Dialect identification, intelligibility ratings, and acceptability ratings of dysarthric speech in two American English dialects

The current study explored the intelligibility and acceptability ratings of dysarthric speakers with African American English (AAE) and General American English (GAE) dialects by listeners who identify as GAE or AAE speakers, as well as listener ability to identify dialect in dysarthric speech. Eighty-six listeners rated the intelligibility and acceptability of sentences extracted from a passage read by speakers with dysarthria. Samples were used from the Atlanta Motor Speech Disorders Corpus and ratings were collected via self-report. The listeners identified speaker dialect in a forced-choice format. Listeners self-reported their dialect and exposure to AAE. AAE dialect was accurately identified in 63.43% of the the opportunities; GAE dialect was accurately identified in 70.35% of the opportunities. Listeners identifying as AAE speakers rated GAE speech as more acceptable, whereas, listeners identifying as GAE speakers rated AAE speech as more acceptable. Neither group of listeners demonstrated a difference in intelligibility ratings. Exposure to AAE had no effect on intelligibility or acceptability ratings. Listeners can identify dialect (AAE and GAE) with a better than chance degree of accuracy. One's dialect may have an effect on intelligibility and acceptability ratings. Exposure to a dialect did not affect listener ratings of intelligibility or acceptability.

An examination of 3rd and 5th grade students' use of dialect specific forms during a written editing task

PURPOSE

The goal of the current study was to examine the role of variety and frequency of dialectal features in relation to General American English (GAE) editing ability. This study focused on speakers of dialect-specific forms and their ability to edit to GAE. To gain insight into this relation, the following research questions were posed: (1). How do third and fifth-grade students differ in the variety of features of dialect-specific forms they use, the frequency of their use, and their editing ability to GAE? (2). Is there a significant relation between dialect use and editing ability?

METHODS

Participants included 68 third and fifth-grade students who produced at least one dialect-specific form. We measured students' ability to edit to GAE during a written editing task. Frequency and variety of dialect use were based on an oral language sample where students were asked to share their favorite game or sport.

RESULTS

Fifth-grade students are significantly better at editing written dialect specific forms to reflect GAE writing conventions as compared to third-grade students. However, there was not a significant difference in the dialect specific form usage between the two grades. Finally, there was not a significant relation between dialect specific form use and editing ability.

CONCLUSIONS

These results offer relevant clinical and educational implications for increasing cultural responsivity and promote the use of multiple measures across modalities to gain relevant information when assessing students who use dialect specific forms. Further, the results from this study provide further insights into how written editing ability exhibited through the awareness of GAE conventions improves with age despite the influence of dialect specific forms.

Bidialectal and monodialectal differences in morphosyntactic processing of AAE and MAE: Evidence from ERPs and acceptability judgments

INTRODUCTION

African American English (AAE) has never been examined through neurophysiological methods in investigations of dual-language variety processing. This study examines whether contrastive and non-contrastive morphosyntactic features in sentences with and without AAE constructions elicit differing neural and/or behavioral responses in bidialectal speakers of AAE and Mainstream American English (MAE), compared to monodialectal MAE speakers. We compared electroencephalographic (EEG) and behavioral (grammatical acceptability judgment) data to determine whether two dialects are processed similarly to distinct languages, as seen in studies of bilingual codeswitching where the P600 event related potential (ERP) has been elicited when processing a switch between language varieties.

METHODS

Bidialectal AAE-MAE speakers (n = 15) and monodialectal MAE speakers (n = 12) listened to sentences in four conditions, while EEG was recorded to evaluate time-locked brain responses to grammatical differences between sentence types. The maintained verb form in the present progressive tense sentences (e.g., The black cat lap/s the milk) was the morphosyntactic feature of interest for comparing P600 responses as an indicator of error detection. Following each trial, responses and reaction times to a grammatical acceptability judgment task were collected and compared.

