Neutralization of English Consonants

This paper gives a brief account of English consonant cluster's structure and phonetic features from the perspective of the definition and cause of neutralization of English consonants as well as their distinctive features and oppositions.It comes up with the final conclusion that neutralization exists in only thirteen English consonant clusters,among a large number of consonant clusters.

On Teaching Consonants for Freshmen of English Majors

When study English phonetics,Chinese learners will meet many difficulties,which need teachers to deal with.This paper is to discuss about how to teach consonants.

The Negative Transfer from Xinyang Dialect on English Consonant Pronunciation

In the paper, the author presents the negative transfer influence of Xinyang dialect on learners' English consonant pronunciation by comparing their differences in the segmental level, and proposes some suggestions for English pronunciation teaching based on the theories of Contrastive Analysis, the Input Hypothesis.

A Comparative Analysis of Consonants in Chinese and Arabic Phonetics

Arabic and Chinese are one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world.The mark of Arabic is Pinyin characters plus pinyin symbols.On the other hand,the mark of Chinese is ideographic square shaped characters;each pronunciation of a Chinese character is generally a syllable.There are great differences between Arabic and Chinese consonants,so this paper mainly discusses the similarities and differences between the two languages and their respective characteristics through the comparative analysis of Chinese and Arabic consonants.

Acquisition of pronunciation of consonant clusters by Arabic speakers of English as a second language

The study is based on an observation of the pronunciation of a group of undergraduate students of English as a Second Language （ESL） whose mother tongue is Arabic and who have no formal training in the spoken variety of English other than that received in the classroom. The study of acquisition of pronunciation of consonant clusters at morphological, particularly at the morphophonological levels indicates that the learners are sensitive to the syllabic structure viz., cccv type and cccvcc type, at the word-initial, medial and final positions. Samples of words with different consonant clusters were tested with a homogeneous group of students. Words of identical morphological categories were used as the data to test the students＇ level of perception. These were analyzed using Speech Analyzer Version 2.5. The data includes consonant clusters like plosive-fricative, plosive-plosive, fricative-fricative and plosive-fricative-trill/liquid combinations. The results varied according to the perceptual and articulatory abilities of the learners. It was observed that the plosive perception and acquisition of three-consonant clusters of plosive-plosive word initially, plosive-plosive combinations word finally and plosive-fricative type, posed more difficulty for the learners. The tendency to drop one of the consonants of the cluster was more pronounced with syllables ending in plural morphemes and those ending in -mp, -pt, -kt, -nt, -bt, etc. Difficulty was also noticed with the initial plosive＋/r/, plosive＋/1/combinations, especially in word initial positions. Across the syllable boundaries, these clusters are almost inaudible with some speakers. The difficulty in the articulation of these consonant clusters can be accounted for the mother tongue influence, as in the case of many other features. The results of the analysis have a pedagogical implication in the use of such words with consonant clusters, to teach reading skills to the students of undergraduate level in the present setting and promote self-learning through the use of speech tools.

Vietnamese final stop consonants/p, t, k/described in terms of formant transition slopes

It is well known that both bursts and formant transitions serve as separate cues to the place of articulation of initial stop consonants. In Vietnamese, final voiceless stop consonants/p, t, k/are unreleased （i.e., produced without an audible burst）. This provides an opportunity to study these final stop consonants and to compare their characteristics with those of the corresponding initial stop consonants. As unreleased final consonants have not been previously studied, this paper analyses the Vowel-Consonant （VC） and Consonant-Vowel-Consonant （CVC） productions in terms of the transition duration, the starting formant transition values and the slopes of the VC transitions. Measurements have shown that in the same preceding vowel contexts, the 3 final stop consonants/p, t, k/are always clearly differentiated by at least one of the 3 slopes of Fl, F2 or F3. In perception tests, synthesized consonant C in the context/a/-C are recognized as/p/, or/t/, or/k/when the slopes of the/a/-C transition ofF2 and F3 are varied. It means that slopes of the VC transition are an important parameter that allows Vietnamese distinguishing the 3 final voiceless stop consonant/p, t, k/in Vietnamese language. These final stop consonants can also be differentiated in the locus equation space. The study also pointes out that the effects of the final consonants on either long vowels or short vowels. The results explain why Vietnamese can not pronounce the short vowels in isolation.

