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Congratulations to Meixian (Vicky) Li, whose abstract with Profs. Yao and Chang was accepted to the 19th International Conference on the Processing of East Asian Languages (ICPEAL 2025), to be held this coming December in Guangzhou! The title of their poster is “Cross-linguistic social perception of creaky voice by Mandarin-English bilinguals”.
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The PAMLab has moved: we’re now based in the Department of Linguistics and Translation at City University of Hong Kong!
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This spring, Prof. Chang has been busy talking about work in the lab!
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Congratulations to Jupitara Ray, whose abstract with Prof. Chang was accepted to the 188th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, to be held jointly with the 25th International Congress on Acoustics in May in New Orleans!
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Kudos to our own Jupitara Ray, whose abstract with Prof. Chang was accepted to the 15th International Symposium on Bilingualism!
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Congratulations to Jupitara Ray on receiving a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement (DDRI) Grant! Her dissertation project, advised by Prof. Chang, is entitled “Phonetic Accommodation and Drift: A Study of Hindi-English and Telugu-English Early Sequential Bilinguals”. Well-done, Jupitara!
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A paper entitled “Coarticulation and coordination in phonological development: Insights from children’s and adults’ production of complex–simplex stop contrasts in Gã” (Kpogo & Chang, 2025) has been published in the Journal of Phonetics.
Abstract: Achieving adult-like coarticulation, which relies on precise gestural coordination, is known to be a challenging aspect of phonological development. Unique coordination challenges are posed by doubly articulated stops, typologically uncommon complex consonants that show crosslinguistic variation in their acoustic contrast with simplex (singly articulated) consonants. We examined the acoustics and development of complex–simplex stop contrasts between labio-velars (/k͡p/, /ɡ͡b/) and bilabials (/p/, /b/) in Gã (Niger-Congo, Kwa), with special attention to coarticulation with adjacent sonorants. We found that Gã adults mostly produced differences in voice onset time and closure duration to implement these contrasts, and Gã five-year-olds also produced differences in these dimensions. Crucially, however, five-year-olds also produced significant differences in onset formants, which adults did not. These findings provide evidence of age-graded variation in the implementation of complex–simplex stop contrasts in Gã, suggesting that over the course of development there may be a shift away from production of carryover coarticulatory differences toward greater reliance on durational differences. We argue that children’s initial reliance on carryover coarticulation capitalizes on a tendency toward greater consonant–vowel coarticulation as compared to adults, discussing implications for our understanding of how coarticulation develops.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/qcbrg/.
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Kudos to our own Jupitara Ray on successfully defending her dissertation prospectus! Her project is entitled “Phonetic accommodation and drift: A study of Hindi-English and Telugu-English early sequential bilinguals”.
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A chapter entitled “Phonetic and phonological L1 attrition and drift in bilingual speech” (de Leeuw & Chang, 2024) has been published by Cambridge University Press in The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology, edited by Mark Amengual.
Abstract: This chapter presents an overview of what is currently known about phonetic and phonological first language (L1) attrition and drift in bilingual speech and introduces a new theory of bilingual speech, Attrition & Drift in Access, Production, and Perception Theory (ADAPPT). Attrition and drift are defined and differentiated along several dimensions, including duration of change, source in second language (L2) experience, consciousness, agency, and scope. We address why findings of attrition and drift are important for our overall understanding of bilingual speech and draw links between ADAPPT and well-known theories of L2 speech, such as the revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r), the Perceptual Assimilation Model-L2 (PAM-L2), and the Second Language Linguistic Perception model (L2LP). The significance of findings revealing attrition and drift is discussed in relation to different linguistic subfields. The chapter raises the question of how attrition and drift potentially interact to influence speech production and perception in the bilingual’s L1 over the life span; additional directions for future research are pointed out as well.
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This semester, Prof. Chang has been busy talking about recent work in the lab!
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A paper entitled “Expressing diminutive meaning in heritage Twi: The role of complexity and language-specific preferences” (Kpogo, Kohut, & Chang, 2024) has been published by Language Science Press in the edited volume Formal Approaches to Complexity in Heritage Language Grammars.
Abstract: Twi (Akan) and English can both express diminutive meaning using a morphological strategy (diminutive suffix) or a syntactic strategy (adjectival construction), but they differ with respect to native-speaker preferences -- morphological in Twi, syntactic in English. Each strategy in Twi, moreover, is associated with different types of complexity (morphological, phonological, lexical, discourse-pragmatic, and/or inhibitory). In this study, we examined whether English-dominant, second-generation (G2) speakers of Twi in the US would express diminutive meaning in Twi differently from first-generation (G1) speakers. Results from elicited production suggest that G2 does indeed differ from G1 in this respect: whereas G1 relies on the morphological strategy, G2 relies on the syntactic strategy, producing adjectives post-nominally in accordance with Twi syntax. These results are discussed in light of variation in G2 speakers' morphological awareness and verbal fluency in Twi. Overall, our findings suggest that both the incremental complexity of linguistic options within a bilingual language repertoire and cross-linguistic influence at the level of preferences play a role in explaining G2's diminutive production.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all data and materials are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/wgqcm/.
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Prof. Chang is a coauthor on a paper with Prof. Yao Yao, PolyU PhD student Meixian (Vicky) Li, and Shiyue Li at this week’s 12th International Conference on Speech Prosody (Speech Prosody 2024) in Leiden. Their paper, entitled “Perceiving the social meanings of creaky voice in Mandarin Chinese”, will be presented in the “Individual and social variation” oral thematic session on Thursday morning (July 4).
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This week, Prof. Chang, along with Prof. Yao Yao and PolyU PhD student Meixian (Vicky) Li, will be attending the 19th Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon 19) in Seoul! They will be presenting a poster, entitled “Gender effects in the social perception of creaky voice in Mandarin Chinese”, in the afternoon poster session on Day 3 (Saturday).
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This week, Prof. Chang will be giving a talk at Osmania University’s Department of Linguistics. The title of his talk is “Aspects of bilingual speech and bilingual development”.
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Next week, Prof. Chang will be giving talks at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies and at City University of Hong Kong’s Department of Linguistics and Translation. The titles of his talks are “Bilingual speech control under intoxication” and “Examining language knowledge through the multilingual repertoire”.
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Welcome to the four new students who will be joining the lab this summer:
And a warm welcome back to Jupitara, Felix, and Sara!
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Felix Kpogo was busy this month giving presentations at the 55th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 55) in Montreal and at the 186th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Ottawa (joint with Acoustics Week in Canada). His ACAL talk was entitled “Locality effects in [æ] vowel production in Twi”, and his ASA poster was entitled “Harmony in transition: Exploring the perception-production relationship in sound change”.
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Congratulations to Felix Kpogo on the successful defense of his PhD dissertation, “Investigating sound change in Twi vowel harmony: A sociophonetic study of age, gender, and locality effects”!
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Prof. Chang is one of the guest scientists speaking at this weekend’s AAPI Month celebration at Boston’s Museum of Science!
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Last week, Prof. Chang gave talks at The MARCS Institute and at Macquarie University’s Center for Language Sciences. The titles of his talks were “Understanding bilingual speech control: Insights from intoxication” and “Examining language knowledge through the multilingual repertoire”.
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Congratulations to PhD students Jackson Kellogg, Felix Kpogo, and Jupitara Ray on their recent awards and fellowships!
Kudos to all!
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We’re thrilled to announce that our own Felix Kpogo has accepted a two-year Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brown University, where he will be based in the Linguistics Program. Congratulations, Felix! We’re so proud!
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This week, Prof. Chang will be giving a talk in Lund University’s Centre for Languages and Literature seminar series on March 15. The title of his talk is “Knowledge of language(s) in multilingual contexts”.
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A paper entitled “An individual-differences perspective on variation in heritage Mandarin speakers” (Chang & Yao, 2024) has been published by Cambridge University Press in the book The Phonetics and Phonology of Heritage Languages (edited by Rajiv Rao).
