Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Conclusion: Overall, the findings suggest ^ a t distinct styles develop slowly and that
early style-dependent differences in children's speech are unlike those observed in
adult clear and casual speech. Children may not develop adultlike styles until they
have acquired expert articulatory control and the ability to highlight the internal
structure of an articulatory plan for a listener.
1 4 3 4 Journal af Speech, Language, and Hearing Research • Vol.52 • 1434-1448 • December 2009 • © Amwican Speech-Longiioge-Hearing Association
1092-4388/09/5206-1434
non-native English-speaking listeners (Bond & Moore, Clear speech also typically has more pauses than ca-
1994; Bradlow, Torretta, Pisoni, & 1996; Ferguson & sual speech (Picheny et al. 1985, 1986). Although paus-
Kewley-Port, 2002; Picheny, Durlach, & Braida, 1985). ing is consistent with a global slowing of speech, pauses
These studies have also documented the acoustic changes are not likely to be randomly dispersed in clear speech
that are responsible for the clear speech intelligibility given the increased intelligibility of this style. Rather,
benefit. Somewhat less work has focused on understand- the pauses are likely prosodie in nature, serving to high-
ing how the speaker implements such changes, perhaps light linguistic boundaries (Cutler & Butterfield, 1990;
because style shifting in adult language is so rapid and Frazier, Carlson, & Clifton, 2006).
unconscious that the problem may seem fairly trivial. The Prosodie highlighting may also be relevant for ex-
question of implementation may be more interesting plaining the effect of pitch on speech intelligibility. Bradlow
when one considers style shifting from the perspective et al. (1996) found that greater fundamental frequency
of acquisition. (fO) ranges tended to correlate with higher intelhgibility
If you have talked with 2-year-olds, you have prob- scores, regardless of the speaker's gender. If we assume
ably observed that they do not control speaking styles in that the fO range is linked to pitch accenting such that a
the way that adults do. For example, if you indicate to low accent is associated with the fO minimum and a high
a 2-year-old that you have not understood her, she will accent with the fO maximum, then the correlation be-
likely repeat exactly what she said before in exactly tween fO range and intelligibility suggests a clear speech
the same way. Although repetition is a rudimentary re- expansion of the pitch accent space. Such an expansion
pair strategy that indicates sensitivity to the hstener could be achieved by adjusting a global pitch range pa-
(Alexander, Wetherby, & Prizant, 1997; Brinton, Fujiki, rameter at the beginning of an utterance.
Loeb, & Winkler, 1986; Ferrier, Dunham, & Dunham, An expanded pitch accent space may function like an
2000), the subjective experience is that 2-year-olds do expanded vowel space—namely, to increase the percep-
not change their speech from repetition to repetition. The tual distance between phonological categories in clear com-
perceived similarity between repetitions suggests that pared with casual speech (Diehl & Lindblom, 2002; Hay,
young children have only one speaking style, which raises Sato, Coren, Moran, & Diehl, 2006; Johnson, Flemming, &
the questions of when and how children develop distinct Wright, 1993; Lindblom, 1990). Some researchers have
speaking styles. In the present study, we sought to answer noted that other paradigmatic contrasts are also en-
these questions by examining how 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old hanced in clear compared with casual speech. For exam-
children produce the same target words under clear and ple, word-initial voiceless stops have longer voice onset
casual speaking conditions. times (VOTs) in clear than in casual speech (Krause &
Braida, 2004; Picheny et al., 1986; Smiljanic & Bradlow,
2008), increasing the salience of the English voicing con-
Adult Clear and Casual Speech trast. Word-final stops are more often released in clear
speech thtin in casual speech (Krause & Braida, 2004),
The assumptionfi*omthe adult literature is that increasing the number of place-of-articulation cues avail-
speakers shift from a casual to a clear speaking style by able for these stops. And the mean spectral energy (center
manipulating some basic control parameters. For exam- of gravity [CoG]) is much higher for palato-alveolar firica-
ple, a style-dependent change in a global timing variable tives in clear than in casual speech (van Son & Pols,
is suggested by thefindingthat clearer, more intelligible 1999), meaning that sibilants are more distinct from non-
speech is slower than casual, less intelligible speech sibilants in clear compared with casual speech.
(Picheny et al., 1985; Picheny, Durlach, & Braida, 1986).
