The painful and baffling mystery as to why some obviously bright children do not begin talking until long after the "normal" time is explored in this book through personal experiences and the findings of scientific research. The author's own experiences as the father of such a child led to the formation of a group of more than fifty sets of parents of similar children. The anguish and frustration of these parents as they try to cope with children who do not talk and institutions that do not understand them is a remarkable and moving human story. Fortunately, some of these children turn out to have not only normal intelligence but even outstanding abilities, especially in highly analytical fields such as mathematics and computers. Public figures who were late in talking include the distinguished mathematician Julia Robinson, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman and - the most famous of all - Albert Einstein. Fascinating stories of late-talking children and the remarkable families from which they come are followed by explorations of recent scientific research that throws light on the unusual development patterns of such children.

The comprehensive analysis of the segmental and metrical system of the Swiss German dialect of Thurgovian provides a significant contribution to both phonetic and phonological theory. Based on the author's original fieldwork and experimental investigations, it is the first in-depth study of this area, tracing it back also to its Old High German roots, particularly that of the dialect of Notker. Quantity alternations - notably word-initial long/short consonantal alternations - asymmetric neutralization of phonetic-phonological contrasts, stress and weight are most prominent among the theoretical issues on which Thurgovian phonology is brought to bear.

Sound Patterns of Spoken English is a concise, to-the-point compendium of information about the casual pronunciation of everyday English as compared to formal citation forms. The book examines changes that occur to certain sounds and in certain parts of words and syllables in the casual, unmonitored speech of native English speakers. It outlines major phonological processes found in conversational English; reviews and criticizes attempts to include these processes in phonological theory; and surveys experimental approaches to explaining casual English pronunciation. Among the varieties of English covered are General American and Standard Southern British, but many other accents are mentioned, especially those of mainland Britain. Sound Patterns of Spoken English is of interest to students and scholars in a wide variety of fields, including sociolinguistics, lexicography, rhetoric, language learning and speech sciences, and has an accompanying website - http://www. blackwellpublishing. com/shockey - with examples from different accents.

This book brings together selected revised papers representing a multidisciplinary approach to language, music, and gesture, as well as their interaction. Among the number of multidisciplinary and comparative studies of the structure and organization of language and music, the presented book broadens the scope with the inclusion of gesture problems in the analyzed spectrum. A unique feature of the presented collection is that the papers, compiled in one volume, allow readers to see similarities and differences in gesture as an element of non-verbal communication and gesture as the main element of dance. In addition to enhancing the analysis, the data on the perception and comprehension of speech, music, and dance in regard to both their functioning in a natural situation and their reflection in various forms of performing arts makes this collection extremely useful for those who are interested in human cognitive abilities and performing skills. The book begins with a philosophical overview of recent neurophysiological studies reflecting the complexity of higher cognitive functions, which references the idea of the baroque style in art being neither linear nor stable. The following papers are allocated into 5 sections. The papers of the section "Language-Music-Gesture As Semiotic Systems" discuss the issues of symbolic and semiotic aspects of language, music, and gesture, including from the perspective of their notation. This is followed by the issues of "Language-Music-Gesture Onstage" and interaction within the idea of the "World as a Text." The papers of "Teaching Language and Music" present new teaching methods that take into account the interaction of all the cognitive systems examined. The papers of the last two sections focus on issues related primarily to language: The section "Verbalization Of Music And Gesture" considers the problem of describing musical text and non-verbal behavior with language, and papers in the final section "Emotions In Linguistics And Ai-Communication Systems" analyze the ways of expressing emotions in speech and the problems of organizing emotional communication with computer agents.

This book conducts a thorough investigation of the variation in tone sandhi patterns of Shanghai and Wuxi Wu using quantitative rating experiments. Although Shanghai Wu has been well documented, to date there has never been any quantitative study that systematically investigates the factors that influence variability - a research gap this book fills. Further, Wuxi Wu is investigated as an additional case that demonstrates the unique phonological nature of tone sandhi, and how it changes how speakers learn and internalize the variable tone sandhi pattern. The findings presented here will shed new light on important issues of wordhood, the interface of morphosyntax and phonology, and the formal model of variability in phonology.