RESULTS

Findings indicate distinct neurophysiological profiles between bidialectal and monodialectal speakers. Monodialectal speakers demonstrated a P600 response within 500-800ms following presentation of an AAE morphosyntax feature, indicating error detection; this response was not seen in the bidialectal group. Control sentences with non-contrasting grammar revealed no differences in ERP responses between groups. Behaviorally, bidialectal speakers showed greater acceptance of known dialectal variation and error (non-contrastive) sentence types compared to the monodialectal group.

CONCLUSIONS

ERP and behavioral responses are presented as preliminary evidence of dual-language representation in bidialectal speakers. Increased consideration of AAE language processing would enhance equity in the study of language at large, improving the work of clinicians, researchers, educators and policymakers alike.

Community engagement and data quality: best practices and lessons learned from a citizen science project on birdsong

Citizen Science (CS) is a research approach that has become popular in recent years and offers innovative potential for dialect research in ornithology. As the scepticism about CS data is still widespread, we analysed the development of a 3-year CS project based on the song of the Common Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) to share best practices and lessons learned. We focused on the data scope, individual engagement, spatial distribution and species misidentifications from recordings generated before (2018, 2019) and during the COVID-19 outbreak (2020) with a smartphone using the 'Naturblick' app. The number of nightingale song recordings and individual engagement increased steadily and peaked in the season during the pandemic. 13,991 nightingale song recordings were generated by anonymous (64%) and non-anonymous participants (36%). As the project developed, the spatial distribution of recordings expanded (from Berlin based to nationwide). The rates of species misidentifications were low, decreased in the course of the project (10-1%) and were mainly affected by vocal similarities with other bird species. This study further showed that community engagement and data quality were not directly affected by dissemination activities, but that the former was influenced by external factors and the latter benefited from the app. We conclude that CS projects using smartphone apps with an integrated pattern recognition algorithm are well suited to support bioacoustic research in ornithology. Based on our findings, we recommend setting up CS projects over the long term to build an engaged community which generates high data quality for robust scientific conclusions.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10336-022-02018-8.

Interlocutor modelling in comprehending speech from interleaved interlocutors of different dialectic backgrounds

It has been shown that, in language comprehension, listeners model certain attributes of their interlocutor (e.g., dialectic background, age, gender) and interpret speech against that model; for example, they understand cross-dialectally ambiguous words such as flat and gas for their American English (AE) meanings more often when listening to an AE interlocutor than a British English (BE) interlocutor. This study further investigated whether listeners construct concurrent interlocutor models when communicating with interleaved interlocutors of different dialectic backgrounds, and, if they do, how they choose between concurrent models to interpret words. In two experiments, participants heard a word (e.g., flat) spoken by a BE or AE interlocutor and provided a word associate (indicating which meaning of the word was accessed). When different interlocutors were encountered in separate blocks, participants accessed more AE meanings when listening to an AE rather than a BE interlocutor, and the accent effect was not larger for words pronounced more differently in BE and AE (e.g., fall sounds more distinctly British vs. American than flat does). These results suggest that participants constructed an interlocutor model (e.g., of a BE or an AE speaker) and used it (instead of accent details in a word) to guide word meaning access. When interlocutors were interleaved in the same block, we observed a comparable accent effect, which increased as a function of between-accent differences in pronunciation. These results suggest that participants constructed concurrent interlocutor models and used accent details in a word to select the appropriate interlocutor model. We also observed that the accent effect was comparable for two interleaved interlocutors of the same gender (e.g., a female BE interlocutor and a female AE interlocutor) and for two interleaved interlocutors of different genders (e.g., a female BE interlocutor and a male AE interlocutor). These results suggest that participants did not use gender-related voice details for model selection when accent details were sufficient for interlocutor model selection.