Abstract: This chapter takes an individual-differences perspective on the dual sound systems of American heritage speakers (HSs) of Mandarin Chinese. Based on detailed sociodemographic data and production data on segmentals and suprasegmentals, we build holistic demographic and phonetic profiles for HSs, as well as native speakers and late learners, to explore how different aspects of their two languages (Mandarin, English) may develop in relation to each other and how individual variation in production may be related to socio-demographic factors. Using multiple factor analysis (MFA), we describe the range of these profiles, identify clusters of variation defined by different sociodemographic factors, and argue that some factors (e.g., age of arrival, language(s) spoken at home) have more predictive power for phonetic profiles than others. Overall, our results suggest a significant, if limited, link between socio-demographic factors and production, but only in Mandarin. We conclude by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of group-based and individual-centered approaches.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials, data, visualizations, and code are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/u4w2g/.
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Congratulations to sophomore Linguistics minor Madelyn (Maddie) Jin, who was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant to work on linguistics research in Spring 2024! Below is a brief description of the project she will be working on:
In Spring 2024, Maddie will conduct an acoustic study of Asian Americans' interview speech in English to examine aspects of their speech rhythm and the degree to which there are differences with respect to English speakers of other ethnoracial backgrounds.
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Welcome to the seven new students who will be joining the lab this spring:
And a warm welcome back to Jason and Sara!
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Congratulations to Prof. Chang on being elected a Full Member of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) by the ASA Executive Council!
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Congratulations to PhD student Jackson Kellogg, who received the 1st-Prize Student Abstract Award for the upcoming 2024 Linguistic Society of America (LSA) Annual Meeting! The title of his abstract is “A focus-controlled acoustic analysis of phrase- and word-level prosody in Amharic”.
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Next week, Prof. Chang will be giving a talk in the University of Florida’s Language and Brain series on December 1. The title of his talk (on joint work with Dr. Esther de Leeuw, University of Lausanne) is “Introducing ADAPPT: A theoretical framework for research on bilingual speech”.
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Felix Kpogo will be giving a talk in Harvard’s Language & Cognition (LangCog) series next week (November 28)!
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A paper entitled “Regressive cross-linguistic influence in multilingual speech rhythm: The role of language similarity” (Brown-Bousfield & Chang, 2023) has been published by John Benjamins Publishing in the edited volume L3 Development After the Initial State.
Abstract: While previous work on multilingual speech rhythm has found evidence of progressive cross-linguistic influence of a first or second language (L1, L2) on a third language (L3), regressive cross-linguistic influence (rCLI) in rhythm remains understudied. In the current study, we tested the roles of order of acquisition and of language similarity in shaping rCLI from syllable-timed Spanish as L3 to stress-timed English and German as L1/L2. In a picture narration task, adult sequential trilinguals (L1 English-L2 German-L3 Spanish, L1 German-L2 English-L3 Spanish) and sequential bilingual controls (L1 English-L2 German, L1 German-L2 English) produced semi-spontaneous speech in each of their languages, which was analyzed in terms of the rhythm metric VarcoV. Results showed evidence of rCLI in English (the typologically more similar language to Spanish) but no evidence of rCLI in German; however, rCLI in English was found only when English was the L1. On the basis of these findings, we propose the Similarity Convergence Hypothesis (SCH), which claims that previously acquired languages that are more similar to a later-acquired language are relatively more vulnerable to rCLI from this language.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all data and materials are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/pvmea/.
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Kudos to PhD student Felix Kpogo on receiving two fellowships for 2023-24! Great job, Felix!
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Welcome to the new students who will be joining the lab this fall:
And a warm welcome back to Felix and Jackson!
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Congratulations to Prof. Chang on receiving a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers for the 2024-25 academic year! Prof. Chang will use this fellowship to carry out research on multilingual phonetics and phonology at the Institute of Phonetics and Speech Processing in Munich, hosted by Prof. Jonathan Harrington.
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Prof. Chang has been awarded the inaugural Anne Cutler International Visiting Fellowship. With the support of this fellowship, he will visit the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development in Sydney in Spring 2024, hosted by Dr. Mark Antoniou. Kudos to Prof. Chang!
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Welcome to the four students who will be joining the lab this summer:
And a warm welcome back to Felix and Jackson!
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Felix Kpogo presented a poster about his dissertation research entitled “Age and sex effects on sound change: One size does not fit all” at the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Chicago last week. Well done, Felix!
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Congratulations to lab alum Danielle Dionne (BU GRS ‘23) on the successful defense of her doctoral dissertation! After graduation, Danielle will be joining Duolingo as a Learning Scientist. Well-done, Danielle!
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We’re delighted to announce that lab alum Yiin Wang (GRS ‘23) is headed to the University of Chicago next year to start a PhD in the Department of Linguistics. Way to go, Yiin!
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A paper entitled “On the auditory identifiability of Asian American identity in speech: The role of listener background, sociolinguistic awareness, and language ideologies” (Chang & Fraser, 2023) has been published in the Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America.
Abstract: The current study examined the auditory identifiability of Asian American ethnoracial identity, including the role of listener characteristics and ideologies. Results of an identification experiment showed that the overall accuracy of ethnoracial identification on (East and Southeast) Asian talkers was low, but not the lowest among talker groups and not significantly different from accuracy on Black talkers. There were also significant effects of listeners' ethnoracial identity, gender, and linguistic chauvinism (i.e., disfavoring linguistic diversity in the US). In particular, being Asian or a woman was associated with a higher likelihood of accuracy, whereas greater linguistic chauvinism was, to an extent, associated with a lower likelihood of accuracy. Results of a discrimination experiment additionally showed an effect of listeners' awareness of ethnoracially-based language variation: having this awareness was associated with a higher likelihood of accuracy on discrimination trials with one or more Asian talkers. Taken together, these findings converge with previous results showing an effect of the listener's background on ethnoracial perception and further implicate the listener's sociolinguistic awareness and ideologies.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/brwfk/.
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Lab alum Yifan Wu (Xiamen U. ’23) will be moving to Cornell University next year to start a PhD in the Department of Linguistics. Well-done and congratulations, Yifan!
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We’re thrilled to hear that lab alum Dominique Lopiccolo (BU GRS ‘19) is headed to the University of Delaware next year to start a PhD in the Department of Linguistics & Cognitive Science. Congratulations, Dom! We’re so proud of you!
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Congratulations to Prof. Chang on his acceptance to the upcoming 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 2023)! The title of his contribution (co-authored with Profs. Kevin Tang and Andrew Nevins) is “Individual differences in vowel compactness persist under intoxication across first and second languages”.
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A paper entitled “Exploring the onset of phonetic drift in voice onset time perception” (Kellogg & Chang, 2023) has been published in the open-access journal Languages.
Abstract: Recent exposure to a second or foreign language (FL) can influence production and/or perception in the first language (L1), a phenomenon referred to as phonetic drift. The smallest amount of FL exposure shown to effect drift in perception is 1.5 hours (Gong et al. 2016). The present study examined L1 perception at earlier timepoints of FL exposure, to determine whether the phonetic system is able to resist FL influence at an incipient stage. In a longitudinal pre-test/post-test design, L1 English listeners were exposed to Tagalog under different conditions varying in attention directed to the voice onset time (VOT) plosive contrast in the FL; they then completed an identification task on L1 tokens from VOT continua. In every condition, the likelihood of “voiceless” identifications decreased. This change indicates a shift towards a longer VOT crossover point between “voiced” and “voiceless”, consistent with dissimilatory drift in perception. Listeners in a control condition, however, displayed a similar, albeit less lasting, change in L1 judgments, suggesting that the change arose partly from a task effect. We conclude by discussing directions for future research on phonetic drift in perception.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/3ph8r/.
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A paper entitled “Examining the role of phoneme frequency in first language perceptual attrition” (Chang & Ahn, 2023) has been published in the open-access journal Languages.