An overall slowing in clear speech may lead to secondary Like the expansion of the vowel and pitch accent
changes in segmental articulation: Slowing the sequen- space, the greater distinction between consonantal cat-
tial execution of articulatory movements decreases the egories in clear compared with casual speech might be
likelihood of segmental overlap (coarticulation) and in- implemented by manipulating some basic control param-
creases the likelihood of attaining sequentially specified eters. For example, van Son and Pols (1999) suggested
articulatory/acoustic targets (Gay, 1981; Lindblom, 1963; that the style-dependent CoG differences in their study
Moon & Lindblom, 1992; Munhall, Kawato, & Vatikiotis- might have been due to greater subglottal pressure in
Bateson, 2000). A temporally induced decrease in coar- clear compared with casual speech. Increased suhglottal
ticulation may explain why the clear speech vowels are pressure may reñect increased articulatory effort consis-
more dispersed in Fl x F2 space than casual speech vow- tent with Lindblom's (1990) hypothesis that clear speech
els (Fei^son & Kewley-Port, 2002; Moon & Lindblom, represents hyperspeech—a mode in which speakers over-
1992; Picheny et al., 1986; Smiljanic & Bradlow, 2005). It come articulatory inertiiis to maximize segmental target
may also explain why no such vowel space expEinsion is attainment. More audible releases of word-final stops in
observed when style is manipulated but speech rate is clear compared with casual speech could be explained
controlled (Krause & Braida, 2004). similarly—that is, in terms of greater source strength in
1436 Jaumal af Speech, ianguoge, and Hearing Research • Vol. 52 • 1434-1448 • December 2009
The reader may note that our method of speech style Speech Sample
elidtation difFers sharplyfromthe straightforward method
used in the adult phonetics literature, which typically Tasks. The experimenter welcomed the child and
involves instructing speakers to speak "clearly" or *nor- his or her parent into a small, quiet observation room.
mally" (Cutler & Butterfield, 1990; Moon & Lindhlom, The experimenter, child, and parent then sat around a
1992; Picheny et al., 1985, 1986). Our more elaborate child-sized table, and the study began with the experi-
method for eliciting distinct styles is necessary because menter administering consent and obtaining information
we cannot assume that children have the same meta- on developmental milestones. The child then completed
linguistic abilities as adults. In particular, the straight- the clear and casual speech tasks as well as an imitation
forward method used in adult studies assumes sufficient task (for a separate study). The experimenter would typ-
metalinguistic knowledge to access distinct, socially de- ically administer either the imitation or clear speech
fmed speaking styles in the absence of appropriate social task first. She would then leave the room, during which
or contextual cues. If children have not yet developed the child and parent would engage in the casual speech
distinct speaking styles, it is not reasonable to assume task. Upon retuming, the experimenter would adminis-
that they would have acquired the metalinguistic abili- ter the remaining test-type task. This order was not al-
ties necessary to access such styles on demand. In other ways followed, though, as we focused more on sustaining
words, we assume that the acquisition of a meta-ability a child's interest in the study than on counterbalancing
follows the acquisition of the actual ability, and so we the order in which tasks were completed.
tried to provide the full range of appropriate social and As noted in the introduction, the preschool children
contextual cues necessary to elicit different speech styles. participated in two tasks that were designed to elicit clear
Once the socially defined speech samples were ob- and casual speech, respectively. In the clear speech con-
tained, adult listeners provided blind goodness ratings dition, the picture naming task was presented to the child
on matched words from the clear or casual conditions, as a test. The experimenter proceeded to ask the child
attending either to suprasegmental or segmental attri- whether or not he or she could name each ofthe objects
butes. The goal was to determine the age at which style- shown on 5" x 7" laminated cards (see Stimuli subsection
dependent differences are first perceptible and whether that follows). Children were recorded as they named the
pictures that were presented to them one at a time in a
these differences are more notable at the suprasegmental
randomized order. Although presented as a test, the task
or segmental level. A variety of phonetic measures were was simple for all children, and none had trouble spon-
then taken to assess in more detail the specific charac- taneously naming the pictures. In order to obtain max-
ter of style-dependent production differences. The over- imally clear speech, the experimenter instructed cluldren
all goal was to understand the development of distinct to speak clearly. The experimenter also provided inter-
speaking styles. mittent feedback to ensure clear speech. For example, if
the child was speaking softly, the experimenter coached
him or her to speak louder, and if the child became silly
Method or too informal, the experimenter coached him or her to
Partícipanfs use their "big boy" or "big girl" voice. The recordings were
made using a high-quality standing microphone (Shure
Thirty typically developing American English- BG 5.1), which was placed in the center ofthe table, and a
speaking preschool children participated in the cross- Tascam DA-PI digital tape recorder or a Marantz
sectional developmental study. Ten children were 3 years PMD670 flash memory recorder. A standing microphone
old (3;4 to 3;7 [years;months] ), ten were 4 years old (4;4 to was used to create a formal recording environment. Its
4;7), and ten were 5 years old (5;3 to 5;8). All children were presence was noted, and speaking for the microphone
being raised in monolingual, English-speaking house- was made an explicit part of the task.
