IULC Indiana University Linguistics Club

Acoustic cues for nasal category variability in Buenos Aires Spanish

Time: 12:15pm - 01:00pm 

Place: Ballantine 004

Silvina Bongionanni

Spanish has three nasal phonemes that contrast by place of articulation: the bilabial nasal, the alveolar nasal, and the palatal nasal. These phonemes contrast only in syllable-initial position, as in ca[m]a ‘bed’, ca[n]a ‘white hair’ and ca[ɲ]a ‘sugar cane’. In the syllable coda, however, they undergo neutralization. Several authors (Colantoni & Kochetov, 2011; Malmberg, 1950; Quilis, 1993; Shosted & Hualde, 2010; Tiscornia, 1930) have reported a tendency in Buenos Aires Spanish to merge the palatal nasal /ɲ/ and the sequence alveolar nasal plus palatal glide, /n+j/, such that uranio ‘uranium’ and huraño ‘unsociable’ are neutralized. However, previous research has yet to provide an empirical analysis of this phenomenon. This study represents a first step to resolving the claims of merger of the palatal nasal, /ɲ/, and the sequence alveolar nasal plus palatal glide, /n+j/, in Buenos Aires Spanish. This is a preliminary investigation in that only four phonetic cues are studied: duration of the nasal segment, duration of the following segment, duration of the syllable, and formant trajectories.

In category: Phonetics and phonology

27th Annual Arabic Linguistics Symposium

Time: 07:30am - 07:30pm 

Place: IMU Georgian Room

Phonology I
Phonology II
Keynote Address: Explorations at the syntax-phonology interface in Arabic
Syntax I
Semantics
Keynote Address: Arabic verbal and nominal plurals and the syntax-morphology interface

For more information see http://www.indiana.edu/~csme/als2013.shtml

In category: Unclassified

La negación en la frontera domínico-haitiana: Variantes y usos (socio)lingüísticos

Time: 11:00am - 12:00pm 

Place: Ballantine Hall 235

La negación en la frontera domínico-haitiana: Variantes y usos (socio)lingüísticos [Negation on the Dominican-Haitian border: Variants and (socio)linguistic uses]

Luis Ortiz López (University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus)

In category: Sociolinguistics and pragmatics

Linguistic variation in Caribbean Spanish

Time: 03:00pm - 04:00pm 

Place: Ballantine Hall 006

Luis Ortiz López (University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus)

Professor Luis Ortiz will showcase instances of linguistic variation that characterize Spanish spoken in the Caribbean region. Variation such as deletion and aspiration of /s/, lateralization of /r/, position of subjects in interrogatives, double negation, markers of plurality, and much more. This is a hands-on workshop for undergraduate students in Hispanic linguistics.

In category: Sociolinguistics and pragmatics

27th Annual Arabic Linguistics Symposium

Time: 08:30am - 07:00pm 

Place: IMU Georgian Room

Syntax II
Discourse/Corpus Analysis
Keynote Address: Modeling sociopragmatic language use in social media in Arabic and English: A comparative computational perspective
Sociolinguistics and Variation
Keynote Address: The Maghreb-Mashreq language ideology and the politics of identity in a globalized Arab world
Historical Linguistics

For more information see http://www.indiana.edu/~csme/als2013.shtml

In category: Unclassified

Formulaic Expressions Project

Time: 01:30pm - 03:00pm 

Place: Psychology 128 (conference room)

C. Sophia Rammell

Previous studies have suggested that formulaic expressions are stored as single, unanalyzed units, instead of as individual elements like literal sentences (e.g., VanLancker, Canter, Terbeek, 1981). To test this theory, we presented 140 sentences in random order to naïve listeners. Half of the sentences are idioms, and the other half are novel sentences matched for length and phonetic inventory. The first part of the experiment was a transcription task. All sentences in the first part were degraded using 8-channel Cochlear Implant simulated speech. In the second part of the experiment, subjects heard all 140 sentences, again in random order, in the clear. This time, subjects responded with how often they said the sentence on a 3-point scale. Pilot data from 22 undergraduates were analyzed. Pilot data suggest that subjects correctly identify formulaic expressions more often than novel expressions under degradation. Also, subjects identify expressions they report to use more often with higher accuracy than those they report to use less often. Future studies, including new ways of measuring familiarity and using the task with non-native speakers of English, will be discussed.