Abstract: In this paper, we follow up on previous findings concerning first language (L1) perceptual attrition to examine the role of phoneme frequency in influencing variation across L1 contrasts. We hypothesized that maintenance of L1 Korean contrasts (i.e., resistance to attrition) in L1 Korean-L2 English bilinguals would be correlated with frequency, such that better-maintained contrasts would also be more frequent in the L1. To explore this hypothesis, we collected frequency data on three Korean contrasts (/n/-/l/, /t/-/t*/, /s/-/s*/) and compared these data to perceptual attrition data from a speeded sequence recall task testing the perception and phonological encoding of the target contrasts. Results only partially supported the hypothesis. On the one hand, /n/-/l/, the best-maintained contrast, was the most frequent contrast overall. On the other hand, /n/-/l/ also evinced the greatest frequency asymmetry between the two members of the contrast (meaning that it was the least important to perceive accurately); furthermore, /s/-/s*/, which was less well maintained than /t/-/t*/, was actually more frequent than /t/-/t*/. These results suggest that disparities in perceptual attrition across contrasts cannot be attributed entirely to frequency differences. We discuss the implications of the findings for future research examining frequency effects in L1 perceptual change.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/d43fb/.
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Prof. Chang will be in Rochester this week to give a colloquium at the University of Rochester’s Department of Linguistics. The title of his talk is “Intoxication effects on bilingual speech”.
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A paper entitled “Unity and diversity in Asian American language variation: Data from Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese Americans” (Chang & Dionne, 2022) has been published in the open-access journal Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics.
Abstract: The present study examined sociophonetic variation in a small sample of Asian Americans in Boston, Massachusetts representing four ethnic groups: Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese. Analyzing these speakers’ English production in tasks eliciting both casual and careful speech, we focused on four linguistic features comprising features observed in Eastern New England and in certain Asian American groups. Three features (R-DELETION, L-VOCALIZATION, L/R-CONFLATION) were coded auditorily and one (LOW BACK RAISING of /ɑ/ to /ɔ/) acoustically. Overall, results showed low use of Eastern New England features (R-DELETION, LOW BACK RAISING), high use of L-VOCALIZATION, and no use of L/R-CONFLATION, but also significant differences in specific patterns of use according to ethnicity and speech style. Ethnicity was a significant predictor of the occurrence of R-DELETION and L-VOCALIZATION, and also a significant predictor of first formant (F1) values in the low back vowels, although no clear vowel merger was found. Careful speech showed lower rates of R-DELETION and L-VOCALIZATION and less overlap of the low back vowels as compared to casual speech. These findings reveal similarities and differences in speech production among ethnically diverse Asian Americans and highlight the need for further investigation of phonetic variation within this community.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/hpqk4/ and https://osf.io/zcjkr/.
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Prof. Chang is co-teaching a course with Prof. Yao Yao (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) at the 2023 Linguistic Institute, taking place this summer at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst! Their course is a four-week course entitled “Phonetics and Phonology of Bilingualism”.
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Congratulations to Prof. Chang on being named a Fellow of the Psychonomic Society!
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Prof. Chang will be at Penn State this week to give a colloquium at the Center for Language Science. The title of his talk is “Multilingual speech: The new frontier of examining cross-language interactions”.
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Kudos to junior Linguistics major Sam Rigor (BU CAS ‘24) and recent alum Kate Fraser (BU CAS ‘22) on their acceptances to the upcoming Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA 2023), to take place in January!
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Prof. Chang will be in Norway next week to give a colloquium at the University of Oslo’s Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan. The title of his talk is “Similarity and order effects in multilingual speech perception and production”.
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Prof. Chang is giving a talk this week at the 51st Poznań Linguistic Meeting (PLM2022)! His talk (co-authored with Prof. Sunyoung Ahn, University of Manitoba) is entitled “Societal context and the development of emotion words in bilingual children” and is in the thematic session “Multilingual ecologies in a comparative perspective: Well-being of speakers, social practices and challenges to linguistic diversity” on Saturday, September 10.
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Congratulations to PhD student Jackson Kellogg and Prof. Chang on their acceptance to the upcoming Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society (PsyNom22), to take place in Boston this November!
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Congratulations to PhD students Felix Kpogo and Jackson Kellogg on their acceptances to the upcoming BUCLD (BUCLD 47), to take place this November!
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Congratulations to Felix Kpogo on receiving a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement (DDRI) Grant! His dissertation project, advised by Prof. Chang, is entitled “Investigating Sound Change in an Understudied Language: A Sociophonetic Study of Age and Locality Effects”. Well-done, Felix!
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A paper entitled “Intoxication and pitch control in tonal and non-tonal language speakers” (Tang, Chang, Green, Bao, Hindley, Kim, & Nevins, 2022) has been published in the open-access journal JASA Express Letters.
Abstract: Alcohol intoxication is known to affect pitch variability in non-tonal languages. In this study, intoxication's effects on pitch were examined in tonal and non-tonal language speakers, in both their native language (L1; German, Korean, Mandarin) and nonnative language (L2; English). Intoxication significantly increased pitch variability in the German group (in L1 and L2), but not in the Korean or Mandarin groups (in L1 or L2), although there were individual differences. These results support the view that pitch control is related to the functional load of pitch and is an aspect of speech production that can be advantageously transferred across languages, overriding the expected effects of alcohol.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/2tx4m/.
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Congratulations to Profs. Chang and Lindsey on receiving fellowships from the BU Center for the Humanities for 2022-2023! Prof. Chang was awarded a Jeffrey Henderson Senior Research Fellowship, and Prof. Lindsey was awarded a Junior Faculty Fellowship.
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Welcome to the eleven students who will be joining the lab this summer:
And a warm welcome back to Danielle, Felix, Jackson, Kate, Kevin, and Sam!
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Congratulations to Prof. Chang on receiving an Undergraduate Research Assistance Grant from BU’s Center for Innovation in Social Science to support student research in the lab in Summer 2022!
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Prof. Chang will be giving a talk at the University of California, Santa Cruz, on May 9 in the Phonetics and Phonology Lunch (Phlunch) series. The title of his talk is “Multilingual phonological knowledge in speech perception and production”.
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Congratulations to PAMLabbie Felix Kpogo on receiving a short-term Graduate Research Abroad Fellowship (GRAF) from the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences to support summer fieldwork in Ghana! Well-done, Felix!
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Prof. Chang is in Barcelona this week to present a talk (co-authored with Prof. Yao Yao, Hong Kong Polytechnic University) entitled “Multiple factor analysis of individual differences among heritage Mandarin speakers” at the 10th International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech (New Sounds 2022)!
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PhD student Danielle Dionne will be presenting results from the Asian Americans in Boston project in a poster (co-authored with Prof. Chang) entitled “Sociophonetic variation among Asian Americans: The role of ethnicity and style” at the 182nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) on May 23. Danielle was also admitted to the 2022 ASA School: Living in the Acoustic Environment that will be taking place before the conference. Congratulations to Danielle!
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PhD student Kevin Samejon will be presenting his research at two conferences in May:
Congratulations to Kevin on these presentations!
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Prof. Chang will be giving a colloquium at Stony Brook University’s Department of Linguistics on Mar. 11. The title of his talk is “Towards a bilingual agenda for research on bilingual speech: Attrition & Drift in Access, Perception, and Production Theory (ADAPPT)” (joint work with Esther de Leeuw).
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Congratulations to PhD student and research fellow Megan Brown, who was just awarded a Language Learning Dissertation Grant! Well-done, Megan!
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Prof. Chang will be giving a colloquium at NYU’s Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders on Feb. 22. The title of his talk is “Intoxication and pitch control in bilingual speech” (joint work with Kevin Tang, Andrew Nevins, Sam Green, Kai Xin Bao, Michael Hindley, and Young Shin Kim).
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Congratulations to Kate Fraser, whose work on the Asian Americans in Boston project was accepted for presentation at the UC Berkeley Society of Linguistics Undergraduate Students (SLUgS) 6th Annual Undergraduate Linguistics Symposium! The title of the presentation is “Listener perception and identification of Asian American Speech”. Brava, Kate!
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Welcome to the research interns who will be joining the lab this semester:
And a warm welcome back to Cristina, Danielle, Felix, Jackson, Kevin, Megan, Michael, and Sam!
