Schedule

Abstract:

Prior work has suggested that musical abilities are associated with speech perception in a second language (Slevc & Miyake, 2006).

The present study investigated the association between sub-domains of musical ability and L2 speech perception (Cason et al., 2019; Bhatara et al., 2015). Forty-two native Mandarin speakers who were L2 speakers of English were tested on two sub-types of music perception, rhythm and melody, and four domains of L2 speech proficiency: segment perception, lexical stress perception, and semantic processing (i.e., lexical and text comprehension). It was hypothesized that there would be a positive correlation between some aspects of music perception and subdomains of L2 learning due to the shared cognitive mechanism for processing music and speech in the brain (Patel, 2011, 2014), but it is not clear which links are present. Multiple regressions of music perception on each of the three L2 speech domains revealed that only melody perception significantly contributed to the prediction of segment perception (β=.41, p=.03), while rhythm perception did not (β =-.30; p=.11). In addition, music perception did not predict lexical stress perception, and melody was marginally correlated with semantic processing (β =.34, p=.060) but rhythm perception was not (β =.16, p=.38).

The results suggest that Mandarin speakers are more likely to transfer their ability of melody perception to perceiving speech sounds, but not rhythm perception.These results suggest that the overlap between musical abilities and L2 speech processing in Mandarin learners of English is more in the processing of spectral information rather than rhythm processing. 

Authors: Xizi Deng, Henny Yeung, Cathy Lin

Abstract:

Background: Sjogren’s syndrome (SS) is characterized by changes in saliva quantity and quality including: xerostomia (dry mouth), hyposalivation, and an altered salivary proteomic composition.1,2 These salivary changes may adversely affect oral intake, swallowing, voice, and speech3; in turn decreasing overall quality of life.4 To date, no study has investigated patient perceptions of swallowing and communication relative to salivary changes in SS.

Objectives: This case-control, mixed methods feasibility study will: 1) explore changes in saliva quantity and quality in individuals with SS as compared to healthy controls, and 2) examine the relation between perceptions of communication and swallowing relative to salivary biomarkers.

Methods: We will collect both stimulated and unstimulated saliva from participants. Other data will include standardized examinations of the oral cavity along with a semi-structured interview focusing on perceptions of communication and swallowing. Participants will also complete a validated quality of life survey (SWAL-QOL5).

Analyses: Salivary assays will include alpha-amylase, cortisol, and mucins. Correlations between salivary composition and perceptions will be explored and summarized according to themes.

Impact: We will explore findings which may assist with personalized salivary, swallowing, and communication support for those with SS. Ultimately, these methods may be expanded to additional autoimmune and chronic illnesses in which patients experience salivary changes and concomitant communication and swallowing impairments. 

Authors: Veronica Letawsky, Camilla Dawson, Parker J. Holman, Stacey A. Skoretz

Abstract:

Infants undergo a period of perceptual attunement, during which their ability to discriminate non-native phonetic contrasts declines and they improve on native phonetic contrast discrimination.

Infants track the statistics of phoneme distributions and this facilitates both the collapsing of non-native phonetic boundaries and enhances the discrimination of non-native and difficult native contrasts (Maye et al., 2002; Maye et al., 2008; Yoshida et al., 2010). Using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigate whether neuronal responses to liquid consonants are modulated by exposure to speech sound distributions spanning the [r]~[l] phoneme space. English monolingual 5-month-old and 9-month-old infants are familiarized to either a unimodal or bimodal distribution of speech sounds. An ERP oddball task is used to assess infants’ discrimination of ‘ra’ and ‘la’ tokens. 5-month-olds exposed to the bimodal distribution show a mismatch response (mmr) to the deviant sound, while infants exposed to the unimodal distribution do not. 9-month-olds exposed to the bimodal distribution similarly show a mmr to the deviant sound. At this age, infants exposed to the unimodal distribution show a mmr to the deviant sound when the direction of the contrast change is easier, but not when it is more difficult. In conclusion, at 5-months infants’ perception of liquid speech sound contrasts is highly sensitive to the distribution of speech sounds encountered in the environment. By 9-months phonetic categories have begun to stabilize and only more difficult sound contrasts are disrupted by altered environmental exposure.

Authors: Rebecca K. Reh, Takao K. Hensch, Janet F. Werker

Abstract:

“Dehumanization” refers to the tendency to perceive outgroup members as possessing fewer human-like qualities than ingroup members (Haslam, 2006). Indeed, adults attribute fewer, or less complex, mental states to outgroups (Leyens et al., 2001), and even 6-year-olds perceive outgroup faces as less human than ingroup ones (McLoughlin et al., 2018). It is currently unknown whether the tendency to dehumanize outgroups emerges in infancy.