This book introduces a new topic to applied linguistics: the significance of the TESOL teacher's background as a learner and user of additional languages. The development of the global TESOL profession as a largely English-only enterprise has led to the accepted view that, as long as the teacher has English proficiency, then her or his other languages are irrelevant. The book questions this view. Learners are in the process of becoming plurilingual, and this book argues that they are best served by a teacher who has experience of plurilingualism. The book proposes a new way of looking at teacher linguistic identity by examining in detail the rich language biographies of teachers: of growing up with two or more languages; of learning languages through schooling or as an adult, of migrating to another linguaculture, of living in a plurilingual family and many more. The book examines the history of language-in-education policy which has led to the development of the TESOL profession in Australia and elsewhere as a monolingual enterprise. It shows that teachers' language backgrounds have been ignored in teacher selection, teacher training and ongoing professional development. The author draws on literature in teacher cognition, bilingualism studies, intercultural competence, bilingual lifewriting and linguistic identity to argue that languages play a key part in the development of teachers' professional beliefs, identity, language awareness and language learning awareness. Drawing on three studies involving 115 teachers from Australia and seven other countries, the author demonstrates conclusively that large numbers of teachers do have plurilingual experiences; that these experiences are ignored in the profession, but that they have powerful effects on the formation of beliefs about language learning and teaching which underpin good practice. Those teachers who identify as monolingual almost invariably have some language learning experience, but it was low-level, short-lived and unsuccessful. How does the experience of successful or unsuccessful language learning and language use affect one's identity, beliefs and practice as an English language teacher? What kinds of experience are most beneficial? These concepts and findings have implications for teacher language education, teacher professional development and the current calls for increased plurilingual practices in the TESOL classroom.

This book presents an exhaustive treatment of a long-standing problem of Proto-Indo-European and Italic philology: the development of the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirates in the ancient languages of Italy. In so doing it tackles a central issue of historical linguistics: the plausibility of explanations for sound change. The author argues that the problem can be resolved by combining a traditional philological investigation with experimental phonetics. Philological methods enable the presentation of the first integrated account of the evidence for the Italic languages, with detailed discussion of languages other than Latin. Theory and methods from experimental phonetics are then adopted to offer a new explanation for how the sound change might have taken place. At the same time, phonetic methods also confirm the traditional reconstruction of voiced aspirates for Proto-Indo-European. Thus the book offers a case-study of the successful application of synchronic theory and method to a problem of diachrony.

This handbook is structured in two parts: it provides, on the one hand, a comprehensive (synchronic) overview of the phonetics and phonology (including prosody) of a breadth of Romance languages and focuses, on the other hand, on central topics of research in Romance segmental and suprasegmental phonology, including comparative and diachronic perspectives. Phonetics and phonology have always been a core discipline in Romance linguistics: the wide synchronic variety of languages and dialects derived from spoken Latin is extensively explored in numerous corpus and atlas projects, and for quite a few of these varieties there is also more or less ample documentation of at least some of their diachronic stages. This rich empirical database offers excellent testing grounds for different theoretical approaches and allows for substantial insights into phonological structuring as well as into (incipient, ongoing, or concluded) processes of phonological change. The volume can be read both as a state-of-the-art report of research in the field and as a manual of Romance languages with special emphasis on the key topics of phonetics and phonology.

This edited volume investigates the role of phonetics and phonology in psycholinguistics. Speaking and understanding spoken language both engage phonological and phonetic knowledge. There are detailed models of phonological and phonetic encoding in language production and there are equally refined models of phonetic and phonological processing in language comprehension. However, since most psycholinguists work on either language production or comprehension, the relationship between the two has received surprisingly little attention. Prominent researchers in various areas of psycholinguistics were invited to discuss this relationship focusing on the phonological and phonetic components.

This volume brings together two under-investigated areas of intonation typology. While tone languages make up to 70 percent of the world's languages, only few have been explored for intonation. And even though one third of the world's languages are spoken in Africa, and most sub-Saharan languages are tone languages, recent collections on tone and intonation typology have almost entirely ignored African languages. This book aims to fill this gap.

The book contains a collection of papers dealing with the question of how rhythm shapes language. Until now, there was no comprehensive theory that addressed these findings adequately. By bringing together researchers from many different fields, this book will make a first attempt to fill this gap.