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This Friday (January 14), Prof. Chang will be giving a virtual colloquium in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Toronto. The title of the colloquium is “A multifactorial approach to analyzing individual differences among heritage speakers”.
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Labbies were active at this weekend’s 96th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA 2022): PhD student Megan Brown gave the talk “Regressive cross-linguistic influence in multilingual speech program: The primacy of typological similarity” (co-authored with Prof. Chang) in the Friday morning Bilingualism session, and PhD student Felix Kpogo gave the poster “A vowel shift in the Twi harmony system: A case of urban Twi speakers” in the Friday morning poster session. PhD student Danielle Dionne was also in attendance!
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Prof. Chang will be one of the invited speakers at the upcoming 29th Manchester Phonology Meeting (29mfm), participating in the special session on Second Language Phonology and Phonological Theory along with Prof. Ellen Broselow and Prof. Dr. Ellen Simon. He will speak about “Viewing phonological knowledge through the lens of sequential bilingualism”.
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A paper entitled “Cultural factors weaken but do not reverse left-to-right spatial biases in numerosity processing: Data from Arabic and English monoliterates and Arabic-English biliterates” (Lopiccolo & Chang, 2021) has been published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.
Abstract: Directional response biases due to a conceptual link between space and number, such as a left-to-right hand bias for increasing numerical magnitude, are known as the SNARC (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes) effect. We investigated how the SNARC effect for numerosities would be influenced by reading-writing direction, task instructions, and ambient visual environment in four literate populations exemplifying opposite reading-writing cultures—namely, Arabic (right-to-left script) and English (left-to-right script). Monoliterates and biliterates in Jordan and the U.S. completed a speeded numerosity comparison task to assess the directionality and magnitude of a SNARC effect in their numerosity processing. Monoliterates’ results replicated previously documented effects of reading-writing direction and task instructions: the SNARC effect found in left-to-right readers was weakened in right-to-left readers, and the left-to-right group exhibited a task-dependency effect (SNARC effect in the smaller condition, reverse SNARC effect in the larger condition). Biliterates’ results did not show a clear effect of environment; instead, both biliterate groups resembled English monoliterates in showing a left-to-right, task-dependent SNARC effect, albeit weaker than English monoliterates’. The absence of significant biases in all Arabic-reading groups (biliterates and Arabic monoliterates) points to a potential conflict between distinct spatial-numerical mapping codes. This view is explained in terms of the proposed Multiple Competing Codes Theory (MCCT), which posits three distinct spatial-numerical mapping codes (innate, cardinal, ordinal) during numerical processing—each involved at varying levels depending on individual and task factors.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/fq8ka/. Dominique, an alum of the lab, is now a Research Assistant in the Numerical Brain Lab at Vanderbilt University.
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Prof. Chang will be the discussant in the Language acquisition and attrition session at next year’s 18th Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon 18)!
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A paper entitled “Emotion word development in bilingual children living in majority and minority contexts” (Ahn & Chang, 2022) has been published in Applied Linguistics.
Abstract: The lexicon of emotion words is fundamental to interpersonal communication. To examine how emotion word acquisition interacts with societal context, the present study investigated emotion word development in three groups of child Korean users aged 4–13 years: those who use Korean primarily outside the home as a majority language (MajKCs) or inside the home as a minority language (MinKCs), and those who use Korean both inside and outside the home (KCs). These groups, along with a group of L1 Korean adults, rated the emotional valence of 61 Korean emotion words varying in frequency, valence, and age of acquisition. Results showed KCs, MajKCs, and MinKCs all converging toward adult-like valence ratings by ages 11–13 years; unlike KCs and MajKCs, however, MinKCs did not show age-graded development and continued to diverge from adults in emotion word knowledge by these later ages. These findings support the view that societal context plays a major role in emotion word development, offering one reason for the intergenerational communication difficulties reported by immigrant families.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/njprs/. Free access to the article is available here.
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PhD student Felix Kpogo just published an article entitled “Acquisition of doubly articulated stops among Ga-speaking children” (Kpogo, Gathercole, & Tetteh, 2021) in the Journal of African Languages and Linguistics!
Abstract: This study investigates the acquisition of labio-velar stops by Ga-speaking children in Ghana. Such stops were elicited in initial, intervocalic, and pre-lateral positions through a picture naming task. Sixty Ga-dominant and Ga-English children at 5-, 6 1/2-, and 8-years of age were tested. All age groups showed some difficulty with the doubly articulated stops, but this was relative to voicing, phonological environment, age, and input. Performance on the voiceless labio-velar stop was better than on the voiced labio-velar stop, and better in intervocalic position than in word-initial and pre-lateral positions. Older children performed better than younger children and Ga-dominant children better than Ga-English children. Performance was better when children did not receive a prompt than when they did. Analysis of modifications reveals frequent processes of simplification to labial singleton stops, some voicing changes, and the occurrence of processes of vowel insertion between the stops and /l/. These findings are discussed in terms of universals of speech sound acquisition, the role of input, and the influence of language-specific factors on children’s performance.
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Congratulations to sophomore Linguistics major Samantha (Sam) Rigor, who was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant to work on linguistics research in Fall 2021! Below is a brief description of the project she will be working on:
In Fall 2021, Sam will conduct an acoustic and auditory study of Asian Americans' interview speech in English to examine (1) the degree to which they produce coda /t/ and/or /d/ deletion, (2) the environments in which such deletion occurs, and (3) the social factors that relate to the occurrence of this deletion.
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This weekend, Prof. Chang will be one of the plenary speakers at the 50th Poznań Linguistic Meeting (PLM2020/2021). The title of his presentation is “Similarity in multilingual development and attrition”.
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Welcome to the PhD research fellow who will be joining the lab this semester:
And a warm welcome back to Cristina, Danielle, Felix, Jackson, Kate, Kevin, Michael, and Sam!
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Lab alum Dominique Lopiccolo and Prof. Chang will be presenting a poster entitled “Cultural factors weaken but do not reverse left-to-right spatial biases in numerosity processing: Data from readers of Arabic and English” at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society (Psychonomics 2021) later this year. Congratulations to them!
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Congratulations to lab affiliates on their acceptances to the 49th meeting of New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV49):
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Next month, Prof. Chang will be giving a talk in the Abralin ao Vivo series entitled “Phonetic drift as an aspect of lifespan language development”.
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A review chapter entitled “Phonetics and phonology of heritage languages” (Chang, 2021) has been published in The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, edited by Profs. Silvina Montrul and Maria Polinsky.
Abstract: This chapter provides an overview of research on heritage language (HL) sound systems, with a focus on areas of convergence and divergence among heritage speakers (HSs), native speakers (NSs) who continue to be dominant in the language, and second language learners (L2ers) who acquired the language later in life. Drawing on data from a wide range of HLs, the chapter addresses both phonetic (articulatory, acoustic, perceptual) and phonological (phonemic, distributional, phonotactic) aspects of the HL sound system, as well as that of the majority language, in light of theories of bilingual speech and variables previously studied as predictors of HSs' linguistic behavior. Despite the diversity of results reviewed, several recurring themes emerge, including intermediate patterning between NSs and L2ers, a higher level of performance in perception than production, and individual variability. In particular, the depth and the accessibility of HSs' knowledge of the HL sound system show considerable variation related to structural linguistic factors, demographic and sociolinguistic factors, input and usage-based factors, and methodological factors. In addition to summarizing the areas in which there is an emerging consensus, the chapter points out a number of remaining questions that pave the way for future research on HL sound systems.
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Prof. Chang will be speaking about joint work with Dr. Sunyoung Ahn at this week’s roundtable research meeting of KoHL/콜 (Korean Heritage Language Research Group), hosted by UC Irvine! The presentation is entitled “Emotion word development in Korean-speaking children living in majority and minority contexts”, and is scheduled for Wednesday, May 26 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET (UTC-7).
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Welcome to the five students who will be joining the lab this summer (virtually):
And a warm welcome back to Danielle, Felix, Jackson, Kevin, and Michael!
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We’re thrilled to hear that lab alum Aspen Bombardo (BU SAR ‘21) is headed to Vanderbilt University next year to start the Doctor of Audiology (AuD) program. Congratulations, Aspen! We’re so proud of you!