The current study explores whether infants are less likely to attribute goals to linguistic outgroup members, by adapting a classic paradigm examining infant’s ability to attribute basic object goals to agents (Woodward, 1998). In this paradigm, an agent repeatedly reaches for the same object, and then appears to change her goal by reaching for the other object. Infants find this change surprising (look longer) by 5 months. Here, 11-month-olds saw two experimenters speaking in different languages (English/Spanish), and then either the English or the Spanish speaker reached for objects as in the Woodward (1998) paradigm.

Data is still being collected (current n=26; pre-registered n=40); however, a repeated-measures ANOVA on log-transformed attention to the first pair of events (new goal/old goal) with condition (ingroup/outgroup) as a between-subjects factor yields a significant interaction between group and looking, F(1,24)=7.36, p=.012, ηp2=.235. As in past work, infants in the ingroup condition looked significantly longer at goal changes (paired-t(10)=3.56, p=.005, d=0.76); however, infants in the outgroup condition did not (paired-t(14)=-.98, p=.342, d=0.28). These preliminary results suggest that some aspects of humans’ tendency to dehumanize may develop within the first year of life.

Authors: Fibha Khan, Miranda Sitch, Andrew Baron, & Kiley Hamlin

Abstract:

Bilingual babies distinguish their languages, track the features of each, and keep these representations separate.

Thus, some suggest that a bilingual environment should heighten and improve attentional control (i.e., the ability to focus selectively and cast out unnecessary information), given the increased demand of these mechanisms for supporting language management. Several studies report that bilingualism is associated with changes in brain structure and function. In particular, bilingual children and adults show greater engagement of the left frontal “language” regions during a non-verbal visuo-spatial attention task, whereas monolinguals engage right frontal regions. Little is known about the developmental course of these differences and whether early bilingual experience impacts infants’ cognitive and brain organization. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, we measured brain activity in monolingual- and bilingual-learning 6-month-old infants during a version of the Infant Orienting with Attention task. Preliminary results replicate prior findings by revealing bilingual infants activate left frontal “language” regions for non-verbal attentional control, to a greater extent than monolingual-raised babies. Taken together, these results begin to indicate how the brain supports dual-language acquisition and how language experience can alter the neural organization underlying broader, non-linguistic cognitive functions.

Authors: Maria M. Arredondo

Abstract:

Context dependent memory refers to observations that various types of memory display marked improvements when recall takes place in the same context where memory encoding took place (Smith & Vela, 2001). The consequences of context-dependent memory should be considered in the development of any educational setting (Koens, Ten Cate, and Custers, 2003). Because Virtual Reality (VR) has been rapidly adopted for a variety of pedagogical and business purposes (Bloomberg, 2017), understanding whether the environmental context of VR can alter memory encoding, learning, and accuracy of subsequent retrieval has implications for the effectiveness of VR as a medium for pedagogical and business uses. To date, there has been very few studies investigating whether contextual effects are present in VR. Research by Schomaker, van Bronkhorst, and Meeter (2014) investigated whether exploring novel vs familiar VR environments improved recall of words and found that those who explored a novel environment in VR while learning a list of words had improved recall over those who explored a familiar virtual environment. The observation that novel VR contexts facilitate word learning suggests contextual reinstatement (Baddely, Eysenck and Anderson, 2009) facilitates improved retrieval accuracy in VR. No research to date has explicitly investigated whether reinstatement effects can be observed in VR environments.

Future research investigating whether word recall is improved when revisiting VR environments where encoding took place, or whether recall is impaired if testing occurs in a VR environment which differs, may shed much insight into the effects of context dependent learning in virtual environments.

Authors: Arian Shamei, Ryan Taylor, Kimiko Ota, Esther YT Wong, Megan Keough, and Bryan Gick

Abstract:

Background: The primary progressive aphasias (PPAs) are group of language-led dementias characterized by insidious language loss, initially leaving cognitive abilities relatively intact. PPA tends to appear earlier than most dementias, when a person is in late middle life and may still have dependent children and work responsibilities. A diagnosis results in a high amount of psychological and economic burden for the individual and family. Individuals with PPA and their families often fail to receive appropriate support or advice as symptoms progress. Qualitative research examining the experience of living with PPA is essential to identifying what supports are needed for individuals with the disorder and their families. The present review aims to identify what is currently known about the experience of living with PPA from the perspective of the individuals with the disorder and their family members. 

Method: PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and the Cochrane Library were searched. 

Result: Eight studies were included in the review. Seven of the studies focused solely on the experience of living with PPA, while one publication included one participant living with PPA as a part of a study that focused on frontotemporal dementia. Two studies provided experiences from participants diagnosed with PPA. 

Conclusion: The current state of knowledge lacks a broad exploration from the perspective of the person with PPA. A difference in focus was found between the experiences of the individual and experiences of the family. The included studies have not addressed or explored how experiences of living with PPA change as the disease progresses. 