holds. Parents also confirmed that all children had nor- In the casual speech condition, the experimenter left
mal hearing and had exhibited normal development. the room ostensibly to allow the child and parent time to
Normal development was determined by asking parents play together. Before she left, the experimenter provided
about the age at which their children had reached a num- the dyad with a set of wooden blocks. Each ofthe blocks
ber of well-known speech and motor milestones (e.g., age had a stimulus item pictured on two of its four sides.
of first canonical babble, age of first steps). Parents were instructed to play some kind of game—
In addition to the preschool children, 30 undergrad- categorization, building, or story-telling—that would en-
uate students from the University of Oregon participated courage their child to spontaneously name the pictures on
in the study. These students had self-reported normal the blocks. The spontaneous speech produced while play-
hearing and were native speakers of American English. ing was recorded using the same equipment as that used
They provided clearness and adultlikeness ratings on during the picture naming task. The standing micro-
the children's productions in exchange for course credit. phone was used in preference to a wireless microphone
1438 Joumol of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research • Vol.52 • U 3 4 - U 4 8 • December 2(X)9
10 adult listeners, who rated word productions on nine- listeners were highly variable in their absolute rating
point Likert scales according to specific instructions. of individual words. The Shrout-Fleiss coefficients were
Listeners were linguistically and phonetically naive, as .23, .26, and .17 for those in the word, vowel, and adult-
their task was merely to use their own native English- likeness conditions. The high Cronbach's alphas and low
speaking judgments to rate children's productions. This Shrout-Fleiss coefficients suggest that listeners assessed
is analogous to asking undergraduate and graduate stu- accuracy using different parts of the nine-point scale or
dents, who have had no formal training in the theory or different ranges within the scale.
practice of education, to rate instructor "effectiveness" on
The highly variable listener ratings coupled with
course evaluations.
the nine-point scale provided sufficient variation in the
The goal of the rating task was to evaluate, in an data to approximate a continuous response function. This
omnibus fashion, the effects of age and speaking style on approximation allowed us to examine the effects of ran-
children's word productions. The specific instruction con- dom and fixed factors in a mixed univariate model that
ditions were used to focus listeners' attention on different included all listener judgments (N = 16,227). The results
subsets of production attributes. In particular, one group fiT)m this analysis were qualitatively similar to those that
of listeners was instructed to rate the clearness of whole used an average per item score. The difference between
word production, another group to rate the clearness of the two types of analyses was in the effect sizes. The
vowel production, and a third to rate the adultlikeness of effect size was diminished in an analysis based on aver-
the word production. Clearness ratings were obtained to ages because so much data are lost in averaging across
evaluate suprasegmental and segmental attributes of highly variable judgments.
the children's word productions. Adultlikeness ratings
were obtained to evaluate cues that differentiate child Acoustic Measures
and adult speech under the assumption that these might
influence listeners' speciflc metalinguistic notions of clear The preschool childrim's 544 words were also acous-
versus casual speech production. tically analyzed. The measures focused on suprasegmental
and segmental attributes associated with vowel produc-
The rating task was completed one listener at a time
tion and some additional segmental attributes associated
in a sound-attenuated booth. A listener received a list of
with consonant production. The vowel segmentation cri-
all the target words that they would hear in the pre-
teria and measures are described first.
determined randomized order in which they would hear
them. Each word was listed with a nine-point number The recorded speech was displayed as oscillograms
scale—a scale sensitive enough to capture the presum- and spectrograms simultaneously in Praat (Boersma &
ably small differences between age groups and speaking Weenink, 2007). Target word onsets and offsets were typ-
styles in young children's speech (see, e.g., Southwood & ically identified by pauses, but words were sometimes
Flege [1999] for a discussion of the relative sensitivity of extractedfi-omphrases in the casual speaking condition
different Likert scales). In the adultlikeness condition, (see previous Listener Ratings section). Vowel onsets and
the nine-point scale was anchored at the top of each page offsets within the word were identified from amplitude
with the words "least adultlike" and "most adultlike" and periodicity changes in the waveform. Auditory judg-
appearing above numbers 1 and 9, respectively. Listen- ments were used to confirm the visual segmentations,
ers were instructed to rate the adultlikeness of all the and absolute word and vowel durations were taken.