Dialect Effects on Mandarin Tone Perception Development

This study aimed to characterize factors that influence early dialect development in a language environment with multiple dialects. Children were evaluated for these dialect effects compared with normal hearing referenced measures of speech and language development that are commonly implemented in hearing-impaired children. Dialect exposure and use were assessed longitudinally in Chinese children (2-6 years old) that were raised in a community where Putonghua (PTH) and Sichuanhua (SCH) Mandarin dialects were used. Lexical tones in these dialects are different. A total of 20 boys and 20 girls (2 years old at the beginning of the study) that attended the same nursery school were included in this study. SCH was used by the majority of subjects <4 years old. The majority of subjects >4 years old used either dialect, with a few users of both dialects at this age. PTH tone perception did not differ significantly as a function of dialect use. Tone recognition and discrimination were >90% accurate by 6 years old, in contrast to previous results for children with minimal exposure and use of PTH. Children with approximately ⩾50% PTH exposure might be accurately assessed with norm-referenced speech materials spoken in PTH, regardless of their preferred dialect. However, the current norm-referenced assessments of children with minimal PTH exposure and nonusers of the dialect might be inaccurate.

Nasalance Scores as a Function of Skeletal Malocclusion of English-Speaking Adults in the North Indian Population

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study is quantitative assessment of nasalance for skeletal Class I (normative values), Class II, and III malocclusion in the English language for the North Indian population and to compare the normative values with the nasalance scores obtained from individuals with skeletal Class II and III malocclusion and to evaluate the normative values as a function of gender.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The study was conducted on a total sample of 200 patients with 100, 50, and 50 in group 1 (control group, Skeletal Class I), group 2 (Skeletal Class II), and group 3 (Skeletal Class III), respectively. ANB angle (anteroposterior angle formed by point A, nasion, and point B) measured on lateral cephalogram was used to categorize the patients into 3 groups. The normative nasalance scores were compared for males and females in the control group. The nasalance scores of skeletal Class II and III subjects were compared to the combined normative scores of the control group. The NasalView was used for the objective assessment of nasalance. Oral syllables (/pa/and/pi/), nasal syllables (/ma/and/mi/), and 3 passages (Zoo passage, Rainbow passage, and Nasal sentences) were used to determine the nasalance scores.

RESULTS

The intragroup comparison of nasalance scores in group 1 showed statistically significant differences for different stimuli. The gender-related comparison showed no statistically significant differences in nasalance scores. The intergroup comparison of nasalance scores for skeletal malocclusion showed no statistically significant differences for different stimuli except statistically significant lower nasalance values for nasal sentences in group 3 compared to the control group.

CONCLUSION

The study concluded that the nasalance scores for nasal sentences in skeletal Class III malocclusion were significantly lower than in the control group and were not statistically significant between the 3 groups for all other stimuli.

Are our brains more prescriptive than our mouths? Experience with dialectal variation in syntax differentially impacts ERPs and behavior

We investigated online auditory comprehension of dialectal variation in English syntax with event-related potential (ERP) analysis of electroencephalographic data. The syntactic variant under investigation was the double modal, comprising two consecutive auxiliary verbs (e.g., might could). This construction appears across subregional dialects of Southern United States English and expresses indirectness or uncertainty. We compared processing of sentences with attested double modals and single modals in two groups of young adult participants: listeners who were either familiar (Southern) or unfamiliar (Unmarked) with double modal constructions. Both Southern and Unmarked listeners engaged rapid error detection (early anterior negativity) and sentence-level reanalysis (P600) in response to attested double modals, relative to single modals. Offline acceptability and intelligibility judgments reflected dialect familiarity, contrary to the ERP data. We interpret these findings in relation to usage-based and socially weighted theories of language processing, which together capture the effects of frequency and standard language ideology.

The impact of linguistic bias upon speech-language pathologists' attitudes towards non-standard dialects of English

