The goal of the present paper is to study interference between French and English prosody. In order to study the influence of the prosody on the second language pronunciation, F0 slopes and vowel durations of the last syllables of prosodic groups were measured and analyzed in the pronunciation of French native speakers speaking French and English, and of English native speakers speaking English...

second-language (l2) acquisition is generally thought to be constrained by maturational factors that circumscribe a critical period for native-like attainment. consistent with the maturational view are age effects among learners who begin l2 acquisition prior to, but not after, closure of the putative critical period. some studies indicate that native-like acquisition of a second language by le...

OBJECTIVE To examine ethnic differences between white, black, and Hispanic (English-speaking and Spanish-speaking) parents in their desire to remain present during their children's painful medical procedures. METHODS A convenience sample of parents from each of 4 ethnic groups (black, white, and Hispanic [divided into English-speaking Hispanic and Spanish-speaking Hispanic]) was surveyed rega...

It is generally assumed that language a purposeful goal-oriented activity; its main objective the internalization of system rules which defines correct linguistic competence accompanied by required communicative competence. Added to that, Language unity four major skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Recently, it has been argued on both linguistics psychological grounds spea...

In a number of languages, prosody is used to highlight new information (or focus). In Dutch, focus is marked by accentuation, whereby focal constituents are accented and post-focal constituents are de-accented. Even if pausing is not traditionally seen as a cue to focus in Dutch, several previous studies have pointed to a possible relationship between pausing and information structure. Consider...

BACKGROUND There is conflicting evidence of the healthy migrant effect with respect to mental health. This study aims to determine if there are differences in mental health and service use between Australian-born and foreign-born individuals living in South Australia and to consider the differing role of socio-demographic characteristics for Australian-born and foreign-born men and women. MET...

Speaking rate is thought to affect the spectral features of vowels. Target-undershoot models of vowel production predict more spectral reduction and coarticulation of vowels in fast-rate speech than in normal-rate speech. To test this prediction, a meaningful Dutch text of about 850 words was read twice by an experienced newscaster, once at a normal speaking rate and once as fast as possible. A...

This paper examines the acoustic characteristics of voiceless sibilant fricatives in English-and Japanese-speaking adults and the acquisition of contrasts involving these sounds in 2- and 3-year-old children. Both English and Japanese have a two-way contrast between an alveolar fricative (/s/), and a postalveolar fricative (/∫/ in English and /ɕ/ in Japanese). Acoustic analysis of the adult pro...