Aims and Scope Patients are more empowered to shape their own health care today than ever before. Health information technologies are creating new opportunities for patients and families to participate actively in their care, manage their medical problems and improve communication with their healthcare providers. Moreover, health information technologies are enabling healthcare providers to partner with their patients in a bold effort to optimize quality of care, improve health outcomes and transform the healthcare system on the macro-level. In this book, leading figures discuss the existing needs, challenges and opportunities for improving patient engagement and empowerment through health information technology, mapping out what has been accomplished and what work remains to truly transform the care we deliver and engage patients in their care. Policymakers, healthcare providers and administrators, consultants and industry managers, researchers and students and, not least, patients and their family members should all find value in this book. "In the exciting period that lies just ahead, more will be needed than simply connecting patients to clinicians, and clinicians to each other. The health care systems that will be most effective in meeting patients' needs will be those that can actually design their 'human wares' around that purpose. This book provides deep insight into how information technology can and will support that redesign." Thomas H. Lee, MD, MSc, Chief Medical Officer, Press Ganey Associates; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health The Editors: Drs. Maria Adela Grando, Ronen Rozenblum and David W. Bates are widely recognized professors, researchers and experts in the domain of health information technology, patient engagement and empowerment. Their research, lectures and contributions in these domains have been recognized nationally and internationally. Dr. Grando is affiliated with Arizona State University and the Mayo Clinic, and Drs. Rozenblum and Bates are affiliated with Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard University.

The book analyzes the articulatory motivation of several adaptation processes (place assimilations, blending, coarticulation) involving consecutive consonants in heterosyllabic consonant sequences within the framework of the degree of articulatory constraint model of coarticulation. It also shows that the homorganic relationship between two heterosyllabic consonants contributes to the implementation of manner assimilations, while heterorganicity as well as sonorancy and voicing in the syllable-onset C2 are key factors in the weakening of the syllable-coda C1. Experimental and descriptive evidence is provided with production, phonological and sound change data from several languages, and more especifically with tongue-to-palate contact and lingual configuration data for Catalan consonant sequences. The book also reviews critically research on the c-center effect in tautosyllabic consonant sequences which has been carried out during the last thirty years.

Phonetically reduced forms are plentiful, theoretically interesting, and a key challenge for automatic speech recognition systems. Yet canonical forms are still central to models of production and perception. Drawing from different fields and diverse languages, this volume brings new insights to the debate on abstractions and canonical forms in linguistics: their psychological reality, descriptive adequacy, and technical implementability.

SELF IMPROVEMENTWhat do getting a job, earning a promotion, making the right friends, and boosting your confidence all have in common? Doing each one of those things is a whole lot easier when you can speak and write without making grammatical mistakes. Just ask any hiring manager, senior-level executive, or neighbor next door.In this guide, author Patricia Blaine, a longtime professional writer, gives you the tools you need to write and speak effectively. You can learn how to - avoid common mistakes in verbal and written communications; - speak clearly--even practice with tongue twisters; - master the usage of pronouns, prepositions, and basic punctuation; - finally master correlative conjunctions; - organize an effective resume and cover letter; and - boost your overall vocabulary.By using everyday examples of proper and improper usage, Blaine makes it clear which words and cliches to avoid. Start putting your words to work for you, and beat your competitors seeking jobs, promotions, and advantages in everyday life with the practical advice in Change Your Words, Change Your Worth.

In this book, some of today's leading neurolinguists and psycholinguists provide insight into the nature of phonological processing using behavioural measures, computational modeling, EEG and fMRI. The essays cover a range of topics including categorization, acoustic variability and invariance, underspecification, talker-specificity and machine learning, focusing on the acoustics, perception, acquisition and neural representation of speech.

All human speech has expression. It is part of the 'humanness' of speech, and is a quality listeners expect to find. Without expression, speech sounds lifeless and artificial. Remove expression, and what's left is the bare bones of the intended message, but none of the feelings which surround the message. The purpose of this book is to present research examining expressive content in speech with a view to simulating expression in computer speech. Human beings communicate expressively with each other in conversation: now in the computer age there is a perceived eed for machines to communicate expressively with humans in dialogue.

The integration of traditional and modern linguistics as well as diachrony and synchrony is the hallmark of an influential trend in contemporary research on language. It is documented in the present collection of 21 new papers on the history and structure of the sounds and other (sub-) systems of human languages, sharing the common reference point of Theo Vennemann, a leading figure in the above-mentioned trend, whom the authors want to honor with this Festschrift.