Authors: Katharine Davies, Tami Howe

Abstract:

Bracing of the sides of the tongue against the palate and upper molars is a pervasive posture maintained during normal speech (Gick et al., 2017).

However, it is unclear whether bracing is an indispensable feature for speech, or simply the resting position for the sides of the tongue while the jaw is in a relatively high position. In the present study, we use bite blocks to create jaw separation to show that lingual bracing is an essential part of speech production, and we use biomechanical simulation to suggest that lingual bracing is actively maintained. We collected video footage that shows tongue movement while native English speakers read a passage out loud while their mouth is kept open by bite blocks on both sides. Biomechanical simulations were employed to assess the minimal degree of muscle activation necessary to maintain bracing during normal speech in comparison to speech with bite block perturbation. Experimental results show that, even under bite block condition, the sides of the tongue brace against the roof of the mouth over 90 percent of the time during speech. Results from biomechanical simulation show that, compared to normal speech, significant increases in muscle activation are necessary to achieve bracing under bite block perturbation. Hence, tongue bracing is actively maintained and is essential for speech production.

Authors: Yadong Liu, Sophia Luo, Monika Łuszczuk, Bryan Gick

Abstracts:

There are several acoustic cues to stop contrasts in English, such as voice-onset time (VOT) and aspiration. These cues are typically complementary, but when English listeners hear speech sounds like Marathi voiced aspirated stops, these cues conflict. Here we focus on aspiration and VOT, as few studies have examined the trading relation between them. We recorded Marathi talkers producing nonce words with voiced aspirates, e.g. /dʱaːsaː/, and asked 24 Canadian English listeners to rate each stop on a 6-point scale from voiced to voiceless. 

Three acoustic measures were taken using Praat for each token: VOT; pre-vocalic interval (PVI), the interval between release and modal voicing, measuring the duration of aspiration; and noise-to-harmonic ratio (NHR) of the interval between release and modal voicing, measuring the periodicity of aspiration. 

Voiced aspirates tended to be rated as “voiced,” likely due to their pre-voicing, but ratings were highly variable. We used linear models to determine the source of this variability, with a different model for each measure. VOT was not significant (p > 0.18) and PVI fit the data poorly (p < 0.05, adjusted R2 ≈ 0.09), but NHR explained most of the variability in ratings (p < 10-11, adjusted R2 ≈ 0.56). Tokens with higher NHR were rated more voiceless. 

In brief, VOT explained the mean rating and NHR predicted variation from that mean. These results show how non-native speech perception can yield insight 

Authors: Luca Cavasso, Henny Yeung

Abstract:

This research focuses on heritage language learners (HLL) – that is, people who are learning a second language that is considered their “heritage” and is not their dominant language – and how public libraries can improve their language programming or multilingual collections to better serve these learners.

Generally, HLLs are found to be underserved in existing programs and classes, as they have different motivations, experience, and skills when compared to recreational foreign language learners in language classes (those learning a language for leisure purposes). Additionally, the study investigates ways in which HLLs seek out resources for language learning by interviewing HLLs of Spanish living in Vancouver, Canada, and what perspectives they have about the effectiveness of different methods and resources for language learning. Recommendations are made for practical applications of language programming, cultural events, and uses for multilingual collections in public libraries based on what is available at the Vancouver Public Library, although other libraries may find these recommendations useful. 

Author: Victoria Gomez

Abstract:

In recent years, the number of students with heritage Cantonese background enrolled in Cantonese courses is on the rise in North America.

In Vancouver two Cantonese programs were established within the last five years, offering courses tailored to heritage learners (HL) of Cantonese. This pilot case study aims to investigate the motivation of such Cantonese heritage learners and its relationship to their views on their own identities. The research questions for this study are focused on 1) What motivates heritage learners of Cantonese to study the target language in a classroom setting? 2) What impact and significance does the view of Cantonese HLs toward their own identity have on their language learning? This study uses a comparative case study approach involving two Cantonese heritage students enrolled in the basic Cantonese course at the University of British Columbia and two students of similar background at a community adult Cantonese language program in Vancouver Chinatown. The four subjects take questionnaire surveys and in-depth personal interviews with questions for investigation of their perceptions of identities, language attitudes, and learner motivation. Classes in both programs are also observed and field notes are taken by the researcher to allow access to information of the student in-class language performance. It is expected the collected data from the students and class observations will provide insights on how learner identity contribute to learner motivation for learning Cantonese as a heritage language both in the local Vancouver context as well as heritage language acquisition in general.

Authors: Raymond Pai

Abstract:

Vowel mergers, in which two phonological categories collapse over time, are well documented in the sociolinguistic literature (e.g., Labov et al. 1991; Hay et al. 2013, inter alia).

