832 research outputs found
Which Language R You Speaking? /r/ as a Language Marker in Tyrolean and Italian Bilinguals
No full textAcross languages of the world the /r/ sound is known for its variability. This variability has been investigated using articulatory models as well as in sociolinguistic studies. The current study investigates to what extent /r/ is a marker of a bilingual's dominant language. To this end, a reading task was carried out by bilingual speakers from South Tyrol, who produce /r/ differently according to whether they dominantly speak Tyrolean or Italian. The recorded reading data were subsequently used in a perception experiment to investigate whether South Tyrolean bilingual listeners are able to identify the dominant language of the speaker. Results indicate that listeners use /r/ as a cue to determine the dominant language of the speaker whilst relying on articulatory distinctions between the variants. It is furthermore shown that /r/ correlates with three interdependent variables: the sociolinguistic background of the speakers, their speech production, and how their speech is perceived
An acoustic analysis of /r/ in Tyrolean
No full textThis paper offers a preliminary contribution to the phonetic description and acoustic characterization of /r/ allophony in Tyrolean dialect, an under-researched South Bavarian Dialect spoken in the North of Italy. The analysis of target words containing /r/ in different phonotactic contexts, produced by six Tyrolean female speakers, confirms the high degree of intra-speaker variation in the production of /r/ with a uvular place of articulation. The distributional analysis of the allophones in our sample shows a preference among all the speakers for a fricative manner of articulation followed by approximants and taps and, to a lesser extent, by trills (with a very small amount of vocalized variants). These results are in line with previous research in the South-Tyrolean community. Due to the high variability of rhotic sounds, we further investigate and report on some of their shared acoustic features such as duration across the different phonotactic contexts and Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio for the different allophones attested
/r/ as language marker in bilingual speech production and perception
No full textAcross languages of the world /r/ is known for its variability. Recent literature incorporates sociolinguistic factors, such as bilingualism, in order to explain /r/ variation. The current study investigates to what extent /r/ is a marker of a bilingual’s dominant language. Specifically, the effects of several sociolinguistic and phonotactic factors on the production and perception of /r/ are investigated, such as the bilingual speaker’s linguistic background, the language spoken as well as syllable position and place of articulation. To this end a reading task is carried out with bilingual speakers from South Tyrol (Italy). The major languages spoken in this region are Tyrolean (German dialect) and Italian. The recorded reading data is subsequently used in a perception experiment to investigate whether South Tyrolean listeners can identify the dominant language of the speaker on the basis of the presence of /r/ and the /r/ variant. Results show that listeners can identify the dominant language of the bilingual speakers on the basis of /r/. Specifically, the more Italian dominant the sociolinguistic background of the speaker, the more /r/ is produced frontally and the more that speaker is perceived as Italian dominant
On curves of P^n with extremal Hartshorne-Rao module in positive degrees
No full textAbstractIn this paper, we study the curves C in Pn, of degree d and genus g, with extremal Rao function in positive degrees, and non degenerate general hyperplane section. We describe their total ideal and various properties of the generators of the ideal. Moreover, we characterize these curves as intersection of two aCM curves of maximal genus whose union in aCM of maximal genus, and we completely describe the Rao function of these curves in negative degrees, too
The sociophonetic variation of /r/ in Bozen: Modelling linguistic and social variation
No full textHow do speakers reconstruct the boundaries of an allophonic system? In our paper, we address this question and examine how speakers organize into consistent groups of allophones the array of /r/-variants that are used in South-Tyrol Italian (STI). In addition, we discuss that this process of grouping is based on two intertwining sources of variation: the linguistic source and the socio-indexical source. We argue that the indexical dimension is not disconnected from the linguistic one, but it contributes in an essential way to its structuring.
Our investigation is based on a sample of two thousand tokens of /r/. These occurrences are extracted from a corpus that includes the (semi)spontaneous productions of 14 Italian-German bilingual speakers. The analysis concerns the identification of possible relationships among the allophones with respect to (a) distributional, (b) stylistic and (c) biographical factors. Data are analyzed using a multivariate exploratory technique, namely the multiple correspondence analysis approach. The results clearly show how the aggregation of indexical and linguistic factors determines the emergence of two different allophonic subsystems, that is the Italian of Italian-dominant speakers (STI-i) and the Italian of German-dominant speakers (STI-d)
An ultrasound study on the phonetic allophony of Tyrolean /R/
No full textMoving from traditional dialectological literature and inspired by contemporary research on rhotics, in this paper we present preliminary data on the distribution and the articulation of /r/ in Tyrolean, an under-researched South Bavarian dialect. Two speakers produced a comprehensive selection of Tyrolean words containing /r/. They uttered up to five different uvular rhotics: [χ, ʁ, ʁ̞, ρ, ʀ]. We found mild tendencies in the allophonic distribution of the variants, but systematic differences in their lingual configurations: trills are produced steep lowering the tongue tip; vocalizations are markedly lowered and retracted, with the tongue dorsum flat; approximants are retracted
An EPG+UTI study of Italian /r/
No full textThis paper describes a system for the acquisition, real-time synchronization and analysis of acoustic, electropalatographic (EPG) and ultrasonographic (UTI) data. Simultaneous data on linguo-palatal contact and tongue sagittal profiles are captured for rhotic consonants produced by a native speaker of Italian. Three anterior variants of /r/ ([ɾ], [ɹ̝] and [ɹ]) are
shown to be realized with an apical tongue gesture, but different vowel-related coarticulation patterns. The paper discusses the implication of the proposed analysis for a coherent investigation of lingual and linguo-palatal dynamics
Lay the Foundations for Building a Robust Eco-Design Methodology
No full textThis paper presents and discusses the possible theoretical bases of a comprehensive approach of robust eco-design to reduce the variations of the environmental impact of a product, compared to the baseline. The goal is to overcome the main limitations of contributions to the state of the art, i.e. the lack of a single approach to treat all possible causes, practical application and rigor in discussing the issues of environmental sustainability. The proposal is the intersection between eco-assessment, design theories and robust design. The eco-assessment provides the basis for an initial formulation of the environmental problems to be faced, which are correlated to the variation of the impacts. The design theories allow, through their ontology, to reformulate environmental problems in a more appropriate way to be addressed by the designer and at the same time provide, together with the robust design methods, suggestions to search the solutions. The analysis presented and the application proposal help to show the complexity and heterogeneity of the topic and reinforce the idea of introducing a systematic methodology to select the most appropriate method and favour its targeted use
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