words they heard, using as much of the scale as possible. Relative vowel duration was then calculated as the ratio
In the whole word and vowel conditions, the nine-point of vowel duration to word duration. To ensure that vowel
scale was anchored at the top of each page with the words segmentation was reliable, a second rater independently
"least accurate" and "most accurate." "Most accurate" was re-measured all vowel durations, and a single-measure
defined for the hsteners as either (a) the clearly articu- intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated,
lated adult version of the target word or (b) the vowel in a showing good interrater reliability (ICC - .85).
clearly articulated adult version of the target word. The In addition to the duration measures, pitch measures
particular definition corresponded to whether a listener were taken to evaluate style-dependent suprasegmental
was instructed to attend to the whole word or the vowel. changes. These measures included the mean fO value for
"Least accurate" was not defined. Instead, listeners were the total vowel duration as well as the fO maximum and
encouraged to use as much of the scale as possible when minimum over this period. The SD around the mean was
making their judgments. also recorded for each vowel. All measures were obtained
Listeners were quite consistent in their relative rat- automatically using the voice report function in Praat.
ing of individual words. The Cronbach's alphas were .89, The segmentai measures focused on vowel and sibi-
.83, and .88 for listeners in the word, vowel, and adult- lant target attainment and on stop release and VOT. The
likeness instruction conditions, respectively. However, vowel measures are described first. Several formant
1440 Journal of Speech, language, and Hearing Reseorch • Vol. 52 • 1434-1448 • December 2009
The aim ofthe first analysis was to determine whether of 3-year-olds' words among vowel- and word-focused lis-
or not children's speech differed in the clear or casual teners: vowel, ¿(54) = -1.55,p = .126; word, i(54) = -1.59,
speech eondition. The rating results indicated that it did: p = .118. In contrast, mean comparisons showed that only
Listeners gave clear speech words higher average rat- the adultlikeness group differentiated between 4-year-
ings than casual speech words, F( 1,27)= 13.71,p = .001, olds' clear and casual words: vowel, i(54) = -1.83,p = .072;
although this effect interacted with instruction condi- word, /(54) = -1.31, p = .194; adultlike, i(54) = -2.47,
tion and age. Style x Age x Instruction, f(4, 54) = 4.74, p = .017.^ Third, listeners who focused on word-level at-
p = .002. The significant three-way Instruction Condi- tributes best distinguished between 5-year-olds' clear
tion X Age X Style interaction is explored fiirther in the and casual words, even though all groups differentiated
paragraphs that follow. between the clear and casual words produced by this age
Figure 1 shows that the type of instruction that a group: vowel, i(54) = -2.51, p = .015; word, i{54) = -3.92,
listener received influenced how that listener rated words p < .001; adultlike, i(54) = -2.85,p = .006. Moreover, the
produced in the clear and casual conditions, F{2, 27) = style-dependent difference (d) in whole word ratings of
15.38,p < .001. In particular, vowel-focused listeners rated 5-year-olds' speech was the largest effect of style overall:
children's productions more highly than did word-focused d = .414 (word) versus d = .301 and .265 (adultlike and
listeners, and adultlikeness ratings were the lowest of vowel, respectively) and d < .265 for all mean compari-
all. These differences between instruction condition might sons on clear and casual words for all listener groups at-
be explained to result from listeners attending to differ- tending to 3- and 4-year-olds' productions.
ent niimhers of production attributes, depending on their To better understand the large effect of style on the
instruction condition, with vowel-focused listeners attend- whole word ratings of 5-year-olds' speech, word ratings
ing to the fewest attributes and adultlikeness listeners were reanalyzed as a fiinetion of age, style, and conso-
attending to the most. nant number (cons_no). Consonant number substituted
Although there may have been some overlap in what for syllable structure (see explanation that follows), a
differently-oriented listeners attended to, the signifi- suprasegmental structural factor that may have affected
cant Instruction x Age x Style interaction shown in Fig- children's word productions. The analysis confirmed that
ure 1 suggests that groups of listeners also attended to whole word ratings interacted systematically with all
difFerently weighted combinations of attributes. Three three of these factors, F(4, 54) = 4.33, p = .004. All two-
specific pattems illustrate this point. First, mean compar- way and simple effects were also significant: age, F(l, 27) =
isons indicate that listeners did not differentiate between 55.72,p < .001; style, FH, 27) = 24.38,p < .001; cons_no,
3-year-olds' clear and casual words, although the compar- F(2, 27) = 11.24,p < .001; Age x Cons_no, F(4, 54) = 2.78,
isons show a trend toward style-dependent differentiation p = .036; Style x Cons_no, F(2, 54) = 6.22, p = .004. The
significant three-way interaction is shown in Figure 2.
