Trends in Phonetics and Phonology

This volume was inspired by the 9th edition of the Phonetik and Phonologie conference, held in Zürich in October 2013. It includes state of the art research on phonetics and phonology in various languages and from interdisciplinary contributors. The volume is structured into the following eight sections: segmentals, suprasegmentals, articulation in spoken and sign language, perception, phonology, crowdsourcing phonetic data, second language speech, and arts (with inevitable overlap between these areas).

Practical, Pluggable Types for a Dynamic Language

Most languages fall into one of two camps: either they adopt a unique, static type system, or they abandon static type-checks for run-time checks. Pluggable types blur this division by (i) making static type systems optional, and (ii) supporting a choice of type systems for reasoning about different kinds of static properties. Dynamic languages can then benefit from static-checking without sacrificing dynamic features or committing to a unique, static type system. But the overhead of adopting pluggable types can be very high, especially if all existing code must be decorated with type annotations before any type-checking can be performed. We propose a practical and pragmatic approach to introduce pluggable type systems to dynamic languages. First of all, only annotated code is type-checked. Second, limited type inference is performed on unannotated code to reduce the number of reported errors. Finally, external annotations can be used to type third-party code. We present Typeplug, a Smalltalk implementation of our framework, and report on experience applying the framework to three different pluggable type systems.

Language Boxes: Bending the Host Language with Modular Language Changes

As domain-specific modeling begins to attract widespread acceptance, pressure is increasing for the development of new domain-specific languages. Unfortunately these DSLs typically conflict with the grammar of the host language, making it difficult to compose hybrid code except at the level of strings; few mechanisms (if any) exist to control the scope of usage of multiple DSLs; and, most seriously, existing host language tools are typically unaware of the DSL extensions, thus hampering the development process. Language boxes address these issues by offering a simple, modular mechanism to encapsulate (i) compositional changes to the host language, (ii) transformations to address various concerns such as compilation and highlighting, and (iii) scoping rules to control visibility of language extensions. We describe the design and implementation of language boxes, and show with the help of several examples how modular extensions can be introduced to a host language and environment.

An overview of positive and negative effects of gender-fair language use

The basic principle of gender-fair language is symmetric linguistic treatment of women and men. Depending on the structure of the respective language, two principle strategies can be deployed to make a language gender-fair. In languages with few gender-differentiating forms, such as English, there is a tendency towards neutralization. Here, gender-unmarked forms such as police officer or chairperson are used to substitute the male-biased policeman or chairman. The second strategy, feminization, implies that feminine forms of human nouns are used more frequently and systematically to make female referents visible.Since the 1970s, gender-fair language has been suggested, if not prescribed, for both scientific and official texts and its positive effects are widely documented. The use of gender-fair language increases the cognitive availability of feminine exemplars. Also in an applied context women responding to job advertisements formulated in gender-fair language feel more motivated to apply for the position. However, "side effects" of gender-fair language have also been observed: For instance, women referred to with a gender-fair title (e.g. chairperson) were evaluated as lower in status than women referred to with a masculine generic (e.g. chairman). Similarily, social initiatives framed with the use of gender-fair language were evaluated less-favourably than initiatives using traditional language. This presentation presents the gender-fair language use in the framework of a social dilemma. In order to protect themselves (or initiatives they stand for) from being ascribed incompetence or a lower status, women may avoid feminine forms and thus contribute to the perpetuation of gender-unfair language, which may be detrimental for women in general. Raising awareness for this social concern, and framing it both in terms of group and individual interest can direct the discussion about gender-fair language into a broader perspective of gender equality.

What do we mean by Female and Male in Neurocognitive Experiments on Language?

