Language and Speech

Spectral analysis of American English, Swedish and Polish fricatives shows that these sounds may be classified according to the relations between their formant frequencies and formant levels. Three binary distinctive features at the acoustic-phonetic (not necessarily phonemic) level are postulated: spread/compressed formants (F4–F2); higher/lower formants (F2+F3+F4); higher formant/lower formant emphasis (L4–L2 or L3–L2). A possibility of further classification according to the general shape of the spectral envelope is briefly reviewed.

Eight types of recorded phonetic stimuli were presented to Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking students of Finnish universities. Four of these stimulus types consisted of wholly artificial, partly controlled and partly randomized sequences of Finland-Swedish speech sounds; two were more similar to Finnish and two to Swedish, having been obtained by scrambling either the vowels or the consonants of samples of Finnish and Swedish texts, respectively. It was found that (1) the ratings of Finnish and Finland-Swedish listeners were relatively consistent when the stimuli differed radically from Finnish and Finland-Swedish, but tended to vary more when stimuli were more similar to these two natural languages; and that (2) the consonant/vowel ratio and syllabic structure had a greater influence on aesthetic preference than the front vowel/back vowel ratio.

Synthetic stimuli were employed to investigate duration as a cue factor in the discrimination of single versus geminate consonants in Arabic. Contrasts in three phonetic classes were explored, stops, nasals, and spirants. Clear identification boundaries were found, though not uniformly clear, giving an indication of the degree of exclusivity of duration as the determining cue factor. If this interpretation is correct, then it is surprising that duration appears to be a more powerful cue in the case of nasals than stops. A physiological basis for this development is suggested. The evidence indicates that the structural status of gemination influences decisively the sharpness of discrimination.

Cloze procedure was used to investigate the nature and extent of the differences in verbal behaviour of working and middle class boys. Words were deleted in sentences taken from ‘formal’ and ‘informal’, middle and working class letters and from middle and working class oral utterances. The results showed that the middle class boys used a wider range of words and preferred different words in this situation. The working class boys showed more conformity in their responses than the middle class boys, especially for the written materials. \ Fruitful lines for further research on ‘restricted’ and ‘elaborated’ codes are discussed.

The study tested the hypothesis that there is a positive relation between increasing vocal and written context and the predictability of words deleted from texts of spontaneous speech. 5 steps of increasing context were distributed among 8 treatment groups. The first 4 steps ranged from deleted typed context alone to deleted typed context plus typed and recorded versions of additional undeleted context. The fifth step was a recorded version (appropriately deleted) of the deleted typed context that was added, in 4 of the treatment groups, to each of the first four steps. Analysis of variance yielded an F of 6.347 for the effects of the first 4 steps, and an F of 30.864 for the effect of the maximum, or deleted recorded context. The results suggest that vocal context does facilitate predictability when immediately pertinent to the predictive context or in combination with additional lexical context.