【演講】國立清華大學語言所102學年度第一學期專題演講二
※ 國立清華大學語言所102學年度第一學期專題演講二 ※
演講者：John H. Esling (University of Victoria)
演講題目：Infant Speech Acquisition and the Origins of Speech
時間：2013 年 10 月 8 日 (星期二) 中午 12 時 30 分
地點：清大人社院 B305 室
講題摘要：
The ‘Laryngeal Articulator’ has been identified as the principal articulator that infants first start to control as they test and practice their phonetic production skills from birth through the first several months of life. The auditory/acoustic cues generated in the pharynx in the wide range of languages we have observed are the same elements of sound production observed in early infancy. The infant vocalization data illustrate that laryngeal quality is primal, that control of the articulatory and perhaps acoustic cues of speech originates in the pharynx, and that the acquisition of the ability to produce manners of articulation spreads from the pharynx in a process that parallels and complements the ability of infants to discriminate speech sound categories perceptually.
Our research into the earliest vocalizations by infants in a research project including English (Victoria), French (Paris), Arabic (Morocco), and Bai (China) shows that (1) speech begins in the pharynx, (2) the production of phonation begins with laryngeally constricted settings, (3) infants explore their phonetic production capacity by employing ‘dynamic alternations’ and ‘pharyngeal priming’. Evidence from the Infant Speech Acquisition (InSpA) Project at the University of Victoria illustrates instances of ‘phonetic play’ that demonstrate how infants systematically acquire basic control over the speech mechanism and over the arrays of place and manner of articulation during their first year of life.
These results provide evidence for universal and language-specific patterns in the use of laryngeal constriction in the first year of life. In the first months of life, all infants produce universally constricted voice quality settings. Over the course of the year, as infants systematically explore their evolving phonetic capacities, unconstricted settings make up an increasing proportion of their vocal repertoires. Within this general pattern, the distribution of laryngeal constriction in the infants’ utterances may vary according to laryngeal features exploited in the infants’ ambient language. It is estimated that, within the first year of life, infants have learned the major parametric oppositions of laryngeal constriction vs. openness, glottal closing vs. glottal openness, glottal shortening vs. glottal stretching, larynx raising vs. larynx lowering, and the intermediate degrees required for contrasting manner of articulation, including differing requirements for airflow. The performance data suggest that one-year-old infants can exert paired control over these parameters, such that they have the tools at their disposal to produce the phonetically contrastive elements that occur in phonologies that exploit the pharynx, as in Semitic or in Tibeto-Burman languages. Notwithstanding, of the range of prelinguistic vocalizations produced by infants, babbling behaviour is the most likely to reflect emergent phonological properties and to exhibit cross-linguistic differences.
In short, we have identified the pharynx as the origin of earliest speech vocalization and the site of the earliest acquisition of manners of articulation. We have found evidence of phonetic alternation and pharyngeal priming as active strategies in the speech acquisition process. We have identified a preference for oral articulations over laryngeal units as babbling progresses. Our initial hypothesis that pharyngeal sounds will proliferate linearly when the ambient language contains those sounds (as in Semitic or in Tibeto-Burman languages) is only weakly supported by the evidence of laryngeals in late vocalizations in Arabic and in Bai but not in the babbling of either of these languages. Our new working hypothesis is that pharyngeals are used first, that oral sounds are preferred in babbling, and that pharyngeals follow a hierarchy of ‘reacquisition’ in the second 12 months of life.
演講者：John H. Esling (University of Victoria)
演講題目：Infant Speech Acquisition and the Origins of Speech
時間：2013 年 10 月 8 日 (星期二) 中午 12 時 30 分
地點：清大人社院 B305 室
講題摘要：
The ‘Laryngeal Articulator’ has been identified as the principal articulator that infants first start to control as they test and practice their phonetic production skills from birth through the first several months of life. The auditory/acoustic cues generated in the pharynx in the wide range of languages we have observed are the same elements of sound production observed in early infancy. The infant vocalization data illustrate that laryngeal quality is primal, that control of the articulatory and perhaps acoustic cues of speech originates in the pharynx, and that the acquisition of the ability to produce manners of articulation spreads from the pharynx in a process that parallels and complements the ability of infants to discriminate speech sound categories perceptually.
Our research into the earliest vocalizations by infants in a research project including English (Victoria), French (Paris), Arabic (Morocco), and Bai (China) shows that (1) speech begins in the pharynx, (2) the production of phonation begins with laryngeally constricted settings, (3) infants explore their phonetic production capacity by employing ‘dynamic alternations’ and ‘pharyngeal priming’. Evidence from the Infant Speech Acquisition (InSpA) Project at the University of Victoria illustrates instances of ‘phonetic play’ that demonstrate how infants systematically acquire basic control over the speech mechanism and over the arrays of place and manner of articulation during their first year of life.
These results provide evidence for universal and language-specific patterns in the use of laryngeal constriction in the first year of life. In the first months of life, all infants produce universally constricted voice quality settings. Over the course of the year, as infants systematically explore their evolving phonetic capacities, unconstricted settings make up an increasing proportion of their vocal repertoires. Within this general pattern, the distribution of laryngeal constriction in the infants’ utterances may vary according to laryngeal features exploited in the infants’ ambient language. It is estimated that, within the first year of life, infants have learned the major parametric oppositions of laryngeal constriction vs. openness, glottal closing vs. glottal openness, glottal shortening vs. glottal stretching, larynx raising vs. larynx lowering, and the intermediate degrees required for contrasting manner of articulation, including differing requirements for airflow. The performance data suggest that one-year-old infants can exert paired control over these parameters, such that they have the tools at their disposal to produce the phonetically contrastive elements that occur in phonologies that exploit the pharynx, as in Semitic or in Tibeto-Burman languages. Notwithstanding, of the range of prelinguistic vocalizations produced by infants, babbling behaviour is the most likely to reflect emergent phonological properties and to exhibit cross-linguistic differences.
In short, we have identified the pharynx as the origin of earliest speech vocalization and the site of the earliest acquisition of manners of articulation. We have found evidence of phonetic alternation and pharyngeal priming as active strategies in the speech acquisition process. We have identified a preference for oral articulations over laryngeal units as babbling progresses. Our initial hypothesis that pharyngeal sounds will proliferate linearly when the ambient language contains those sounds (as in Semitic or in Tibeto-Burman languages) is only weakly supported by the evidence of laryngeals in late vocalizations in Arabic and in Bai but not in the babbling of either of these languages. Our new working hypothesis is that pharyngeals are used first, that oral sounds are preferred in babbling, and that pharyngeals follow a hierarchy of ‘reacquisition’ in the second 12 months of life.