For several years now, neuroscientific research has been striving towards fundamental answers to questions about the relevance of sex/gender to language processing in the brain. This research has been effected through the search for sex/gender differences in the neurobiology of language processing. Thus, the main aim has ever been to focus on the differentiation of the sexes/genders, failing to define what sex, what gender, what female or male is in neurolingustic research. In other words, although neuroscientific findings have provided key insights into the brain functioning of women and men, neuropsychology has rarely questioned the complexity of the sex/gender variable beyond biology. What does “female” or “male” mean in human neurocognition; how are operationalisations implemented along the axes of “femaleness” or “maleness”; or what biological evidence is used to register the variables sex and/or gender? In the neurosciences as well as in neurocognitive research, questions such as these have so far not been studied in detail, even if they are highly significant for the scientific process. Instead, the variable of sex/gender has always been thought as solely dichotomous (as either female or male), oppositional and exclusionary of each other. Here, this theoretical contribution sets in. Based on findings in neuroscience and concepts in gender theory, this poster is dedicated to the reflection about what sex/gender is in the neuroscience of language processing. Following this aim, two levels of interest will be addressed. First: How do we define sex/gender at the level of participants? And second: How do we define sex/gender at the level of the experimental task? For the first, a multifactorial registration (work in progress) of the variable sex/gender will be presented, i.e. a tool that records sex/gender in terms of biology and social issues as well as on a spectrum between femaleness and maleness. For the second, the compulsory dichotomy of a gendered task when neurolinguistically approaching our cognitions of sex/gender will be explored.

Multimodal viral communication: a social semiotic analysis of the popular Spanish "Ola ke ase" meme

Multimodality – the interdependence of semiotic resources in text – is an existential element of today’s media. The term multimodality attends systematically to the social interpretation of a wide range of communicational forms used in meaning making. A primary focus of social- semiotic multimodal analysis is on mapping how modal resources are used by people in a given social context. In November 2012 the “Ola ke ase” catchphrase, which is a play on “Hola ¿qué hace?”, appeared for the first time in Spain and immediately has been adopted as a Twitter hashtag and an image macro series. Its viral spread on social networks has been tremendous, being a trending topic in various Spanish-speaking countries. The objective of analysis is how language and image work together in the “Ola ke ase” meme. The interplay between text and image in one of the original memes and some of its variations is quantitatively analysed applying a social-semiotic approach. Results demonstrate how the “Ola ke ase” meme functions through its multimodal character and the non-standard orthography. The spread of uncountable variations of the meme shows the social process that goes on in the meaning making of the semiotic elements.

The Spanish variety of Malaga: From real to mental to virtual speech

Internet has affected our lives and society in manifold ways, and partly, in fundamental ways. Therefore, it is no surprise that one of the affected areas is language and communication itself. Over the last few years, online social networks have become a widespread and continuously expanding medium of communication. Being a new medium of social interaction, online social networks produce their own communication style, which in many cases differs considerably from real speech and is also perceived differently. The focus of analysis of my PhD thesis is how social network users from the city of Malaga create this virtual style by means of phonic features typical of the Andalusian variety of Spanish and how the users’ language attitude has an influence on the use of these phonic features. The data collection was fourfold: 1) a main corpus was compiled from 240 informants’ utterances on Facebook and Tuenti; 2) a corpus constituted of broad transcriptions of recordings with 120 people from Malaga served as a comparison; 3) a survey in which 240 participants rated the use of said phonetic variants on the following axes: “good–bad”, “correct–incorrect” and “beautiful–ugly” was carried out; 4) a survey with 240 participants who estimated with which frequency the analysed features are used in Malaga was conducted. For the analysis, which is quantitative and qualitative, ten variables were chosen. Results show that the studied variants are employed differently in virtual and real speech depending on how people perceive these variants. In addition, the use of the features is constrained by social factors. In general, people from Malaga have a more positive attitude towards non-­‐standard features if they are used in virtual speech than in real speech. Thus, virtual communication is seen as a style serving to create social meaning and to express linguistic identity. These stylistic practices reflect an amalgam of social presuppositions about usage conventions and individual strategies for handling a new medium. In sum, the virtual style is an initiative deliberately taken by the users, to create their, real and virtual, identities, and to define their language attitudes towards the features of their variety of speech.