Splits are thought to be rare; only a few cases have been documented, e.g. Baranowski (2007). Turning to consonant changes gives us opportunities to observe splits in progress. How can we characterize the phonological systems of participating speakers? We examine a split in progress in the Spanish dialect of Seville, which traditionally has had only one anterior fricative phoneme /s/ (Carbonero Cano 2003). Pressure from standard Castilian, which has a contrast between /s/ and /T/, has led to an ongoing phonemic split in Seville and other Andalusian cities (Santana 2016; Regan 2017).

Sociolinguistic interviews with 12 men and 12 women from the city of Seville, ages 20{35, were collected to evaluate their production of /T/. The speaker rate of [T] in standard /T/ contexts ranged from 0 to .96 (mean N/speaker = 122; Figure 1). At first glance, this suggests that they are merged speakers, but upon close inspection [T] is produced almost exclusively in contexts where it is standard. This lexical knowledge suggests an underlying phonological split in the individual speakers. For the same speakers, a semantic priming experiment comparing lexical activation induced by merged and unmerged versions of words containing /T/ { that is, the word pronounced with [s] vs. with [T] { showed an advantage in processing for the local form [s] (Figure 2), raising questions about the perception/production link.

Authors: Duna Gylfadóttir

Abstract:

Communities in Bangladesh often consider English as a language of international development.

Education policies of Bangladesh have precipitated different policy changes to improve the English language competence of learners. Communicative language teaching approach (CLT) was introduced into the curriculum to enhance students’ English language competence. (National Curriculum and Textbook Board [NCTB], 2012). However, this curriculum ignores the importance of using translanguaging and students’ local languages in English classes, which is salient for children’s cognitive development (Cummins, 2000, 2011). This presentation highlights the significance of translanguaging in the English lessons by focusing on some significant findings of a concurrent mixed method study conducted at the government primary schools in Bangladesh. Questionnaires were administered to 37 teachers. The quantitative findings were later substantiated by interviewing five teachers and observing two English lessons. Findings show that teachers’ language deficiency in English challenged meaningful integration of the CLT approach. Students also struggled with English, and their participation was limited to choral responses. Drawing theoretically on “translanguaging” (Garcia, 2009; Garcia & Li, 2014), this presentation proposes that the current language policy of integrating CLT into teaching English in Bangladeshi primary schools need to be reconceptualized and localized in the context of Bangladesh by legitimating systemic use of translanguaging as a pedagogical resource. This presentation suggests that treating English and students’ local languages as a single integrated system and accessing them for communicative purposes when needed will deepen teachers’ and learners’ investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015) in content and language learning.

Authors: Asma Afreen

Abstract:

Children utilize an assortment of information during word-learning, including linguistic heuristics (e.g., mutual exclusivity—the assumption that objects can only have one label) and socio-pragmatic cues (e.g., looking, pointing) to reason about word-object pairings.

However, the relative weight that children give to these sources of information is unclear. To assess which source is privileged during early word-learning, we examined how 15- to 48-month-old monolinguals resolve conflicts between these sources – linguistic vs. social – when given instructions to retrieve an object. Toddlers were first presented with one familiar and one novel object. The experimenter then provided a strong socio-pragmatic cue by looking at and pointing to the familiar object (a ball) while uttering a novel label (“Can you get the fep?”), or by looking at and pointing to the novel object while uttering a familiar label (“Can you give me the ball?”). Subsequently, a different experimenter entered the room and requested one of the objects (i.e., “fep” or “ball”) without providing any social cues. Although toddlers first provided the object consistent with the social cue, indicating a large weight placed on that information, when the second researcher requested the target object without providing these cues, children gave responses consistent with mutual-exclusivity. Thus, while children may momentarily override word-learning heuristics in certain contexts (i.e., with particular people, when given strong sociopragmatic cues), this may not alter their assumptions about the word-object pairings, themselves. We discuss these findings within the broader context how children leverage and reason about different sources of information during word-learning.

Authors: Denitza Dramkin, Susan Birch, D. Geoffrey Hall, Janet F. Werker, Darko Odic

Abstract:

The presentation reports some of the results from my on-going research which explores if and to what extent second generation immigrants in Vancouver BC participate in the Canadian Shift and Canadian Raising, two features that have been shown to be undergoing change in Canadian English (Canadian Raising: Hung, Davidson, & Chambers 1993; Boberg 2008; Pappas & Jeffrey 2013; Canadian Shift: Clarke, Elms, & Youssef 1995; Sadlier-Brown and Tamminga 2008), as well as in allophonic variation of pre-velar and pre-nasal /æ/ which may be a relatively new change in this location (Boberg 2010, Mellesmoen 2016, Swan 2016).

