals, for whom pitch indicates word distinctions in one language but not the other, can process pitch differently in...

Native-like production of intonational prominence is important for spoken language competency. Non-native speakers may have trouble producing prosodic variation in a second language (L2) and thus, problems in being understood. By identifying common sources of production error, we will be able to aid in the instruction of L2 speakers. In this paper we present results of a production study design...

We present a system for detection of lexical stress in English words spoken by English learners. This system was designed to be part of the EduSpeak R © computer-assisted language learning (CALL) software. The system uses both prosodic and spectral features to detect the level of stress (unstressed, primary or secondary) for each syllable in a word. Features are computed on the vowels and inclu...

When a speaker of English and a speaker of Chinese think about the same object, their brains are representing a shared concept. However, we don’t know how similarity in the concepts evoked by words is manifested in the brains of speakers of different languages. We have previously shown that neural similarity relations are strongly conserved across subjects, allowing across-subject decoding (Rai...

In this paper, we propose a statistical evaluation method of pronunciation proficiency and intelligibility for presentations made in English by native Japanese speakers. We statistically analyzed the actual utterances of speakers to find combinations of acoustic and linguistic features with high correlation between the scores estimated by the system and native English teachers. Our results show...

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Research is reported on the way in which Finnish speakers of English interpret the semantic/pragmatic meaning of the fall-rise intonation in spoken English. A set of constructed mini-dialogues were used for listening tests in which the test subjects were to interpret the “meaning” of the fall-rise tone. To obtain baseline data, a group of native speakers of English listened to the same material...

This study investigated the effectiveness of auditory phonetic training on Greek native speakers’ perception and production of Southern British English vowels. The trainees identified and produced English bVt words before and after receiving five sessions of High Variability Phonetic Training (multiple speakers in multiple contexts). All of the trainees improved in their overall identification ...