Retirement as a “language related major life event” and its consequences on the multilingualism of migrants

The present study investigates life stories of established Italian workforce migrants living in the city of Berne, Switzerland, in regard to “language related major life events” (De Bot, 2007). These events are important in terms of changes happening in the linguistic setting during the life span and influence language development. In this sense, during the process of retirement, a new phase of life begins, which, amongst other things, has to be reorganized in relation to social contact and language use. One of my main questions is how the subjects handle the changes happening within and after the process of retirement in respect to the use of different languages and how this “language related major life event” is constructed and described by the migrants. One of these changes happens due to the fact that, after retirement, the social network at the workplace (the primary source of language input) can get (partially) lost and with it, the use of the local language. The fact that migrants living in Berne are confronted with diglossia (Standard German and Swissgerman), that the Canton of Berne is bilingual (German and French) and that the migrants' mother tongue (Italian) is one of the Swiss national languages, makes this question even more interesting. A second question will consider the influence of the fact that most of the subjects in question lived with the idea of return migration, but as shown in a previous study (Alter/Vieillesse/Anziani, NFP 32, 1999), only a third returned back while another third remained in the host country and the final third chose the commuting option. I will first examine these processes, changes and influences by using quantitative questionnaires in order to obtain general information on demographic data, the social situation, and a self-assessment of linguistic skills. Secondly, I will use qualitative interviews to get in-depth information of the subjects’ life stories and language biographies. The results of this project are meant to deliver insight into different aspects that have not been looked at in detail to this point: which factors of the life stories of Italian workforce migrants, who decided to remain in Switzerland after retirement, influence the linguistic changes in general and the ones happening around retirement in particular.

Code-switching: a touchstone of models of bilingual language production

The goal of the present thesis was to investigate the production of code-switched utterances in bilinguals’ speech production. This study investigates the availability of grammatical-category information during bilingual language processing. The specific aim is to examine the processes involved in the production of Persian-English bilingual compound verbs (BCVs). A bilingual compound verb is formed when the nominal constituent of a compound verb is replaced by an item from the other language. In the present cases of BCVs the nominal constituents are replaced by a verb from the other language. The main question addressed is how a lexical element corresponding to a verb node can be placed in a slot that corresponds to a noun lemma. This study also investigates how the production of BCVs might be captured within a model of BCVs and how such a model may be integrated within incremental network models of speech production. In the present study, both naturalistic and experimental data were used to investigate the processes involved in the production of BCVs. In the first part of the present study, I collected 2298 minutes of a popular Iranian TV program and found 962 code-switched utterances. In 83 (8%) of the switched cases, insertions occurred within the Persian compound verb structure, hence, resulting in BCVs. As to the second part of my work, a picture-word interference experiment was conducted. This study addressed whether in the case of the production of Persian-English BCVs, English verbs compete with the corresponding Persian compound verbs as a whole, or whether English verbs compete with the nominal constituents of Persian compound verbs only. Persian-English bilinguals named pictures depicting actions in 4 conditions in Persian (L1). In condition 1, participants named pictures of action using the whole Persian compound verb in the context of its English equivalent distractor verb. In condition 2, only the nominal constituent was produced in the presence of the light verb of the target Persian compound verb and in the context of a semantically closely related English distractor verb. In condition 3, the whole Persian compound verb was produced in the context of a semantically unrelated English distractor verb. In condition 4, only the nominal constituent was produced in the presence of the light verb of the target Persian compound verb and in the context of a semantically unrelated English distractor verb. The main effect of linguistic unit was significant by participants and items. Naming latencies were longer in the nominal linguistic unit compared to the compound verb (CV) linguistic unit. That is, participants were slower to produce the nominal constituent of compound verbs in the context of a semantically closely related English distractor verb compared to producing the whole compound verbs in the context of a semantically closely related English distractor verb. The three-way interaction between version of the experiment (CV and nominal versions), linguistic unit (nominal and CV linguistic units), and relation (semantically related and unrelated distractor words) was significant by participants. In both versions, naming latencies were longer in the semantically related nominal linguistic unit compared to the response latencies in the semantically related CV linguistic unit. In both versions, naming latencies were longer in the semantically related nominal linguistic unit compared to response latencies in the semantically unrelated nominal linguistic unit. Both the analysis of the naturalistic data and the results of the experiment revealed that in the case of the production of the nominal constituent of BCVs, a verb from the other language may compete with a noun from the base language, suggesting that grammatical category does not necessarily provide a constraint on lexical access during the production of the nominal constituent of BCVs. There was a minimal context in condition 2 (the nominal linguistic unit) in which the nominal constituent was produced in the presence of its corresponding light verb. The results suggest that generating words within a context may not guarantee that the effect of grammatical class becomes available. A model is proposed in order to characterize the processes involved in the production of BCVs. Implications for models of bilingual language production are discussed.