CASL
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/22
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Item Communication development of a young child with Foetal Renoid syndrome: A seven-year follow-up study(African Online Scientific Information Systems Publishing, 2006-12-31) Kritzinger, Alta; Steenkamp, LizanneThe aim of the article is to describe the communication development of a child with Fetal Retinoid syndrome (FRS) from six months to seven years of age. Little is known about this rare acquired syndrome and its long-term implications, especially on a child's communication development. A descriptive, ex post facto research design was used to study the participant's communication development from 1996 when the family enrolled in an early communication intervention programme. Annual serial assessments of the participant and her family were conducted and the data were stored in a research database after each assessment. The results are described according to a 4-level assessment framework and indicated consistent, but moderate to minor delays in the participant's communication development with a mild hearing loss in the right ear, associated with ear anomalies. Although prenatal exposure to isotretinoin may have serious effects on the unborn fetus and even cause death, the participant did not display all the symptoms of FRS described in the literature. The favorable family circumstances, early commencement of intervention, and supporting early educational environments were protecting factors that could have contributed positively to the participant's communication development. The importance of knowledge accumulation about rare syndromes such as FRS in Communication Pathology and Audiology is discussed and guidelines for early identification, assessment and treatment applicable to the case are proposed as an intervention option.Item Im/politeness and interpreting(Routledge, 2019-05-22) Mapson, Rachel; Tipton, Rebecca; Desilla, LouisaIn this chapter on the interpretation of politeness and impoliteness (im/politeness), im/politeness is considered as a discursive concept that exists in the way language is perceived and evaluated. This facet of pragmatics is therefore integral to the building and maintenance of interpersonal relationships but can present a significant challenge for interpreters because evaluations of im/politeness vary between different languages and cultures. Key perspectives and common themes within translation and interpreting studies literature are explored, including the affordance of familiarity with clients and context on the way im/politeness is interpreted. One theme relates to the degree of directness or indirectness involved, which may result in interpreters employing a variety of strategies, including hedges, prosody, toning down face threatening acts (FTAs) and use of third person. The influence of interpreters’ personal identity is another theme, which in some situations may manifest through use of particular terms of address. The chapter highlights the need for a greater focus on im/politeness and rapport management within interpreter training and continuous professional development (CPD), and the value of more explicit connections between translation and interpreting studies and the theoretical foundations within cross-cultural and intercultural im/politeness research.Item A comparison of acoustic and articulatory parameters for the GOOSE vowel across British Isles Englishes(Acoustical Society of America, 2019-12-19) Lawson, Eleanor; Stuart-Smith, Jane; Rodger, LydiaThis study quantifies vocalic variation that cannot be measured from the acoustic signal alone and develops methods of standardisation and measurement of articulatory parameters for vowels. Articulatory-acoustic variation in the GOOSE vowel was measured across three regional accents of the British Isles, using a total of eighteen speakers from the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and England, recorded with synchronous ultrasound tongue imaging, lip camera and audio. Single co-temporal measures were taken of tongue-body height and backness, lip protrusion, F1 and F2. After normalisation, mixed-effects modelling identified statistically-significant variation for region; tongue-body position was significantly higher and fronter for Irish and English speakers. Region was also significant for lip-protrusion measures, with Scottish speakers showing significantly smaller degrees of protrusion than English speakers. However, Region was only significant for acoustic height and not for frontness.Correlational analyses of all measures showed: a significant positive correlation between tongue-body height and acoustic height; a negative correlation between lip-protrusion and acoustic frontness; but no correlation between tongue-body frontness and acoustic frontness. Effectively, two distinct regional production strategies were found to result in similar normalised acoustic frontness measures for GOOSE: Scottish tongue-body positions were backer and lips less protruded, while English and Irish speakers had fronter tongue-body positions, but more protruded lips.Item Reliability of clinical voice parameters captured with smartphones – measurements of added noise and spectral tilt(ISCA, 2019-09-20) Schaeffler, Felix; Jannetts, Stephen; Beck, Janet M.Smartphones have become powerful tools for data capture due to their computational power, internet connectivity, high quality sensors and user-friendly interfaces. This also makes them attractive for the recording of voice data that can be analysed for clinical or other voice health purposes. This however requires detailed assessment of the reliability of voice parameters extracted from smartphone recordings. In a previous study we analysed reliability of measures of periodicity and periodicity deviation, with very mixed results across parameters. In the present study we extended this analysis to measures of added noise and spectral tilt. We analysed systematic and random error for six frequently used acoustic parameters in clinical acoustic voice quality analysis. 