Dialectal variations are present in all languages, originating from cultural, geographic and socioeconomic diversity. This study investigates speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) linguistic bias towards non-standard language forms and dialects, and factors that may impact on these attitudes. Language attitude studies reveal that negative attitudes towards variation can lead to bias against speakers of non-standard dialects. If SLPs hold linguistic bias towards speakers of non-standard dialects, this has the potential to impact upon their clinical judgement of difference vs. disorder and lead to inequality of service provision. A total of 129 Australian SLPs completed an online survey, which involved ranking 28 attitudinal statements regarding language variation on a 5-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The survey data were analysed using a factor analysis in SPSS to identify latent factors that identified attitudes towards non-standard dialects followed by inferential analyses to investigate how attitudes were related to the demographic data of participants. Results identified five key factors from the survey, these were (1) Use of non-standard English, (2) Language impurity, (3) Diversity in form, (4) Social acceptability, and (5) Prescriptive language rules. SLPs held generally positive attitudes towards the use of non-standard forms and the socially determined acceptability of language. SLPs were more neutral in their attitudes towards diversity in form and the need for prescriptive rules and generally held negative views towards language purity (e.g., the use of "youse" as a plural form of you). A significantly positive association was found between professional development (PD) on cultural and linguistic diversity and positive attitudes towards Factors 1 and 3. Years of practice were significantly related to Factor 2, with less experienced SLPs holding more negative views relating to language purity. While many SLPs identify the value of language variation and its reflection of a person's cultural and linguistic diversity, negative attitudes towards non-standard forms and variation in school and occupational settings have the potential to negatively impact differential diagnosis, goal setting and the delivery of culturally responsive speech-language pathology services to speakers of non-standard dialects.

More than just accent? The role of dialect words in children's language-based social judgments

Recent research suggests that young children are capable of distinguishing between phonetically dissimilar spoken accents yet have difficulty in distinguishing between phonetically similar accents. The current studies aimed to determine whether the presence of dialect-specific vocabulary enhances young children's ability to categorize speakers. In Study 1, 4- to 7-year-old children performed tasks in which they matched speakers based on the dialect-specific vocabulary the speakers used. Participants were successful in matching speakers based on vocabulary at a rate significantly greater than chance. In Study 2, participants performed a task in which they inferred a speaker's future dialect-specific vocabulary use based on the speaker's previous vocabulary use. Participants were able to infer a speaker's vocabulary use at a rate significantly greater than chance, and participants also showed social preference for and selective trust of speakers who used the participants' native dialect vocabulary over those who used a non-native dialect vocabulary. These interesting results suggest that when accent differences are too subtle for children to categorize speakers, dialect-specific vocabulary may enhance young children's ability to categorize a speaker. The results of preference and selective trust questions also suggest that children as young as 4 years use their knowledge of a speaker's vocabulary to guide their preferred social interactions, choosing to interact with others who speak similarly to them.

(Mis) understanding your native language: Regional accent impedes processing of information status

Native-speaker listeners constantly predict upcoming units of speech as part of language processing, using various cues. However, this process is impeded in second-language listeners, as well as when the speaker has an unfamiliar accent. Whereas previous research has largely concentrated on the pronunciation of individual segments in foreign-accented speech, we show that regional accent impedes higher levels of language processing, making native listeners' processing resemble that of second-language listeners.In Experiment 1, 42 native speakers of Canadian English followed instructions spoken in British English to move objects on a screen while their eye movements were tracked. Native listeners use prosodic cues to information status to disambiguate between two possible referents, a new and a previously mentioned one, before they have heard the complete word. By contrast, the Canadian participants, similarly to second-language speakers, were not able to make full use of prosodic cues in the way native British listeners do.In Experiment 2, 19 native speakers of Canadian English rated the British English instructions used in Experiment 1, as well as the same instructions spoken by a Canadian imitating the British English prosody. While information status had no effect for the Canadian imitations, the original stimuli received higher ratings when prosodic realization and information status of the referent matched than for mismatches, suggesting a native-like competence in these offline ratings.These findings underline the importance of expanding psycholinguistic models of second language/dialect processing and representation to include both prosody and regional variation.

Foreign language effect in decision-making: How foreign is it?

It has been shown that decisions and moral judgments differ when made using native languages compared to foreign languages. Cross-linguistic differences appeared in foreign languages that monolinguals typically acquired in school and used neither routinely nor extensively. We replicated these differences with two populations of proficient, native bilinguals (Italian-Venetian; Italian-Bergamasque). Venetian and Bergamasque are spoken in households and informal circles, unlike Italian, which is also used in more formal contexts. The findings reported in foreign languages for the Asian Disease Problem and the Footbridge Dilemma were reproduced in Venetian and Bergamasque. Our results show that language effects on decision-making and moral judgments are not restricted to foreign languages. The explanation proposed for foreign languages of cross-linguistic differences in emotion responses does not apply to our proficient, native bilinguals, who showed emotion responses of equal intensity in their languages. We propose that the contexts in which bilinguals use a language - either native, regional or foreign - could affect decisions.