SFU male and female undergraduate students (18-21 y.o.) who self-identified as Anglo-Canadians, Chinese Canadians, and South Asian Canadians (second generation immigrants) were interviewed for the study. Formant measurements of words containing the target vowels were conducted in Praat and normalized following Boberg (2010). Data on ethnic orientation (Hoffman and Walker 2010) was recorded for each speaker, and the speakers were positioned along a continuum of having a stronger or weaker affiliation with their heritage language and culture.

The preliminary results of the statistical analysis suggest that overall speakers with different ethnic background share the same linguistic system; like reported in Hoffman and Walker (2010), the difference is “more a question of degree than of kind” (p.59). To account for inter-group and intra-group variability, ethnic identity data from the interviews is examined.

Authors: Irina Presnyakova

Abstract:

The relationship between speech perception and production is central to understanding language processing, yet remains under debate, particularly in early development.

Recent research suggests that in infants aged 6-months, when the native phonological system is still being established, sensorimotor information from the articulators influences speech perception (Bruderer et al. 2015). The placement of a teething toy restricting tongue tip movements interfered with infants’ discrimination of a non-native contrast, /Da/-/da/ that involves tongue tip movement. This effect was selective: a different teething toy that prevented lip closure but not tongue tip movement did not disrupt discrimination. We conducted two sets of studies to replicate and extend these findings. First, we replicated Bruderer et al. (2015), but with synthesized auditory stimuli. Infants discriminated the non-native contrast (dental /da/ - retroflex /Da/), but showed no evidence of discrimination when the tongue-tip movement was prevented. Second, we extended this work to a native phonetic contrast (bilabial /ba/ - dental /da/). Infants discriminated the distinction with no teething toy present, but when they were given a teething toy that interfered only with lip closure, as required for production of /ba/, discrimination was disrupted. Importantly, this was the same teething toy that did not interfere with discrimination of /da/-/Da/ in Bruderer et al. (2015). These findings reveal specificity in the relation between sensorimotor and perceptual processes in pre-babbling infants, and show generalizability to multiple phonetic contrasts.

Authors: Sheri Dawoon Choi

Abstract:

The role of landscape architecture in Indigenous language revitalization.

This graduate design project argues that language is spatial, and seeks to examine the relationship between language, place and local ecology.

Specifically asking the question of how local environments can play a role in shaping language, ultimately influencing the speaker’s perception of space and environment.

The rapid decline of Indigenous languages over the last 300 years due to colonialization and industrialization has led to the loss of localized knowledge surrounding culture and ecology. As a response to this decline, many Indigenous communities are working to revive and sustain their languages.

This research project investigates the possibility of landscape architecture being a vehicle for developing outdoor spaces conducive to language revitalization.

The project will examine the endangered Haida language as an example of this phenomena and develop a proposal for how landscape architecture might be able to contribute to Haida Gwaii’s language revitalization movement.

Authors: Michelle Gagnon-Creeley

Abstract:

This study compares the lexical tone perception abilities of two populations with different bilingual configurations: Cantonese-dominant adults who grew up in Hong Kong (referred to as homeland speakers), and English-dominant adults who grew up in a Cantonese-speaking household in Canada (heritage speakers).

From infancy both were exposed to Cantonese as a first language in terms of chronological order; however, after the onset of schooling, each became dominant in the majority language of their respective society. Given this background, this study investigates whether heritage speakers’ perception of lexical tones of a non-dominant first language (Cantonese) exhibits cross-language effects from a dominant second language (English). A series of perception experiments was conducted using the word identification paradigm. Eight types of audio stimuli were presented to homeland and heritage speakers (N=34 per group), each of which represented a specific configuration of four variables: whether the acoustic signal contained segmental and tonal information, whether the target word was isolated or embedded in a carrier sentence with semantic context, and whether the meaning of the target word was congruous with the carrier sentence. Results show that when the target word was semantically incongruous with the carrier sentence, homeland speakers outperformed heritage speakers by attending to acoustic information, while heritage speakers relied on semantic information relatively more often. In other words, the two groups used different listening strategies in tone identification. These results inform us how multilingual competence works in the human mind, especially in a world where migration is common.

Authors: Zoe Wai-Man Lam

Abstract:

The violence of colonial education systems derives, in part, from linguistic and epistemic hegemonies that systematically delegitimize local languages and knowledge systems.

In Tanzania, the colonial legacy continues to cast its shadows on the education system, including in the muting of the 130+ local languages in favour of Kiswahili and English, the marginalization of alternative ways of knowing (including traditional knowledges, orality, and artistic production), and the active suppression of independent thinking and creativity. This paper interrogates the findings of a three-year critical action research study which challenges the monolingual ideologies of mainstream Tanzanian schooling by claiming space for learners’ full linguistic and cultural resources. Employing a framework of Ubuntu translanguaging (Makalela, 2015), this study explores the complementarity of diverse linguistic resources by embracing Maa (Maasai language), Kiswahili and English simultaneously in the twin processes of learning and knowledge production. The findings show that translanguaging and multimodalities opened space for divergent ways of thinking and knowing, constant engagement with alternatives, and imaginations of more just, equitable worlds. Translanguaging and multimodalities also enabled learners who are marginalized in mainstream schools to claim identities as authors, teachers, language experts, artists, and esteemed team members.