22 speakers recorded sustained [a] and a short passage with a studio microphone and four popular smartphones simultaneously. Acoustic parameters were extracted with Praat and smartphone recordings were compared to the studio microphone. Results indicate a small systematic error for almost all parameters and smartphones. Random errors differed substantially between parameters. Our results suggest that extraction of acoustic voice parameters with mobile phones is not without problems and different parameters show substantial differences in reliability. Careful individual assessment of parameters is therefore recommended before use in practice.Item Inequality in access to hearing care for older adults in residential homes(Oxford University Press, 2019-07-31) White, Joanna D.; Johnson, Christine; DePlacido, Christine; Matthews, Ben; Steenkamp, LizanneBackground The population of older people in residential homes is projected to rise. There are unrecognized hearing difficulties among residents and prevalence of hearing loss in this population is underreported. This can result in an overestimation of levels of cognitive impairment. Untreated hearing loss is associated with social isolation, depression, disruptive behaviour and cognitive decline. This study aimed to explore the provision of hearing care (hearing assessment, rehabilitation and staff training) in Scottish care homes for older people.Item The effects of syllable and utterance position on tongue shape and gestural magnitude in /l/ and /r/(International Phonetic Association, 2019-08-10) Lawson, Eleanor; Leplatre, Gregory; Stuart-Smith, Jane; Scobbie, James M.This paper is an ultrasound-based articulatory study of the impact of syllable-position and utterance position on tongue shape and tongue-gesture magnitude in liquid consonants in American, Irish and Scottish English. Mixed effects modelling was used to analyse variation in normalised tongue-gesture magnitude for /r/ and /l/ in syllable-onset and coda position and in utterance-initial, medial and final position. Variation between onset and coda mean midsagittal tongue surfaces was also quantified using normalised root-mean-square distances, and patterns of articulatory onset-coda allophony were identified. Despite the fact that some speakers in all varieties used tip-up /r/ in syllable-onset position and bunched /r/ in coda position, RMS distance results show greater degrees of similarity between onset and coda /r/ than between onset and coda /l/. Gesture magnitude was significantly reduced for both /l/ and /r/ in coda position. Utterance position had a significant effect on /l/ only.Item Say again? Individual articulatory strategies for producing a clearly-spoken minimal pair wordlist(International Phonetic Association, 2019-08-10) Scobbie, James M.; Ma, Joan K-YWe describe articulatory differences (lingual and labial) between two versions (neutral and clear) of a CVC wordlist of 12 targets (V = /ieaɔoʉ/; C_C = /p_p/ or /m_m/). A companion paper describes the background; the participants, materials and tasks; the impressionistic and acoustic results. Labial measures reflect vowel opening (and edge-spreading) and consonant compression using fleshpoint markers captured by head-mounted video. Consonant closure and total word duration are based on visual judgement of complete closure. Ultrasound data provides the absolute area between neutral and clear mid-sagittal tongue-surface splines at the maximum of each vowel target, and a qualitative description of tongue shape and location. Strong and systematic interspeaker variation was evident in how articulation, acoustics and functional clarity were enhanced. Some large phonologically motivated segmental hyperspeech enhancements were observed, but they were not related straightforwardly to the phonological oppositions in the material nor consistently used by all speakers. Differences in utterance initiation are also discussed.Item Bulgarian vowel reduction in unstressed position: An ultrasound and acoustic investigation(International Phonetic Association, 2019-08-10) Dokovova, Marie; Sabev, Mitko; Scobbie, James M.; Lickley, Robin; Cowen, Steve; Calhoun, Sasha; Escudero, Paola; Tabain, Marija; Warren, PaulVowel reduction in Contemporary Standard Bulgarian (CSB) has been variously claimed to involve raising, no change or lowering of the high vowels /iəu/. There is a general agreement that the low vowels /ɛaɔ/ are raised when unstressed. This paper directly measures tongue height using Ultrasound Tongue Imaging (UTI) and relates this measure to the acoustic correlate F1 at vowel midpoint. The six vowels of CSB were paired with respect to frontness (/ɛ, i/, /a, ə/, /ɔ, u/), and the overlap in height of the unstressed lower vowel in each pair was assessed relative to (a) its stressed counterpart and (b) the stressed and (c) unstressed realisations of the lower vowel. There was no evidence of the higher unstressed vowel in each pair being different from its stressed counterpart. The articulatory and acoustic results are not completely aligned, but both diverge from the traditional model of vowel reduction in CSB.Item Say again? Individual acoustic strategies for producing a clearly-spoken minimal pair wordlist(International Phonetic Association, 2019-08-10) Scobbie, James M.; Ma, Joan K-YPeople make their speech clearer in difficult conversational contexts using global mechanisms (e.g. “Lombard Speech”) and by targeted enhancements of linguistic constituents (“hyperspeech”). We describe production changes observed in four speakers of Scottish English who produced three repetitions of twelve CVC words: V was one of six monophthongs and C_C was either /p_p/ or /m_m/. Thus each word differed (near-) minimally from six others. In a “neutral” condition each participant read aloud from a randomised wordlist. A “clear” condition was an interactive task in which an interlocutor had to repeat back every word correctly, despite their hearing being impaired by headphone-delivered noise. If the speaker was mis-perceived by the interlocutor, the speaker tried again, until the word was correctly repeated. We describe the surprisingly speaker-specific acoustic hyperspeech effects (in vowel F1, vowel space area, and acoustic segment durations) in the clear speech. A companion paper describes the associated articulatory changes.Item The effects of syllable and sentential position on the timing of lingual gestures in /l/ and /r/(International Phonetic Association, 2019-08-10) Lawson, Eleanor; Stuart-Smith, JaneThis paper is an ultrasound-based articulatory study of the impact of syllable-position and utterance position on gesture timing in liquid consonants in American, Irish and Scottish English. Mixed effects modelling was used to analyse variation in the relative timing of the anterior and posterior lingual gestures for /l/ and /r/ in syllable-onset and coda position and in utterance-initial, medial and final position. Results showed that the component lingual gestures for /l/ and /r/ are coordinated differently in onsets and codas, across the three varieties studied; the anterior lingual gesture tends to precede the posterior gesture in syllable-onset liquids, while this gesture order is reversed for syllable-coda liquids. For /l/, but not /r/, being in utterance-initial and final position results in a significantly increased temporal distance between the two lingual gestures. For coda /r/, prerhotic vowels were found to have a significant impact on the relative timing of lingual gestures.