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Devise A Pronunciation Experiment

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tarvos
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 Message 17 of 49
03 April 2013 at 11:01am | IP Logged 
Actually, on that note, what is the difference between a phonetician and a speech
therapist?
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Arekkusu
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 Message 18 of 49
03 April 2013 at 3:24pm | IP Logged 
schoenewaelder wrote:
Not an experiment, but I'd quite like to see some research on the correlation between good accents and musical or other abilities and/or aptitudes:

recognise notes
produce/sing notes
distinguish between different instruments
recognise well known tunes or compositions
understand the lyrics in pop songs
dancing ability
march in step/time

I think it's quite obvious that being a professional musician or singer does NOT give you special abilities in pronunciation (think of famous opera singers), let alone being a drummer ("march in step" as you mention).

Similarly, having good pronunciation does not directly imply that you are a good singer or that you have musical abilities. There might be a higher proportion of musically enclined people in that group, but neither ability leads to the other.

To me, this seems to indicate that they are rather two forms of a similar set of skills, namely the ability to parse details in sounds and to control output to match a target.

Singers modulate pitch and sound quality, but not necessarily finer movements, so they may not pronounce well, whereas good "pronouncers" (!) control these finer movements, but not necessarily the quality of the voice and the techniques needed to produce pitch-accurate notes. Inevitably, some people can do both.
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Arekkusu
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 Message 19 of 49
03 April 2013 at 4:18pm | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
Actually, on that note, what is the difference between a phonetician and a speech therapist?

A phonetician studies phonetics; a speech therapist helps people with speech problems.
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 20 of 49
03 April 2013 at 6:47pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
Research project:

Can a trained phonetician (or whatever the relevant profession name is) make lasting changes in the pronunciation of a language learner after one hour of one-to-one instruction?[...]


Maybe Olle "Speech doctor" Kjellin has some valueable information about this? I'll PM him.
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Arekkusu
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 Message 21 of 49
04 April 2013 at 3:09am | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
schoenewaelder wrote:
Not an experiment, but I'd quite like to see
some research on the correlation between good accents and musical or other abilities
and/or aptitudes:

recognise notes
produce/sing notes
distinguish between different instruments
recognise well known tunes or compositions
understand the lyrics in pop songs
dancing ability
march in step/time

I think it's quite obvious that being a professional musician or singer does NOT give
you special abilities in pronunciation (think of famous opera singers), let alone being
a drummer ("march in step" as you mention).

Similarly, having good pronunciation does not directly imply that you are a good singer
or that you have musical abilities. There might be a higher proportion of musically
enclined people in that group, but neither ability leads to the other.

To me, this seems to indicate that they are rather two forms of a similar set of
skills, namely the ability to parse details in sounds and to control output to match a
target.

Singers modulate pitch and sound quality, but not necessarily finer movements, so they
may not pronounce well, whereas good "pronouncers" (!) control these finer movements,
but not necessarily the quality of the voice and the techniques needed to produce
pitch-accurate notes. Inevitably, some people can do both.

Both musical and linguistic expression could be said to be artistic activities. In this
regard, a person who is attracted to music is more likely to be attracted to languages
than the average population, and vice-versa.

However, there is no indication whatsoever that an aptitude for music has any effect on
pronunciation, or that an aptitude for pronunciation implies better singing skills, for
instance. It certainly is not the case that an overabundant number of prominent singers
have shown outstanding pronunciation skills in foreign languages.

For all we (well, I) know, there very well could be no correlation at all between the
two skills, even though we readily accept the existence of such a correlation.



Edited by Arekkusu on 04 April 2013 at 3:11am

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Serpent
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 Message 22 of 49
04 April 2013 at 4:59am | IP Logged 
Well, musicians often sound really good when (at a concert) they are mindlessly repeating some standard phrases in the local language, things like 'thank you' and maybe something more creative. On the other hand, most non-natives sing in English with an accent, unless they've lived in an English-speaking country.

Edited by Serpent on 04 April 2013 at 5:00am

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Bao
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 Message 23 of 49
04 April 2013 at 9:35am | IP Logged 
As previous studies have shown that in adults, a strong non-native identity is linked to a strong accent, I would love to see an experiment where you first record accent and measure cultural identity, then divide them into three groups with matched participants.
All groups receive the same pronunciation training over the course of several weeks, but one is additionally primed to perceive the foreign language as a threat to their identity, one is primed to perceive it as an enrichment to their identity, and the third only receives the pronunciation training.
The questions would be: As a whole, which group fares better?
Which group has the individuals with the biggest improvement?
From which baseline do individuals improve to which degree?
Do some individuals actually regress in their ability?
Which group has the biggest gap?
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druckfehler
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 Message 24 of 49
04 April 2013 at 1:38pm | IP Logged 
I've observed that my Korean accent is far better than my English accent, even though I've spent more time learning and speaking English. I'd like to know whether a lot of classroom instruction with other non-native students (and possibly even non-native teachers) can be detrimental for one's accent in the target language. It's one of the striking differences between English and Korean for me that almost all interaction in Korean is done with native speakers.


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