Authors: Monica Shank Lauwo

Abstract:

Sign languages present interesting opportunities for investigating the emergence of linguistic structure; they often contain iconic elements, which may be quite similar across unrelated languages, raising questions about the source(s) of the iconicity.

Body parts, however, are exceptional because, unlike other nouns, body parts are always present in the context of communication. Signers (and novel sign creators) can simply point to the body part in question, removing the necessity of sign creation. Nevertheless, sign languages do have lexical items referring to body-parts, as well as the anaphoric movement that is quite distinct from gestural pointing (at least in American Sign Language, Pyers 2006). Thus, despite the possibility of pointing to body parts, body part terms are truly linguistic in sign languages even when the forms are deictic. Where these trends come from is not clear. We asked if sign-naïve gesturers asked to create novel lexical items would also coin body part terms with some sort of systematic underlying scheme, or whether they will default at simple pointing and/or other strategies. The data came from a corpus which consists of responses from 50 sign-naïve hearing English speakers (ages 18-72) creating signs for 110 concrete objects (including 10 body parts). The participants came up with systems that have a common underlying scheme which shares features with ASL, suggesting that the handshape distinction based on the size and proximity of the body part has a more general cognitive motivation.

Authors: Oksana Tkachman

Abstract:

The aim of this presentation is to critically deconstruct the discourse of former Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford, in the televised interview Ford gave to CBC’s interviewer Dwight Drummond in July of 2014.

This was his first interview where he talked about his drug use and addiction, attempted rehabilitation, and whether he would resign from public office or not. I want to find clues as to how he was able to attract such a large group of voters and maintain public support for so long. Using linguistic tools, including discourse and conversation analysis, as well as discourse psychology, I conclude that the interview is a specific case of image-making in discourse and political messaging. It is important to note that the use of discourse to construct preferred identities and personal images is not isolated to Ford or to politicians in general. Linguistic tools will be essential to help us truly understand stimulating conversations and interviews from a wide range of media sources in the past, present, and future.

Authors: Janette Leung

Abstract:

Pitch perception models can be divided into spectral models and temporal models.

Many studies are based on the spectral models which involve harmonic resolution in the peripheral auditory system. However, the peripheral auditory system cannot resolve above the 10th harmonic. Temporal models hypothesize that temporal regularity across auditory nerve fibres approximates the pitch of an acoustic stimulus. The current study investigated the maturation of temporal pitch perception in infancy at the level of the auditory cortex using iterated ripple noise (IRN) stimuli with different iterations to examine the effects of temporal pitch strength. The study compared the acoustic change complex (ACC), a cortical auditory evoked potential, to IRN stimuli in 25 infants (mean age: 8.6 months) and 8 adults (mean age: 20.8 years) with normal hearing. A total of four IRN stimuli (adults: IRN4, IRN8, IRN16 & IRN32; infants: IRN16 & IRN 32) with the duration of 1000 ms were generated (i.e., 500 ms noise + 500 ms IRN) to elicit the ACC. The results demonstrated that cortical encoding of the temporal pitch cues is strengthened as the number of iterations increases in the IRN stimuli in both infants and adults. However, there were significant differences between infants and adults’ cortical responses. Adult participants elicited cortical responses to all IRN stimuli, whereas, only some infants demonstrated ACCs to temporal pitch cues (IRN32 > IRN16). The findings showed that the cortical response of the temporal pitch perception of IRN stimuli is not mature in infancy.

Authors: Sylvia Chan, Susan Small

Abstract:

Chiac, a French dialect spoken in Southeast New Brunswick, namely around Moncton, is known for containing many borrowed terms from English, including a number of discursive markers (see Chevalier, 2002, 2007; King, 2008; Petras 2005).

Discursive markers are words which gain their meaning from context and are used to manage the flow of conversation (Dostie, 2004; Petras, 2005). Whatever, an English-origin discursive marker, is one of these borrowed terms used frequently by Chiac speakers in everyday language (Chevalier, 2007; King, 2008). This study describes the discursive uses of whatever in Chiac whilst comparing them to those identified in English contexts (see Benus et al., 2007; Brinton 2017; Kleiner, 1998; Tagliamonte, 2016; Wagner et al., 2015), to determine whether Chiac speakers have borrowed the same set of pragmatic functions. My research identifies and categorizes the uses of whatever, and its French counterparts (peu importe, n’importe quoi, pis tout ça), based on two corpora, Perrot (1991) and Anna-Malenfant (1994), composed of self-directed interviews between Moncton adolescents. Whatever has six distinctive pragmatic functions in Chiac, and its roles in conversation are quite similar to those it plays in English dialogue. It is used most frequently in Chiac as a marker of approximation. Chiac speakers use whatever to close an utterance when they are unable to recall a particular word or detail related to what precedes it, signifying the forgotten detail is not of importance to the conversation. Further, none of its French variants have the same multifunctionality as this borrowed English discursive marker.

