Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the “articulatory setting” or “basis of articulation” of both L1 and L2 speakers of American English and investigate possible articulation parameters for its control within the framework of Task Dynamics [1]. More specifically, we extend methods and results presented in [2] to the case of native German, Hindi and Tamil speakers producing L2 English. We use audio-synchronized real-time magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology [3] to record all speakers while they produced sentences or paragraphs in the MRI scanner. We further describe the automatic extraction of measures to capture the vocal tract posture during unfilled pause intervals as well as at absolute rest. While the results indicate that individual speakers of these different native languages have significantly different articulatory settings when speaking English (which cannot be assumed to be due to language differences per se), all speakers exhibit two important effects.(1) The postures assumed during inter-speech pauses are significantly different than those assumed during an absolute rest position.(2) Based on analysis of variability during inter-speech pauses, it is more likely that individual articulator rest positions may be controlled to obtain these settings, rather than constriction (eg, tract variable) positions.
With regard to speech planning and execution, it would be useful to understand whether articulatory setting (AS) is a phonological phenomenon or a functional target/by-product of the execution of the speech plan. Studies in the literature such as [4] have argued for the existence of a language-specific AS and have further speculated that speech rest …

Date

2011

Authors

Vikram Ramanarayanan, Louis Goldstein, Dani Byrd, Shrikanth Narayanan

Journal

Proceedings of the 9th International Seminar on Speech Production (ISSP’11). Montreal, Canada