Survey of assessment and intervention practices for students who speak African American English

Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) working with students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are encouraged to be "familiar with nondiscriminatory testing and dynamic assessment procedures" (ASHA, 2003). Little is known, however, about the extent to which SLPs implement these methods into their clinical practice. The current study explores the assessment and intervention practices used by SLPs in two states in the US for students who speak African American English (AAE), including the types and frequency of clinical practices. 247 SLPs completed an online survey regarding clinical practices for students who speak AAE as well as a questionnaire regarding their knowledge of the linguistic features of AAE. Half of SLPs reported using modified or alternative assessment practices the majority of the time or some of the time for students who speak AAE; however, SLPs reported using modified or alternative treatment practices less often. Modified scoring of standardized assessments and selecting different intervention strategies were the most commonly reported clinical practices. Knowledge of linguistic features of AAE was a significant predictor of the frequency with which SLPs report implementing modified or alternative assessment and intervention practices and SLPs with the highest levels of knowledge of AAE utilize different clinical practices than those with lower levels of knowledge of AAE. Additional information is needed about the most effective clinical practices for students who speak AAE and the barriers SLPs face to implementing nondiscriminatory clinical practices.

Nasalance in Arabic-Speaking Jordanians: A Comparative Study

OBJECTIVE

This investigation sought to establish nasalance scores for Jordanian Arabic (JA) speakers, to develop nasalance speech stimuli for JA speakers, and to compare JA adult nasalance scores with those of Standard American English (SAE) speakers.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

Participants included normal native JA speakers (n = 100; males/females and adults/children) and adult SAE speakers (n = 49). Four speech tasks for JA speakers were developed, which included repetition of vowels, syllables, words, and sentences. Parallel speech tasks were also developed for SAE speakers. A nasometer (Nasometer II 6400; PENTAX Medical, Montvale, NJ, USA) was used to establish nasalance scores for all speakers across all speech tasks.

RESULTS

Nasalance values were established for adult and child JA speakers. The nasalance values were higher for Jordanian adults than for Jordanian children. No differences in nasalance were found between male and female Arabic speakers for nonnasal elements. JA speakers were significantly more nasal than SAE speakers on selected speech tasks.

CONCLUSIONS

Nasalance values for JA speakers were established for both adults and children, and Arabic speech materials were developed. The results of this investigation add to the growing body of research documenting differences in nasalance scores for normal speakers across different languages.

Effects of regional dialect on oral-nasal balance and nasality perception

While cross-dialectal variations in nasalance have been investigated in previous studies, the influence of regional dialect on listeners' perceptual ratings of nasality has received limited research attention. This study explored cross-dialectal differences in the production of oral-nasal balance and the perception of nasality, with special emphasis on Inland North (IN) and Midland (M) dialects in the USA. Twenty-six adults representing the IN (n = 15) and M (n = 11) dialects participated in the study. Oral-nasal balance characteristics and nasality perception were compared between dialects using mean nasalance of various speech stimuli, measured via nasometry, and perceptual ratings of nasality of synthetic vowel stimuli, measured using direct magnitude estimation (DME). Despite similar mean nasalance scores between two regional dialects for standardized passage readings and sustained vowels, IN and M groups significantly differed in their perceptual ratings of nasality, with the DMEs of IN listeners being consistently and significantly higher, i.e. more nasal, than those of M listeners. Our findings provide evidence for perceptual variations of nasality that may exist at a dialectal level in addition to cross-linguistic variations in the perception of nasality as reported by Lee et al. (2008). Further research is needed to determine to what extent perceptual variations of nasality exist in other dialects and how these variations manifest in perceptual judgments of hypernasality and its severity ratings.