Interlanguage Phonological System of L1 Cantonese Learners of English

This paper aims to study the unique interlanguage phonological system of the L1 Cantonese learners of English in GuangdongProvince, including the roles of the differences between native language and target language, language transfer and other constraints dur-ing the interlanguage formation process. An experiment has been designed to test the pronunciation of targeted consonants of the voca-tional college students, who are English majors with Cantonese as native language but are also exposed to Mandarin for a long time. Re-sults show that the sounds that do not exist in native language are easily pronounced incorrectly. The phonological system the subjectsdevelop to substitute the targeted consonants is quite different from that of the L1 Cantonese learners from Hong Kong and is also variedfrom that of the L1 Mandarin learners from other province of China's Mainland. It confirms that the L1 Cantonese learners of English inGuangdong Province do have a unique phonological system in their interlanguage and that special attention should be paid by teachersduring the teaching of English pronunciation.

歌唱中的汉、意语音对比研究

汉语、意大利语的语音会直接影响两种语言在歌唱发声中的准确与规范 ,同时还会对歌唱技术的正确发挥和歌唱风格的形成产生潜在的影响。在语音理论指导下 ,首先对汉、意语音的音位系统和语音节奏因素作全面的对比分析 ,不仅可防止和纠正歌者在用意大利语歌唱时由于母语的习惯性干扰引起的语音错误和发声状态的失衡 ,同时会更进一步认识到母语在歌唱发声上的特点 ,把握汉语美声唱法吐字、行腔的准确性 ,使之既符合本民族的审美习性 。

English is Easy to Learn but Difficult to Master

Nowadays English is more and more popular. There are a lot of books teaching people how to learn English. But it should be noted that although English is easy to learn,it is difficult to master. This paper analyzes the reason why it is hard to master from three aspects:speech sounds,vocabulary,grammar.In this paper a large number of examples are given to illustrate the difficulties to master English.

The Differences of Pronunciation between American English and British English

This paper begins with a brief introduction to the two branches of the English language.Analyze the differences pronunciation between American English and British English,then demonstrates the reason why cause the different.Firstly,about four hundred years ago,people from Britain,German,France and many other parts of the world came into the U.S.They not only brought their rich cultures but also their languages too.Secondly,because of its territory expansion and economic development,American English become stronger.And then in different vowels and consonants analyze the differences of pronunciation between American English and British English,and set some examples.

Consonance of Complex Tones with Harmonics of Different Intensity

The starting point of this study is the theory of tonal consonance by Plomp and Levelt. The major reference point is the theory of Critical Band and its use for evaluating consonance of simple tones. On the basis of such empirical criterion, our aim consists in providing a method of estimating the value of consonance of complex tones, by taking account not only of the number of harmonics, but also of the intensity of the partials which contribute to forming the tone. By introducing a specific algorithm, the level of consonance of a chord of complex tones is expressed in terms both of frequency differences and sound intensity of the partials. The results give rise to a series of considerations and applications, ranging from displaying the order of consonance of all intervals within the octave up to evaluating the hierarchy of chords in the frame of a musical scale.

云南瑞丽汉语方言音系概况

瑞丽市位于西南边陲,三面与缅甸接壤,以傣族为主,方言兼具缅傣特点。本文以瑞丽市区方言为调查对象,描写瑞丽汉语方言的声韵调系统及其配合规律,同时对瑞丽汉语方言的语音特点和音变现象进行分析和解释。

音的象征性及其功能

In English, many sounds and sound groups have symbolism. To study the sounds’ functions will improve our ability of reading and appreciating English poems.

Experimental Phonetics Contrastive Study on [d?][t?][?]——Spoken by American Native Speakers and Yantai English Learners

The negative transfer of native language influences the English acquisition process of the college students from Yantai in a great degree,both in the segmental and suprasegmental level,while the consonants in the segmental level are influenced most.The paper makes an experimental phonetic contrastive study on [d?],[t?],[?] in the aspect of frication between native English speakers from America and English learners from Yantai basing on processing a large number of English word corpora by using PRAAT.It is found that the degree of frication of [d?],[t?],[?] in American English is strong,while Yantai weak.

