This study aimed to identify teacher perceptions of the causes of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) through feedback, and what feedback strategies teachers use to reduce FLCA. Feedback can be both a cause of FLCA and help to reduce FLCA. It is therefore important for teachers to understand how their feedback can affect FLCA. In the present…

Adult English language learners in the United States approach the learning of English pronunciation from a wide variety of native language backgrounds. They may speak languages with sound systems that vary a great deal from that of English. The pronunciation goals and needs of adult English language learners are diverse. These goals and needs…

A total of 16 mothers and 16 fathers were recorded in dyadic sessions with their children (eight five year olds, eight two year olds; half boys, half girls) and with an adult. Noise-free questions and declaratives were analyzed for pitch and frequency range. Results suggest that both fundamental frequency and range are significantly influenced by…

This study compared the relationship between acoustic parameters and listeners' perceptions of intonation contours produced by 12 children (ages 7-14) either with severe-to-profound hearing impairments (HI) or normal-hearing (NH). The HI children's productions were generally similar to the NH children in that they used fundamental frequency,…

A sociolinguistic, semantic analysis of intonation was conducted on a 15-minute natural interaction between an aphasic speaker, his wife, and his neighbor. Findings indicated the neighbor made more use of two dimensions of intonation, specifically pitch movements referring to shared information and marked tones, when addressing the aphasic speaker…

A study of the order of acquisition and fossilization of several French forms by anglophone students focused on the intonative aspect of interlanguage and the transfer of learning from one language to another. (MSE)

Acoustic analyses, along with perceptual ratings, measured the extent to which preschoolers imitated three modeled intonation contours (declarative, interrogative, and monotone). Results indicated that five-year-old children imitated modeled contours more frequently than did three-year-old children, with between-group differences largely because…

Designed to assess a reader's comprehension of items differing in contrastive vocal stress, this test consists of 64 items divided evenly between eight sentence types: declarative active, declarative passive, interrogative, and imperative, with each in a positive and negative form. The element of contrastive stress is placed on nouns functioning…

Reports on three experiments that assessed the attentional responses of 4-month-old infants to frequency-modulated sweeps corresponding to the frequency range of adult-to-infant and adult-to-adult intonational patterns. (HOD)

Ten adults with dysarthria of various etiologies, type, and severity were compared to age-matched and gender-matched nondysarthric speakers on 40 short sentences. Results indicated reduced intonation values for the dysarthric group and varying rates as a function of subject group and sentence type. Results suggest that dysarthria is a deficit in…

Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that visual information related to segmental versus prosodic aspects of speech is distributed differently on the face of the talker. Results indicate that information in the upper part of the talker's face is more critical for intonation pattern decisions than for decisions about word segments…

Asks adults and 6-, 9- and, 13 year olds' questions about tape-recorded stories in order to investigate their ability to recognize sincere, deceptive, and sarcastic remarks. Results indicate that the youngest children interpret all remarks as sincere; 9 and 13 year olds can appreciate deliberate falsehood, but only adults identify sarcasm.…

Fundamental frequency, duration, and amplitude measures were extracted from stressed and unstressed syllables in interword and intraword comparisons. Analysis of target stress patterns revealed no difference between acoustic marking of stress by 6 adults and 22 toddlers. Findings indicate that children generally control these variables to derive…

Compares the effects of intonation training and phonological training on the intelligibility of the speech of two severely unintelligible preschool children. The results indicated that an increase in intelligibility is facilitated through training in the production of intonation patterns. (Author/BB)

Twenty-two hearing-impaired children (ages 9 to 13) with a hearing loss of 80 dB or greater completed 3 tasks of intonation perception and production. Acoustic analysis suggested a relationship between imitation and discrimination of intonation contours and a relationship between imitation and production of orally read sentences when a rising…