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition

Speech carries accent information relevant to determining the speaker's linguistic and social background. A series of web-based experiments demonstrate that accent cues can modulate access to word meaning. In Experiments 1-3, British participants were more likely to retrieve the American dominant meaning (e.g., hat meaning of "bonnet") in a word association task if they heard the words in an American than a British accent. In addition, results from a speeded semantic decision task (Experiment 4) and sentence comprehension task (Experiment 5) confirm that accent modulates on-line meaning retrieval such that comprehension of ambiguous words is easier when the relevant word meaning is dominant in the speaker's dialect. Critically, neutral-accent speech items, created by morphing British- and American-accented recordings, were interpreted in a similar way to accented words when embedded in a context of accented words (Experiment 2). This finding indicates that listeners do not use accent to guide meaning retrieval on a word-by-word basis; instead they use accent information to determine the dialectic identity of a speaker and then use their experience of that dialect to guide meaning access for all words spoken by that person. These results motivate a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition in which comprehenders determine key characteristics of their interlocutor and use this knowledge to guide word meaning access.

An agent-based model of dialect evolution in killer whales

The killer whale is one of the few animal species with vocal dialects that arise from socially learned group-specific call repertoires. We describe a new agent-based model of killer whale populations and test a set of vocal-learning rules to assess which mechanisms may lead to the formation of dialect groupings observed in the wild. We tested a null model with genetic transmission and no learning, and ten models with learning rules that differ by template source (mother or matriline), variation type (random errors or innovations) and type of call change (no divergence from kin vs. divergence from kin). The null model without vocal learning did not produce the pattern of group-specific call repertoires we observe in nature. Learning from either mother alone or the entire matriline with calls changing by random errors produced a graded distribution of the call phenotype, without the discrete call types observed in nature. Introducing occasional innovation or random error proportional to matriline variance yielded more or less discrete and stable call types. A tendency to diverge from the calls of related matrilines provided fast divergence of loose call clusters. A pattern resembling the dialect diversity observed in the wild arose only when rules were applied in combinations and similar outputs could arise from different learning rules and their combinations. Our results emphasize the lack of information on quantitative features of wild killer whale dialects and reveal a set of testable questions that can draw insights into the cultural evolution of killer whale dialects.

Dialectal differences in hemispheric specialization for Japanese lexical pitch accent

Language experience can alter perceptual abilities and the neural specialization for phonological contrasts. Here we investigated whether dialectal differences in the lexical use of pitch information lead to differences in functional lateralization for pitch processing. We measured cortical hemodynamic responses to pitch pattern changes in native speakers of Standard (Tokyo) Japanese, which has a lexical pitch accent system, and native speakers of 'accentless' dialects, which do not have any lexical tonal phenomena. While the Standard Japanese speakers showed left-dominant responses in temporal regions to pitch pattern changes within words, the accentless dialects speakers did not show such left-dominance. Pitch pattern changes within harmonic-complex tones also elicited different brain activation patterns between the two groups. These results indicate that the neural processing of pitch information differs depending on the listener's native dialect, and that listeners' linguistic experiences may further affect the processing of pitch changes even for non-linguistic sounds.

Is killer whale dialect evolution random?

The killer whale is among the few species in which cultural change accumulates over many generations, leading to cumulative cultural evolution. Killer whales have group-specific vocal repertoires which are thought to be learned rather than being genetically coded. It is supposed that divergence between vocal repertoires of sister groups increases gradually over time due to random learning mistakes and innovations. In this case, the similarity of calls across groups must be correlated with pod relatedness and, consequently, with each other. In this study we tested this prediction by comparing the patterns of call similarity between matrilines of resident killer whales from Eastern Kamchatka. We calculated the similarity of seven components from three call types across 14 matrilines. In contrast to the theoretical predictions, matrilines formed different clusters on the dendrograms made by different calls and even by different components of the same call. We suggest three possible explanations for this phenomenon. First, the lack of agreement between similarity patterns of different components may be the result of constraints in the call structure. Second, it is possible that call components change in time with different speed and/or in different directions. Third, horizontal cultural transmission of call features may occur between matrilines.