Authors: Francesca Jackman

Abstract:

Crossmodal sound-shape correspondence refers to the association between non-sense words (e.g., /kiki/) and visual abstract shapes (e.g., a spikey shape, see review by Spence, 2012), haptically explored objects (Fryer et al., 2014), as well as kinesthetic trajectories (Fontana, 2013).

However, little is known regarding if and how sound-shape correspondences across different senses interact with each other. Here we examined in children (1) whether the strength of audio-visual (AV) and audio-tactile (AT) sound-shape correspondences is comparable, and (2) the role of prior visual shape experience on AT correspondence. Three experiments were conducted at the Living Laboratory® of Museum of Science Boston, where participants chose which of two (visually or haptically explored) shapes matched a given non-sense word. In Exp 1, We found an insignificant AT association in 6-8 year-olds, which is considerably weaker than that of AV association of the same age group or that of AT association in older children. We then showed that 6-8 year-olds exhibited a significant AT association after completing an AV block (Exp 2) or an Visuo-Tactile block (Exp 3) where they chose which of two shapes they saw on a monitor matched a shape they felt with their hands but did not see. Our results highlight that crossmodal correspondences of different sensory combinations (AV, AT) do not develop at the same rate, even though they appear to reflect similar feature mapping. Furthermore, visual shape experience might be critical to the exhibition of audio-tactile sound-shape correspondence in young children.

Authors: Hiu Mei Chow

Abstract:

Second language learners in university classrooms must navigate writing assignments in order to participate in their various academic discourse communities. Higher education internationalization has compounded this matter, as students across tertiary contexts must negotiate meaning in ways that will complement their academic achievement.

Specifically, writing assignments act as symbols of success as they are associated with assessment practices (Benesch, 2001; Charles & Pecorari, 2016; Flowerdew, 2016; Hyland, 2016). The high-stakes aspect of university writing makes it an important topic for learners and practitioners alike. Drawing upon Bourdieu’s notions of cultural and linguistic capital and classroom as a site of struggle (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977), the researcher designed two projects to explore issues surrounding language and culture within assignments and course expectations. The original study centered on the expectations of one undergraduate generation 1.5 student and her instructor towards assignments in a writing intensive course at an American university. The second project took place at a Japanese university Academic Literacy course and focused on student-centered workshops to deconstruct classroom materials. Findings from these projects revealed that written expectations on assignment sheets, exam instructions, and assessment procedures created mismatches in student understanding of academic requirements within the classroom. However, through dissecting specific language used in course materials, learners were able to create meaning within tasks in order to approach assignments and assessment more autonomously. This presentation is two-fold. First, it will give an overview of the abovementioned projects. Second, it will describe future directions for this research within the Canadian university context.

Authors: Sara Van Dan Acker

Abstract:

Speech-language pathologists rely on differences in the amount of aspiration noise in voices to assess breathiness.

Studies have shown that the perception of aspiration noise difference limens (noise DLs) in breathy voices is affected by glottal and vocal tract properties. These studies typically used vowel stimuli in which spectral characteristics associated with glottal and vocal tract properties covaried, which resulted in difficulty with identifying the relative importance of these properties on noise DLs. The current study therefore investigated noise DLs in harmonic series maskers, for which various spectral properties can be independently manipulated. These maskers consisted of equal-amplitude harmonics in three non-overlapping spectral bands (B1, B2, B3). Each band had a width of 10 equivalent rectangular bandwidth (ERB) units. B1 comprised resolved harmonics, B2 comprised unresolved and resolved harmonics, and B3 comprised unresolved harmonics. The fundamental frequency (F0) was either 130 or 210 Hz; the overall band level was either 50 or 70 dBA. Noise DLs were obtained for eight listeners using an adaptive unforced-choice task. They were presented with two maskers with different amounts of noise in each trial. Listeners had to choose which of the two maskers had the greatest amount of noise (or indicate that they did not know). Bayesian linear mixed-effects analysis showed that noise discrimination was better for B1 and B2, compared to B3. The findings will be discussed in relation to predictions of auditory processing models [Patterson, Allerhand, Gigue re, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 98(4), 1890–1894 (1995)]..

Authors: Ilse B. Labuschagne, Valter Ciocca

Abstract:

This presentation describes the creation of a culturally and linguistically relevant storybook written for 10-12 year old children in the Ladakh, a high-altitude region of the Indian Himalayas.