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Congratulations to junior Linguistics major Kate Fraser, who was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant – specifically, a Humanities Scholars Award – to work on linguistics research in Summer 2021! Below is a brief description of the project she will be working on:
In Summer 2021, Kate will conduct a perception study to examine how consistently listeners can identify Asian Americans on the basis of their English speech, how detailed such perceptual judgments are, and how listeners' own race/ethnicity and exposure to Asian Americans in their community influence their judgments.
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Next Wednesday (March 31), Prof. Chang will be giving a talk in the L2 Speech Learning Group at Western University about joint work with Prof. Yao Yao (Hong Kong Polytechnic University). The title of the talk is “An individual-differences perspective on variation in heritage Mandarin speakers”.
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This Thursday (January 28), Prof. Chang will be giving a talk in the Glasgow University Laboratory of Phonetics (GULP). The title of the talk is “Development of speech perception and production in multilingualism”.
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This Friday (January 15), Prof. Chang will be giving a virtual colloquium in the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The title of the colloquium is “Phonological learning in multilingual contexts”.
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The lab will be represented at this weekend’s virtual Linguistic Society of America Meeting by PhD student Felix Kpogo, who will be presenting the poster “Developmental variation in production of complex-simplex stop contrasts in Ga” (coauthored with Prof. Chang) in the Friday afternoon Language Acquisition poster session (2pm PST / 5pm EST, Poster Room 2).
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This Wednesday (November 25), Prof. Chang will be giving a virtual colloquium at the University of Southampton in the Centre for Linguistics, Language Education and Acquisition Research (CLLEAR). The title of the colloquium is “Continuity of native language development in adulthood: The case of phonetic drift”.
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Next week, Prof. Chang will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming (November 23) online meeting of NUPFFALE (Núcleo de Pesquisa em Fonética e Fonologia Aplicada à Língua Estrangeira) at Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC).
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A paper entitled “The contributions of crosslinguistic influence and individual differences to nonnative speech perception” (Chang & Kwon, 2020) has been published in the “Exploring Cross-linguistic Effects and Phonetic Interactions in the Context of Bilingualism” special issue of Languages, guest-edited by Dr. Mark Amengual.
Abstract: Perception of a nonnative language (L2) is known to be affected by crosslinguistic transfer from a listener’s native language (L1), but the relative importance of L1 transfer vis-a-vis individual learner differences remains unclear. This study explored the hypothesis that the nature of L1 transfer changes as learners gain experience with the L2, such that individual differences are more influential at earlier stages of learning and L1 transfer is more influential at later stages of learning. To test this hypothesis, novice L2 learners of Korean from diverse L1 backgrounds were examined in a pretest-posttest design with respect to their perceptual acquisition of novel L2 consonant contrasts (the three-way Korean laryngeal contrast among lenis, fortis, and aspirated plosives) and vowel contrasts (/o/-/ʌ/, /u/-/ɨ/). Whereas pretest performance showed little evidence of L1 effects, posttest performance showed significant L1 transfer. Furthermore, pretest performance did not predict posttest performance. These findings support the view that L1 knowledge influences L2 perception dynamically, according to the amount of L2 knowledge available to learners at that time. That is, both individual differences and L1 knowledge play a role in L2 perception, but to different degrees over the course of L2 development.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/um7r4/.
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This weekend, Prof. Chang will be one of the invited speakers at Poliglotar 2020 (Conferência Poliglota do Brasil). The title of his presentation is “Language attrition and relearning in adulthood”.
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Welcome to the seven students who will be joining the lab this semester (virtually):
And a warm welcome back to Michael, Felix, Kevin, and Shane!
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Congratulations to third-year PhD student Felix Kpogo on the publication of his article “The influence of native English-speaking environment on Akan-English bilinguals’ production of English inter-dental fricatives” (with Virginia Gathercole) in the August 2020 issue of the International Journal of Bilingualism!
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Congratulations to rising senior Linguistics major Michael Fang (CAS ‘21), whose abstract with Prof. Chang was accepted for presentation at the 45th Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 45) in November! Their poster will report on the results of Michael’s UROP research:
Given previous evidence of crosslinguistic influence (CLI) of the L1 in L2 speech, this study tested the explanatory power of the L1 in accounting for L2 connected speech. Comparing late L2 learners of English from an L1 Mandarin background with L1 English speakers, we examined production of three types of word boundaries in spontaneous connected English speech (nasal-to-vowel, lateral-to-vowel, vowel-to-vowel), perceptually coding each boundary for connectedness and following prominence. Results showed no clear CLI from Mandarin in learners’ connected speech, suggesting that, at least at more advanced stages of L2 development, the L1 plays little to no role in L2 connected speech: disparities between L1 and L2 speakers that would follow from CLI do not occur, while disparities that do occur cannot be explained by CLI. These findings thus highlight the limitations of an L1-based approach and, consequently, the need to engage other explanations for L2 connected speech production.
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Congratulations to Aspen Bombardo, whose proposal with Prof. Chang was accepted for presentation at the 2020 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention! Unfortunately, the convention has been canceled due to COVID-19. The proposal would have reported the results of Aspen’s UROP research:
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Faculty affiliates will be presenting at next week’s Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon17), hosted virtually by the University of British Columbia!
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Lab affiliates past and present will be presenting at this week’s International Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference (APLL12), hosted virtually by the University of Oslo!
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Next week, Prof. Chang will be one of the invited speakers at the 12th Heritage Language Research Institute, to be hosted (virtually) by Penn State. The title of his presentation is “Heritage language phonetics and phonology: What’s next?”.
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Prof. Barnes will be presenting joint work (with Drs. Alejna Brugos, Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel, and Nanette Veilleux) on “How prosodic prominence influences fricative spectra in English” at this week’s International Conference on Speech Prosody (Speech Prosody 2020), hosted virtually by the University of Tokyo.
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Welcome to the three students who will be joining the lab this summer (virtually):
And a warm welcome back to Michael, Felix, and Kevin!
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Congratulations to Michael Fang, who was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant – specifically, a Humanities Scholars Award – to continue working on research in Summer 2020! Below is a brief description of the project he will be working on:
In Summer 2020, Michael will acoustically analyze speech recordings from interviews with native Mandarin speakers who learned English as a second language, with a focus on their production of connected speech phenomena such as resyllabification and glottalization.
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This week, Prof. Chang will be in New York to give a colloquium at the CUNY Graduate Center. The presentation, scheduled for February 6, is entitled “L3 perception as a window onto similarity and timing effects in acquisition”.
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This Friday, Prof. Lindsey will be in Southborough to deliver the keynote address for the Asian Studies Chair Installation Ceremony at St. Mark’s School. Knock ‘em dead, Prof. Lindsey!
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Lab affiliates past and present will be represented on presentations at this week’s Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting (LSA 2020) in New Orleans!
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Profs. Erker and Lindsey are headed to the University of Oregon for presentations at this week’s New Ways of Analyzing Variation conference (NWAV 48)!
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Welcome to the current Linguistics students who’ve joined the lab this semester:
And a warm welcome back to Michael as he finishes up work on his UROP project!
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Welcome to Prof. Kate Lindsey, a new faculty affiliate of the lab. Prof. Lindsey is a phonologist who specializes in the study of Ende and other languages of southern New Guinea. Her research interests are in underspecification and variation in phonological systems, vowel harmony and phonological reduplication, fieldwork and language documentation, and language typology. Please say hello if you see her around!
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Next week, Prof. Chang will be in Hong Kong to give a colloquium at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The presentation, scheduled for August 26, is entitled “L1 status, crosslinguistic similarity, and transfer in L3 speech perception”.
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A review chapter entitled “Phonetic drift” (Chang, 2019) has been published in The Oxford Handbook of Language Attrition, edited by Profs. Monika Schmid and Barbara Köpke.