In category: Morphosyntax and semantics

The effect of instruction on pragmatic routines in academic discussion

Time: 02:30pm - 04:00pm 

Place: Ballantine Hall 205

Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Sabrina Mossman

This study investigates the effect of instruction on the acquisition of pragmatic routines used in academic discussion, specifically expressions of agreement, disagreement, and clarification. Thirty-seven learners, including an instructed group of 26 students and a control group of 11 students, participated in the study. Five intact classes received instruction across four 50-minute lessons. Input consisted of authentic language samples extracted from the MICASE corpus; instruction included noticing and production activities. Evaluation in the form of a pretest/posttest was administered through a computer-delivered oral-production test, which allowed for free production in a researcher-controlled context. The task included 30 items, including 10 agreement, 10 disagreement, and 10 clarification scenarios. Two-tailed paired-sample t-tests revealed that production of both speech acts and targeted expressions increased significantly in the experimental condition, whereas the control group did not show significant change. The results show that instruction has a significant positive effect on the use of expressions as measured by oral production in conversation simulations. We attribute this positive outcome to two components, instruction and means of evaluation.

In category: Second language acquisition

The Effect of Video Materials on Motivation and Performance of Advanced EFL Learners

Time: 03:00pm - 04:00pm 

Place: Wright Education Building - Balcony

Ahmed Lachheb

Bruce and Hogan (1998) argue that technologies are embedded in everyday discourse and activity which make them slip into the background of our lives. Regarding the presence of information technology in English language classrooms, remarkable changes occur in the expectations about the abilities students have to acquire in order to be successful EL users(Bruce&Hogan,1998).The integration of information technology into EFL classrooms has been always under investigation from educational technologists and language learning theorists' perspectives(Kuang-wu,2000).The question of motivational effect and the quest to truly discover the effect of videos as instructional materials seem to differ from one context to another, and thus done through many ways. This study aims to investigate the effect of video instruction on motivation and academic performance of advanced EFL learners, using the ARCS Model developed by Keller, and an unpaired T-test Analysis of pre-and post- tests. The experiment was done on a group of 36 Tunisian students majoring in English studies at a Tunisian university. 

Part of the poster session of the Instructional Systems Technology Conference 2013

For details see: http://portal.education.indiana.edu/istconference/ConferenceSchedule2013.aspx

In category: Second language acquisition

Linguistics Panel I: Codeswitching and Bilingualism

Time: 03:30pm - 04:10pm 

Place: Swain East 105

The Phonology of Codeswitching: Slips of the Tongue and Grammar Interaction (Michael Dow, Indiana University)

Nou oblije pale mo-to: Negotiating boundaries between closely related varieties (Jason Siegel, Indiana University)

(Part of the French and Italian Graduate Student Organization Conference)

In category: Sociolinguistics and pragmatics

Languages in contact - Spanish and Haitian Creole: Acquisition of interface phenomena among bilinguals

Time: 04:00pm - 05:30pm 

Place: Ballantine Hall 103

Luis Ortiz López (University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus)

(Talk will be delivered in Spanish. Questions will be entertained in English or Spanish)

In category: Sociolinguistics and pragmatics

27th Annual Arabic Linguistics Symposium

Time: 08:30am - 02:15pm 

Place: IMU Georgian Room

Acquisition
Experimental and Interlanguage Studies
Special Session: Arabic in Computer-Mediated Communication

For more information see http://www.indiana.edu/~csme/als2013.shtml

In category: Unclassified

Linguistics Panel II

Time: 02:45pm - 03:45pm 

Place: Swain East 105

Negotiating 'gender' in French (Kelly Biers, Indiana University)

Negotiating animacy: A contrastive study of animation in the translations of French and English verb phrases (Amber Panwitz, Indiana University)

Constrained Negotiations: The Liquid Consonants in French and Picard (Ryan Hendrickson, Indiana University)

(Part of the French and Italian Graduate Student Organization Conference)

In category: Unclassified

What did you say? Locating Word Boundaries in French as a Second/Foreign Language

Time: 04:00pm - 05:15pm 

Place: Swain East 105

Annie Tremblay (University of Kansas)

Recognizing words in continuous speech, a seemingly effortless task in the native language (L1), becomes strikingly difficult in a second/foreign language (L2), because different information signals the beginning and end of words in the L1 and in the L2. What type of linguistic cues do adult L2 learners use to recognize words in continuous speech? Does their use of these cues change as their proficiency in the L2 increases? Can high-proficiency L2 learners recognize words as efficiently as native speakers do? I will present two eye-tracking listening studies that examine how adult native speakers of English at different proficiencies in French use linguistic cues to locate word boundaries in French. I will focus specifically on liaison consonants as a distributional cue to word-initial boundaries and on pitch prominence as a prosodic cue to word-final boundaries in French. The results show an important asymmetry in L2 learners’ ability to use these two types of linguistic cues for locating word boundaries in French speech. I will discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of both the nature of the linguistic information that the adult brain can learn to use and the pedagogical interventions needed in French classrooms.

Keynote address of the French and Italian Graduate Student Organization Conference

In category: Second language acquisition