An in-depth analysis of the problems of learning a second language as experienced by a family of learners. This is a study of the phonological development of a group of L2 English learners. It is the first full-length book that focuses on a tightly-knit group of learners' acquisition of phonology over a period of years, and the first book to study both social and linguistic factors across that time period. Jette Hansen analyses this data gathered from actual language learners in terms of recent theory, as well as challenging aspects of current thinking on the subject of second language acquisition. Acquiring a Non-Native Phonology therefore makes an important and original contribution to the field, and provides an in-depth analysis and discussion of the developmental processes in acquiring a non-native sound system which has not previously been presented. The book is aimed at academics interested in second language acquisition, and researchers studying phonology in general.

This book provides the first systematic descriptive analysis of the phonological system of Romanian, one of the less studied Romance languages, from the perspective of recent phonological theory. The author offers an account of some of the major phonological processes of modern standard Romanian, set in the framework of Optimality Theory and Correspondence Theory. The book begins with an overview of Romanian phonology - segment inventory, phonotactics, inflectional and derivational morphology. The main part of the study focuses on processes involving vocalic segments: glide-vowel and diphthong-vowel alternations, vowel harmony, palatalization. The major issues addressed include feature theory, syllable structure, metrical structure and stress, the interaction between phonology and morphology. Acoustic phonetic data is used as supporting evidence for the phonological patterning of diphthongs and glide-vowel sequences. Interesting complexities of the system are pointed out and discussed, as they pose certain challenges to the theoretical model. The book contains an abundance of systematically organized data, which makes it a solid reference for students and scholars of general and Romance phonology, and a strong basis for further study.

This new interpretation of the early history of Chinese argues that Old Chinese was typologically a 'mixed' language. It shows that, though its dominant word order was subject-verb-object, this coexisted with subject-object-verb. Professor Xu demonstrates that Old Chinese was not the analytic language it has usually been assumed to be, and that it employed morphological and lexical devices as well as syntactic means. She describes the typological changes that have taken place since the Han period and shows how Chinese evolved into a more analytic language, supporting her exposition with abundant examples. She draws where possible on archaeological findings in order to distinguish between versions of texts transmitted and sometimes modified through the hands of generations of copyists. The author focusses on syntactic issues, including word order, verbs, causative structures, resultative compounds, and negation, but also pays close attention to what she demonstrates are closely related changes in phonology and the writing system. The book will interest scholars and graduate students of Chinese linguistics, philology, classical literature as well as general linguists interested in word-order typology and language universals. It may be also be used as a text for advanced courses in Classical Chinese and Chinese diachronic syntax.

This study had a research purpose and a pedagogical purpose. Research disclosed the dynamic, changing nature of (learner-internal and learner-external) variables that influence strategic competence for developing EFL/ESL writers. This competence was found necessary for international graduate students to move from writer-centered learning to reader-centered communication. The research instruments proved to be practical tools for guiding learners' processes of learning and writing a scholarly paper or article and avoiding plagiarism. The implication for teachers and program administrators is a systematic approach for developing self-regulation (control) in EFL/ESL writing. The first part of the book reports on the mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) research. The second part gives an in-depth report of the 6 cases used in the research. The third part presents tools for systematically developing self-regulation in scholarly (and academic) writing with (a) student and teacher checklists for formative assessment that are valid and reliable; and (b) a model syllabus for teachers that can be adapted across disciplines and genres. These tools deal with learning strategies and their applications to writing and writing instruction.

This book presents a comprehensive and critical overview of historical phonology as it stands today. Scholars from around the world consider and advance research in every aspect of the field. In doing so they demonstrate the continuing vitality of one of the oldest sub-disciplines of linguistics. The book is divided into six parts. The first considers key current research questions, the early history of the field, and the structuralist context for work on sound change. The second examines evidence and methods, including phonological reconstruction, typology, and computational and quantitative approaches. Part III looks at types of phonological change, including stress, tone, and morphophonological change. Part IV explores a series of controversial aspects within the field, including the effects of first language acquisition, the mechanisms of lexical diffusion, and the role of individuals in innovation. Part V considers the main theoretical perspectives including those of evolutionary phonology and generative historical phonology. The final part examines sociolinguistic and exogenous factors in phonological change, including the study of change in real time, the role of second language acquisition, and loanword adaptation. The authors, who represent leading proponents of every theoretical perspective, consider phonological change over a wide range of the world's language families. The handbook is, in sum, a valuable resource for phonologists and historical linguists and a stimulating guide for their students.