Abstract: This chapter provides an overview of research on the phonetic changes that occur in one's native language (L1) due to recent experience in another language (L2), a phenomenon known as phonetic drift. Through a survey of empirical findings on segmental and suprasegmental acoustic properties, the chapter examines the features of the L1 that are subject to phonetic drift, the cognitive mechanism(s) behind phonetic drift, and the various factors that influence the likelihood of phonetic drift. In short, virtually all aspects of L1 speech are subject to drift, but different aspects do not drift in the same manner, possibly due to multiple routes of L2 influence coexisting at different levels of L1 phonological structure. In addition to the timescale of these changes, the chapter discusses the relationship between phonetic drift and attrition as well as some of the enduring questions in this area.
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A paper entitled “Perception of nonnative tonal contrasts by Mandarin-English and English-Mandarin sequential bilinguals” (Chan & Chang, 2019) has been published in the August issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. This paper describes the L3 tone perception study presented at BUCLD 42, which was completed as part of the requirements for I Lei (Vicky) Chan’s MA in Applied Linguistics. Congratulations to Vicky on publishing her first peer-reviewed journal article!
Abstract: This study examined the role of acquisition order and crosslinguistic similarity in influencing transfer at the initial stage of perceptually acquiring a tonal third language (L3). Perception of tones in Yoruba and Thai was tested in adult sequential bilinguals representing three different first (L1) and second language (L2) backgrounds: L1 Mandarin-L2 English (MEBs), L1 English-L2 Mandarin (EMBs), and L1 English-L2 intonational/non-tonal (EIBs). MEBs outperformed EMBs and EIBs in discriminating L3 tonal contrasts in both languages, while EMBs showed a small advantage over EIBs on Yoruba. All groups showed better overall discrimination in Thai than Yoruba, but group differences were more robust in Yoruba. MEBs' and EMBs' poor discrimination of certain L3 contrasts was further reflected in the L3 tones being perceived as similar to the same Mandarin tone; however, EIBs, with no knowledge of Mandarin, showed many of the same similarity judgments. These findings thus suggest that L1 tonal experience has a particularly facilitative effect in L3 tone perception, but there is also a facilitative effect of L2 tonal experience. Further, crosslinguistic perceptual similarity between L1/L2 and L3 tones, as well as acoustic similarity between different L3 tones, play a significant role at this early stage of L3 tone acquisition.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/etg6k/.
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Profs. Chang and Barnes are off to Australia to deliver presentations at next week’s International Congress of Phonetic Sciences at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
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Welcome to the three students who will be joining the lab this summer:
And a warm welcome back to Aspen, Michael, and Shane!
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Congratulations to Jiangnan (Michael) Fang, who was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Humanities Scholars Award to work on research in Summer 2019! Below is a brief description of the project he will be working on:
Michael will be working on a sociophonetic research project examining features of English spoken by Asian Americans, across a range of ethnicities and life histories in the U.S. In Summer 2019, Michael will analyze speech recordings from interviews with Chinese Americans who learned English as a second language, with a focus on their production of connected speech phenomena such as resyllabification.
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A research article entitled “Language change and linguistic inquiry in a world of multicompetence: Sustained phonetic drift and its implications for behavioral linguistic research” (Chang, 2019) has been published in the “Plasticity of Native Phonetic and Phonological Domains in the Context of Bilingualism” special issue of Journal of Phonetics, guest-edited by Drs. Esther de Leeuw and Chiara Celata.
Abstract: Linguistic studies focusing on monolinguals have often examined individuals with considerable experience using another language. Results of a methodological review suggest that conflating ostensibly 'multicompetent' individuals with monolinguals is still common practice. A year-long longitudinal study of speech production demonstrates why this practice is problematic. Adult native English speakers recently arrived in Korea showed significant changes in their production of English stops and vowels (in terms of voice onset time, fundamental frequency, and formant frequencies) during Korean classes and continued to show altered English production a year later, months after their last Korean class. Consistent with an Incidental Processing Hypothesis (IPH) concerning the processing of ambient linguistic input, some changes persisted even in speakers who reported limited active use of Korean in their daily life. These patterns thus suggest that the linguistic experience obtained in a foreign language environment induces and then prolongs restructuring of the native language, making the multicompetent native speaker in a foreign language environment unrepresentative of a monolingual in a native language environment. Such restructuring supports the view that one's native language continues to evolve in adulthood, highlighting the need for researchers to be explicit about a population under study and to accordingly control (and describe) language background in a study sample.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/d5qzj/ and https://osf.io/u7864/.
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This week, Prof. Chang is giving a colloquium at Northwestern University. The presentation, scheduled for April 12, is entitled “Integration, change, and stability in bilingual speech perception”.
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A review chapter entitled “The phonetics of second language learning and bilingualism” (Chang, 2019) has been published in The Routledge Handbook of Phonetics, edited by Profs. William Katz and Peter Assmann.
Abstract: This chapter provides an overview of major theories and findings in the field of second language (L2) phonetics and phonology. Four main conceptual frameworks are discussed and compared: the Perceptual Assimilation Model-L2, the Native Language Magnet Theory, the Automatic Selective Perception Model, and the Speech Learning Model. These frameworks differ in terms of their empirical focus, including the type of learner (e.g., beginner vs. advanced) and target modality (e.g., perception vs. production), and in terms of their theoretical assumptions, such as the basic unit or window of analysis that is relevant (e.g., articulatory gestures, position-specific allophones). Despite the divergences among these theories, three recurring themes emerge from the literature reviewed. First, the learning of a target L2 structure (segment, prosodic pattern, etc.) is influenced by phonetic and/or phonological similarity to structures in the native language (L1). In particular, L1-L2 similarity exists at multiple levels and does not necessarily benefit L2 outcomes. Second, the role played by certain factors, such as acoustic phonetic similarity between close L1 and L2 sounds, changes over the course of learning, such that advanced learners may differ from novice learners with respect to the effect of a specific variable on observed L2 behavior. Third, the connection between L2 perception and production (insofar as the two are hypothesized to be linked) differs significantly from the perception-production links observed in L1 acquisition. In service of elucidating the predictive differences among these theories, this contribution discusses studies that have investigated L2 perception and/or production primarily at a segmental level. In addition to summarizing the areas in which there is broad consensus, the chapter points out a number of questions which remain a source of debate in the field today.
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This week, Prof. Chang is giving an invited talk at his alma mater, Harvard University, in the Universals Workshop series. The presentation, scheduled for March 29, is entitled “Crosslinguistic overlap in bilingualism: The view from speech perception”.
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Prof. Chang is in Poznań this week to give an invited talk in the Distinguished Professors’ Lecture Series at Adam Mickiewicz University. The presentation, scheduled for March 21, is entitled “Integration and dynamicity in bilingual speech perception”.
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Welcome to the new Linguistics student joining the lab this semester to work on research:
And a warm welcome back to Aspen, Dom, and Leslie!
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Prof. Chang is in New York this week to present results on L2 perceptual learning of Korean (from collaborative work with Dr. Sungmi Kwon) in the Saturday afternoon ‘Phonetics II’ session at this week’s Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. The title of the presentation is “The contributions of crosslinguistic influence and individual differences to nonnative speech perception”.
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Welcome to Dr. Yao Yao, who will be a Visiting Researcher in the lab for Spring 2019. Dr. Yao’s areas of specialty are phonetics, psycholinguistics, and corpus linguistics. She completed her PhD in Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and is on sabbatical from her position as Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. During her visit, she will be working on research projects investigating phonological neighborhood density effects and the phonetics of heritage languages.
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Congratulations to Aspen Bombardo, who was awarded a second Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant to continue working on research in Spring 2019! Below is a brief description of the project she will be working on:
Aspen will be working on a sociophonetic research project examining features of English and heritage languages spoken by Asian Americans, across a range of ethnicities and life histories in the U.S. In Spring 2019, Aspen will analyze speech recordings from interviews with Vietnamese Americans and Chinese Americans who learned English as a second language, with a focus on variation in the production of /sC/ consonant clusters.
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Prof. Chang is in Los Angeles this week to present results on sound change in Korean fricatives (from collaborative work with Dr. Hae-Sung Jeon) in the Friday afternoon poster session at this week’s Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference. The title of the presentation is “The role of speaker gender in diachronic change of Korean fricatives”.