Formerly a part of the Tibetan Empire, Ladakh, or “the land of high passes,” has undergone tremendous change since opening to tourism in the mid 1970s, transforming from a largely agricultural economy to one heavily dependent on tourism. Language shift from Ladakhi to Hindi and English, as well as a profound sense of cultural alienation, are among the unintended consequences of the tourist industry and thorough incorporation of Ladakh into the Indian market economy. Having interviewed numerous teachers, principals, and education activists in the summer of 2016, they nearly unanimously argued that the lack of culturally relevant, Ladakhi-centric material was a major reason young Ladakhis failed to learn their language well and the cultural values embedded within it. I returned to Ladakh in August 2017 to work with a team of local Ladakhi university students, writers and illustrators to produce a children’s storybook rooted in the people, landscape, language and culture of Ladakh. 1,000 copies were printed in February 2018 and are currently distributed by the Ladakh by the Himalayan Cultural Heritage Foundation. The presentation describes the collaborative process of research, writing, and illustration that produced the book, as well as how we navigated the delicate balance of honouring colloquial Ladakhi while still respecting the grammar and spelling of the literary Tibetan language on which it is based.

Authors: Patrick Dowd

Abstract:

Vowel pronunciations (measured in Hz) form distributions that vary from normally distributed to quite skewed.

Labov (2001) noted that vowels undergoing change tend to be skewed, while stable ones are not. We asked: Does the shape of a vowel's distribution play a causal role in the continuation of vowel shifts, due to how distributions are learned? Specifically, we asked whether (1) participants exposed to a normal distribution would learn and reproduce the mean of that distribution and (2) participants exposed to a skewed distribution would learn a target different than the mean of the distribution they were exposed to, thus producing "vowel" shift. We exposed participants (n=238) to a positively skewed, negatively skewed, or normal distribution of pure tones varying in pitch (to mimic how vowels vary in quality). Participants were told they were listening to notes played by amateur musicians who’d been aiming for the same note. In each trial, participants listened to 20 tones then played the note they thought was the target. We measured participants' difference scores: the difference between a participant's output and the trial's input mean. In the two conditions analyzed so far (normal and positively skewed), participants output pitches that were slightly higher than the mean of the input set, indicating shift in both conditions; however, the difference between conditions is not significant. There is also an effect of the final note in the set, evoking the well-established recency effect in memory work (Crowder and Morton 1969). Analysis of the third condition is ongoing.

Authors: Emily Sadlier-Brown, Carla Hudson Kam

Abstract:

In view of the increasing demands for better quality English language learning (ELL) round the world, English teacher education has arguably been a relevant research area in recent years.

At the same time, many countries have been attempting to implement new models and ideas (Darling-Hammond & Lieberman, 2012) to provoke change and leverage teacher education practices that might positively influence ELL teacher knowledge and identities. In this context, this paper aims to give a general view of a recent unique national teacher education program implemented in Brazil, with focus on the teaching of ELL (André, 2012). The program described in this paper is the object of a broader postdoctoral research project that investigates how the experience of a group of English teacher candidates, participants of that program, might have enabled the development of more complex, dynamic and socioculturally responsive professional identities (Hawkins & Norton, 2009) by reference to three specific areas: critical literacy, multimodality and special needs teaching practices. Ultimately, my goal is to share the aims, design and accomplishments of what I understand as an innovative teacher education project in the area of ELL teacher education, as well as discuss some of the challenges that had to be faced.

Authors: Angélica Maia

Abstract:

There is strong evidence to suggest that we have evolved to exploit innate capacities and experience to guide what we consider to be communicative.

This has been well described for language, however there are other potentially communicative signals that we may have evolved to, or are prepared to learn. Given our 10,000 year co-evolution with dogs, dog vocalizations may be one such signal. If so, hearing dog barks could theoretically elicit a neural response similar to the response elicited by speech. This response may or may not require experience with dog vocalizations. Therefore, we ask: Are infants’ neural responses to dog vocalizations similar to those to human speech? We recruited 3- to 6-month-old typically-developing infants with and without pet dogs to measure their neural response (fNIRS) to forward and backwards human and dog vocalizations; 104 completed the task and we are currently analyzing the NIRS response data in left and right temporal areas overlying the auditory areas within the superior and middle temporal gyrus and social-attentional areas approximately overlying the superior , middle, and inferior frontal gyri (per Kessler et al., 2006; Lloyd-Fox et al., 2014; Okamoto et al., 2004). If we are prepared to flexibly accommodate dog barks without experience, we hypothesize infants will show comparable activation to dog barks as to human speech. If experience is required, only infants with pet dogs will show this pattern. This would suggest a potential evolutionary origin for communicative flexibility and may predict how well we can utilize other non-linguistic communicative signals.

Authors: Nicole Sugden, Janet Werker