音乐中“协和”理论研究综述

本文主要概述了20世纪前音乐理论研究中有关“协和”的术语及内涵研究的历史,归纳和总结了国内外学者在“协和”理论研究中取得的成果。将对音乐“协和”的研究分为三种:第一种从生理层面进行状态表述;第二种从声音的物理属性来界定协和程度;第三种从心理感受层面描述协和体验。最后指出关于协和的研究的中立问题。

A Real-Time Oral Cavity Gesture Based Words Synthesizer Using Sensors

The present system experimentally demonstrates a synthesis of syllables and words from tongue manoeuvers in multiple languages,captured by four oral sensors only.For an experimental demonstration of the system used in the oral cavity,a prototype tooth model was used.Based on the principle developed in a previous publication by the author(s),the proposed system has been implemented using the oral cavity(tongue,teeth,and lips)features alone,without the glottis and the larynx.The positions of the sensors in the proposed system were optimized based on articulatory(oral cavity)gestures estimated by simulating the mechanism of human speech.The system has been tested for all English alphabets and several words with sensor-based input along with an experimental demonstration of the developed algorithm,with limit switches,potentiometer,and flex sensors emulating the tongue in an artificial oral cavity.The system produces the sounds of vowels,consonants,and words in English,along with the pronunciation of meanings of their translations in four major Indian languages,all from oral cavity mapping.The experimental setup also caters to gender mapping of voice.The sound produced from the hardware has been validated by a perceptual test to verify the gender and word of the speech sample by listeners,with∼98%and∼95%accuracy,respectively.Such a model may be useful to interpret speech for those who are speech-disabled because of accidents,neuron disorder,spinal cord injury,or larynx disorder.

The Production of the Sequence -UI- by Francophone Learners of English

This paper considers the renderings of the sequence -UI- by Cameroonian, Gabonese, and native French users learning English with the view to finding out whether French users speaking different L 1s pronounce this sequence in different or similar ways. The data were recordings of items containing -UI- and the contrastive method of analysis was used. It was found that this sequence is rendered in two ways by the learners. Besides, different L2 French-speaking learners tend to pronounce it in the same ways and so do L2 and L1 French-speaking learners. It can therefore be hypothesised that Francophone speakers tend to draw more from French when they speak English than from their respective L 1s.

An Overview of Hong Kong English

The discussion of HKE’s(Hong Kong English)origin,linguistic features,language planning policies and status aims to present a general overview of HKE.Through literature reviewing,it is found that HKE has simpler vowel system and smaller num ber of vowel contrasts,all fricatives are voiceless for most HKE speakers,HKE speaker like to simplify the final consonant clusters or omit the final consonant,the subject of a relative clause is usually missing in the‘zero’-subject relatives,code-mixing,codeswitching and the direct translation(from Cantonese into English or the directive translation of the sound of load-words)are popu lar in HKE speakers’speech,and HKE enjoys the status of second language in Hong Kong,etc.

Fast global kernel fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm for consonant/vowel segmentation of speech signal

We propose a novel clustering algorithm using fast global kernel fuzzy c-means-F(FGKFCM-F), where F refers to kernelized feature space. This algorithm proceeds in an incremental way to derive the near-optimal solution by solving all intermediate problems using kernel-based fuzzy c-means-F(KFCM-F) as a local search procedure. Due to the incremental nature and the nonlinear properties inherited from KFCM-F, this algorithm overcomes the two shortcomings of fuzzy c-means(FCM): sen- sitivity to initialization and inability to use nonlinear separable data. An accelerating scheme is developed to reduce the compu-tational complexity without significantly affecting the solution quality. Experiments are carried out to test the proposed algorithm on a nonlinear artificial dataset and a real-world dataset of speech signals for consonant/vowel segmentation. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in improving clustering performance on both types of datasets.

Acoustic characteristics of stop consonants in fluent reading Chinese Putonghua speech of adult stutterers

This study investigated whether adults who stutter and normal adult speakers differ in the production of stop consonants in fluent reading Chinese Putonghua speech.Voice onset time（VOT） was measured and the spectral moments at the stop burst were calculated for the stutterers（both before and after the speech therapy） and also for the nonstutterers. The statistical results showed that there were no significant differences in VOT between the nonstutterers and stutterers either prior to or after therapy,although the mean VOT of the stutterers was slightly greater than that of the nonstutterers.The results also indicated that both the obstruction place and the subsequent syllabic final exhibited an influence to a greater extent on VOT for the stutterers.In the spectral domain,the spectral mean of the stuttering participants before therapy was significantly different from that of the normal participants, whereas the group difference became insignificant after the therapy session.The smaller spectral mean for the stutterers might be interpreted as a more posterior occlusion in the oral cavity when producing alveolars and velars.In addition,productions of the stutterers scattered with a wider range in the space of spectral moments.Furthermore,the smaller main effect of syllabic finals on the mean spectral frequency of the burst suggested that the stutterers exhibited weaker anticipatory coarticulation than the nonstutterers.