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Welcome to the recent Linguistics graduate who will be joining the lab this semester to work on research projects:
And a warm welcome back to Aspen!
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Congratulations to Aspen Bombardo, who was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant to continue working on research in the lab in Fall 2018! Below is a brief description of the project she will be working on:
Aspen will be working on a sociophonetic research project examining features of English and heritage languages spoken by Asian Americans, across a range of ethnicities and life histories in the U.S. In Fall 2018, Aspen will be involved in analyzing speech recordings from a pilot corpus of interviews, with a focus on variation in the production of consonant clusters by Asian Americans who learned English as a second language.
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Welcome to Dr. Sunyoung Ahn, who will be a Visiting Researcher in the lab for 2018-19. Dr. Ahn’s areas of specialty are psycholinguistics and second language acquisition. She completed her PhD in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Maryland, and taught Korean as a second language for the past few years at Harvard University. During her visit, she will be working on research projects investigating L2 processing and production.
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Prof. Chang is in Lisbon this week to present results on sound change in Korean fricatives (from collaborative work with Dr. Hae-Sung Jeon) in the Friday afternoon poster session at this week’s Conference on Laboratory Phonology. The title of the presentation is “Categorical ambiguity and sound change in Seoul Korean”.
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Welcome to the six students who will be joining the lab this summer:
And a warm welcome back to Qian and Wayne!
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A paper entitled “LEXTALE_CH: A quick, character-based proficiency test for Mandarin Chinese” (Chan & Chang, 2018) has been published in the Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. This paper describes the development of the Mandarin proficiency test that was used for control purposes in the tone perception study presented at BUCLD 42.
Abstract: Research in second language acquisition suggests that objective performance-based assessments may provide more reliable and valid measures of second language proficiency than subjective self-ratings. To measure proficiency in English as a second language, a quick, vocabulary-based test called LexTALE (Lexical Test for Advanced Learners of English) was developed and shown to be able to differentiate between various levels of English proficiency. Following in the line of adaptations of this test for other languages, we created a character-based adaptation for Mandarin Chinese: LEXTALE_CH. In this paper, we discuss the development and validation of LEXTALE_CH in detail. In short, LEXTALE_CH can discriminate between high and low levels of Mandarin proficiency and is sensitive to the significant differences in vocabulary size between native speakers and second language learners of Mandarin; further, it takes only a few minutes to administer and is simple to score, making it a practical tool for low-stakes estimation of Mandarin proficiency.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials (Chinese and English versions of the final test, along with an answer key and image files for web administration) are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/qdy4n/.
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Congratulations to Sharmaine Sun, who was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant to continue working on research in the lab in Summer 2018! Below is a brief description of the project she will be working on:
Sharmaine will be working on a sociophonetic research project with two components: (1) examining features of English and heritage languages spoken by Asian Americans, across a range of ethnicities and life histories in the U.S., and (2) testing the perception, by both Asian and non-Asian American listeners, of Asian racial/ethnic identity in the speech of Asian American English users. In Summer 2018, Sharmaine will be involved in analyzing speech recordings from a pilot corpus of interviews as well as conducting a perception experiment to examine the social evaluation of Asian American males by straight female and gay male listeners.
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A research article entitled “Perceptual attention as the locus of transfer to nonnative speech perception” (Chang, 2018) has been published in the May issue of Journal of Phonetics.
Abstract: One's native language (L1) is known to influence the development of a nonnative language (L2) at multiple levels, but the nature of L1 transfer to L2 perception remains unclear. This study explored the hypothesis that transfer effects in perception come from L1-specific processing strategies, which direct attention to phonetic cues according to their estimated relative functional load (RFL). Using target languages that were either familiar (English) or unfamiliar (Korean), perception of unreleased final stops was tested in L1 English listeners and four groups of L2 English learners whose L1s differ in stop phonotactics and the estimated RFL of a crucial cue to unreleased stops (i.e., vowel-to-consonant formant transitions). Results were, overall, consistent with the hypothesis, with L1 Japanese listeners showing the poorest perception, followed by L1 Mandarin, Russian, English, and Korean listeners. Two exceptions occurred with Russian listeners, who underperformed Mandarin listeners in identification of English stops and outperformed English listeners in identification of Korean stops. Taken together, these findings support a cue-centric view of transfer based on perceptual attention over a direct phonotactic view based on structural conformity. However, transfer interacts with prior L2 knowledge, which may result in significantly different perceptual consequences for a familiar and an unfamiliar L2.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/pb26g/ and https://osf.io/e5qsj/.
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Welcome to the three students who will be joining the lab this semester to work on various research projects:
And a warm welcome back to Hye Youn, Kevin, Qian, Sharmaine, Wayne, and William!
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Prof. Chang presented results on L1 phonological transfer (from collaborative work with Prof. Sungmi Kwon) at this weekend’s Old World Conference on Phonology in London. The title of the talk was “Sensitivity and transfer in perceptual learning of nonnative phonological contrasts”.
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Congratulations to Sharmaine Sun, who was awarded a Spring 2018 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant to continue working in the lab this coming semester! Below is a brief description of the project she will be working on:
Sharmaine will be working on a sociophonetic research project investigating features of English and heritage languages spoken by Asian Americans, across a range of ethnicities and life histories in the U.S. In Spring 2018, Sharmaine will continue contributing to the analysis of pilot data, including interviews and socio-demographic questionnaires. She will also coordinate standards for interview transcription and collect phonetic results on the feature of "TH-stopping" in different subgroups of the interview corpus.
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Prof. Chang presented results on L1 perceptual attrition (from collaborative work with Dr. Sunyoung Ahn) and results on L3 tone perception (from Vicky Chan’s MA research) at this weekend’s Boston University Conference on Language Development. The titles of the two talks were ”Perception of non-native tonal contrasts by Mandarin-English and English-Mandarin sequential bilinguals” and ”The role of age and cross-linguistic similarity in first language perceptual attrition”.
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Congratulations to Sharmaine Sun, who was awarded a Fall 2017 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant to continue working on research in the lab this semester! Below is a brief description of the project she will be working on:
Sharmaine will be working on a sociophonetic research project with two components: (1) examining features of English and heritage languages spoken by Asian Americans, across a range of ethnicities and life histories in the U.S., and (2) testing the perception, by both Asian and non-Asian American listeners, of Asian racial/ethnic identity in the speech of Asian American English users. Sharmaine will be involved in the analysis of pilot data on this project collected over the summer.
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A research article entitled “Age effects in first language attrition: Speech perception by Korean-English bilinguals” (Ahn, Chang, DeKeyser, & Lee-Ellis, 2017) has been published in the September issue of Language Learning.
Abstract: This study investigated how bilinguals’ perception of their first language (L1) differs according to age of reduced contact with L1 after immersion in a second language (L2). Twenty-one L1 Korean-L2 English bilinguals in the United States, ranging in age of reduced contact from 3 to 15 years, and 17 control participants in Korea were tested perceptually on three L1 contrasts differing in similarity to L2 contrasts. Compared to control participants, bilinguals were less accurate on L1-specific contrasts, and their accuracy was significantly correlated with age of reduced contact, an effect most pronounced for the contrast most dissimilar to L2. These findings suggest that the earlier bilinguals are extensively exposed to L2, the less likely they are to perceive L1 sounds accurately. However, this relationship is modulated by crosslinguistic similarity, and a turning point in L2 acquisition and L1 attrition of phonology appears to occur at around age 12.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/G4C7Z and https://osf.io/B2478.
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Welcome to the six students who will be joining the lab this semester to work on various research projects:
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Prof. Chang’s work with Dr. Anita Bowles and Valerie Karuzis on tone aptitude (Bowles, Chang, & Karuzis, 2016) was featured on the “Life as a bilingual” blog in Psychology Today:
Do Musicians Make Better Language Learners? by Aneta Pavlenko (July 5, 2017)
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Prof. Chang presented new results on Korean fricative hyperarticulation (from collaborative work with Dr. Hae-Sung Jeon) in the Thursday morning poster session at this week’s Acoustical Society of America meeting (5aSC. Variation: Age, Gender, Dialect, and Style). The title of the poster was “Effects of age, sex, context, and lexicality on hyperarticulation of Korean fricatives”, and the abstract can be viewed here.
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Welcome to the twelve students, and two recent graduates, who will be joining the lab this summer:
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Congratulations to Sharmaine Sun and Kathryn Turner, who were awarded Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grants to work on research in the lab in Summer 2017! Below are brief descriptions of the projects they will be working on:
Sharmaine will be working on a sociophonetic research project with two components: (1) examining features of English and heritage languages spoken by Asian Americans, across a range of ethnicities and life histories in the U.S., and (2) testing the perception, by both Asian and non-Asian American listeners, of Asian racial/ethnic identity in the speech of Asian American English users. Sharmaine will be involved in both the collection and the analysis of pilot data on this project.
Kathryn will be continuing her work on a project comparing the speech production of young children acquiring both Korean and English with that of age-matched children acquiring only one of these languages. The goal of this project is to better understand how bilingual children differ from monolingual children with respect to the arc of their language development. Kathryn will contribute to the acoustic analysis of audio recordings from an elicited production task with 3- and 5-year-old children, focusing on fricative production.
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Welcome to the five students who will be working on research in the lab this semester:
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Congratulations to Kathryn Turner, who was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant to work on research in the lab in Spring 2017! Below is a brief description of the project she will be working on:
Kathryn will be comparing the speech production of young children acquiring both Korean and English with that of age-matched children acquiring only one of these languages. The goal of this project is to better understand how bilingual children differ from monolingual children with respect to the arc of their language development. Kathryn will contribute to the acoustic analysis of audio recordings from an elicited production task with 10-year-old children, focusing on fricative production.
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A research article entitled “Pitch ability as an aptitude for tone learning” (Bowles, Chang & Karuzis, 2016) has been published in the December issue of Language Learning.
Abstract: Tone languages such as Mandarin use voice pitch to signal lexical contrasts, presenting a challenge for second/foreign language (L2) learners whose native languages do not use pitch in this manner. The present study examined components of an aptitude for mastering L2 lexical tone. Native English speakers with no previous tone language experience completed a Mandarin word learning task, as well as tests of pitch ability, musicality, L2 aptitude, and general cognitive ability. Pitch ability measures improved predictions of learning performance beyond musicality, L2 aptitude, and general cognitive ability and also predicted transfer of learning to new talkers. In sum, although certain nontonal measures help predict successful tone learning, the central components of tonal aptitude are pitch-specific perceptual measures.
This study was published with supporting information (appendices), which can be viewed here.
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Welcome to Dr. Sungmi Kwon, Associate Professor in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Pukyong National University (부경대학교) in Korea, who will be a Visiting Researcher in the lab for 2016-17. Dr. Kwon’s area of specialty is interlanguage Korean phonetics and phonology. During her visit, she will be working on research projects investigating L2 perception and production of Korean.
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A research article entitled “Toward an understanding of heritage prosody: Acoustic and perceptual properties of tone produced by heritage, native, and second language speakers of Mandarin” (Chang & Yao, 2016) has been published in the August issue of the Heritage Language Journal.
Abstract: In previous work examining heritage language phonology, heritage speakers have often patterned differently from native speakers and late-onset second language (L2) learners with respect to overall accent and segmentals. The current study extended this line of inquiry to suprasegmentals, comparing the properties of lexical tones produced by heritage, native, and L2 speakers of Mandarin living in the U.S. We hypothesized that heritage speakers would approximate native norms for Mandarin tones more closely than L2 speakers, yet diverge from these norms in one or more ways. We further hypothesized that, due to their unique linguistic experience, heritage speakers would sound the most ambiguous in terms of demographic background. Acoustic data showed that heritage speakers approximated native-like production more closely than L2 speakers with respect to the pitch contour of Tone 3, durational shortening in connected speech, and rates of Tone 3 reduction in non-phrase-final contexts, while showing the highest levels of tonal variability among all groups. Perceptual data indicated that heritage speakers’ tones differed from native and L2 speakers’ in terms of both intelligibility and perceived goodness. Consistent with the variability results, heritage speakers were the most difficult group to classify demographically. Taken together, these findings suggest that, with respect to tone, early heritage language experience can, but does not necessarily, result in a phonological advantage over L2 learners. Further, they add support to the view that heritage speakers are language users distinct from both native and L2 speakers.
This study is a follow-up to Chang, Yao, Haynes, and Rhodes (2011).
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A research article entitled “Bilingual perceptual benefits of experience with a heritage language” (Chang, 2016) has been published in the August issue of Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.
Abstract: Research on the linguistic knowledge of heritage speakers has been concerned primarily with the advantages conferred by heritage language experience in production, perception, and (re)learning of the heritage language. Meanwhile, second-language speech research has begun to investigate potential benefits of first-language transfer in second-language performance. Bridging these two bodies of work, the current study examined the perceptual benefits of heritage language experience for heritage speakers of Korean in both the heritage language (Korean) and the dominant language (American English). It was hypothesized that, due to their early bilingual experience and the different nature of unreleased stops in Korean and American English, heritage speakers of Korean would show not only native-like perception of Korean unreleased stops, but also better-than-native perception of American English unreleased stops. Results of three perception experiments were consistent with this hypothesis, suggesting that benefits of early heritage language experience can extend well beyond the heritage language.
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A research article entitled “On the cognitive basis of contact-induced sound change: Vowel merger reversal in Shanghainese” (Yao & Chang, 2016) has been published in the June issue of Language, the journal of the Linguistic Society of America.
Abstract: This study investigates the source and status of a recent sound change in Shanghainese (Wu, Sinitic) that has been attributed to language contact with Mandarin. The change involves two vowels, /e/ and /ɛ/, reported to be merged three decades ago but produced distinctly in contemporary Shanghainese. Results of two production experiments show that speaker age, language mode (monolingual Shanghainese vs. bilingual Shanghainese-Mandarin), and crosslinguistic phonological similarity all influence the production of these vowels. These findings provide evidence for language contact as a linguistic means of merger reversal and are consistent with the view that contact phenomena originate from cross-language interaction within the bilingual mind.
Note that this article is accompanied by online appendices, located here.
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Welcome to the three visiting students who will be interning in the lab over the summer:
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Congratulations to Jimmy Sbordone and Dallas Walter, who were awarded Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grants to work on research projects in Spring 2016! Below are brief descriptions of the projects they will be working on:
Jimmy will be working on an acoustic analysis of recordings of Southeastern Pomo, a severely endangered language historically spoken in northern California. These data will ultimately contribute to a phonetic description of the idiolect of the last living fluent speaker as well as a diachronic comparison between her speech and the speech of the preceding generation (captured on archival recordings).
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A research article entitled “Context effects on second-language learning of tonal contrasts” (Chang & Bowles, 2015) has been published in the December issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
Abstract: Studies of lexical tone learning generally focus on monosyllabic contexts, while reports of phonetic learning benefits associated with input variability are based largely on experienced learners. This study trained inexperienced learners on Mandarin tonal contrasts to test two hypotheses regarding the influence of context and variability on tone learning. The first hypothesis was that increased phonetic variability of tones in disyllabic contexts makes initial tone learning more challenging in disyllabic than monosyllabic words. The second hypothesis was that the learnability of a given tone varies across contexts due to differences in tonal variability. Results of a word learning experiment supported both hypotheses: tones were acquired less successfully in disyllables than in monosyllables, and the relative difficulty of disyllables was closely related to contextual tonal variability. These results indicate limited relevance of monosyllable-based data on Mandarin learning for the disyllabic majority of the Mandarin lexicon. Furthermore, in the short term, variability can diminish learning; its effects are not necessarily beneficial but dependent on acquisition stage and other learner characteristics. These findings thus highlight the importance of considering contextual variability and the interaction between variability and type of learner in the design, interpretation, and application of research on phonetic learning.
Note that this article is accompanied by online supplementary material, located here.