As noted previously, consonant number corresponded
Figure 1. The Instruction Condition x Speaking Style x Age with syllable structure (see Table 1). Words with one
interaction is shown for listener ratings. Ratings were on a 9-point consonant had a CV strueture. Words with two con-
scale (9 = most accurate [adult clear speech] or most aduitiike, sonants had a CVC structure. Words with three con-
1 = least accurate ar least adultl'ike). sonants had a CCVC or CVCC strueture. Figure 2 shows
that listeners rated 3- and 5-year-olds' productions dif-
7- ferently depending on syllable structure. In particular,
the figure shows that 5-year-olds' productions of CCVC
or CVCC words in the clear speech eondition were rated
as mueh more similar to adult clear speech versions of
these words than were the 5-year-olds' productions of
CCVC and CVCC words in the casual speech eondition.
The effect of style was somewhat smaller for 5-year-
olds' productions of CVC and CV words. The Style x
Consonant Number interaction was less predictable for
3-year-olds' speech. For example, 3-year-oIds' casual
^It might be noted thatp = .017 does not represent a significant difference if
alpha is adjusted downwards with the number of comparisons being made.
3- When alpha is adjusted in this w;iy, significance is attained only when
p < ,006. However, there is disagi-eement in the literature aa to whether
this kind of adjustment is necessary. We are reporting results based on
Child's Age (years)
an unadjusted alpha on the assumption that a Bonferroni correction
represents an overly conservative approach to the analyses (Pemeger, 19981.
1
S 250-
200-
Vowel Height
1 2
Number of Consonants
variability of 3-year-olds' productions probably accounts
for why the effect of age did not reach statistical signifi-
Speech productions of CV words were rated as more sim- cance. Neither style nor vowel height interacted with
ilar to adult clear speech versions of these words than any other factor in the analysis.
were their clear speech productions. Figure 4 shows the results on style-dependent dif-
ferences in relative duration as a function ofthe child's
Acaustic Measures: Suprasegmentals age. Overall, casual speech vowels were longer relative
Based on the rating results, our expectation was to the word than clear speech vowels: style, F(l, 493) =
that style-dependent differences would be evident at the 6.50, p = .011. In addition to the effect of style, the anal-
suprasegmental level in 4- and 5-year-olds' speech. This ysis showed an effect of age on the ratio of vowel duration
expectation was upheld in our analysis of duration and to word duration: age, F(2, 27) = 6.05, p = .007. Three-
fO, both of which were found to vary systematically with and 5-year-old children produced longer vowels relative
the speaking style condition. The detailed results on du- to the word than did 4-year-old children. Because the
ration are presented first.
Figure 4. The Speaking Style x Age interaction is shown for relative
Vowel duration is t3^ically longer in adults' clear
vowel duration. Relative vowel durotion equaled the absolute vowel
speech than in adults' casual speech (Moon & Lindhlom, duration divided by the obsolute word duration.
1992; Picbeny et al., 1986). Analyses of children's pro-
ductions also indicated an effect of style on absolute
vowel duration, but the direction of the effect was op- style
posite from what is reported in the adult literature: Ab- # Clear
solute and relative vowel durations were shorter in clear X Casual
C
speech words than in casual speech words. These results o
are shown in Figures 3 and 4 and are discussed fiirther
in the text that follows. I
o
Figure 3 sbows a main effect of style on absolute du- •a
1442 Journal of Speech, Longuage, and Hearing Research • Vol. 52 • 1434-1448 • December 2009
analysis of absolute vowel duration did not indicate words were better distinguished by fO than were 5-year-
a similar effect of age, the age-dependent differences in oids' words.
relative duration were probably due to differences in
consonantal duration (i.e., word duration minus vowel
duration). Thus, Figure 4 may be interpreted to show Acoustic Measures: Segmentais
that overall consonantal duration was longer in 4-year- The second set of acoustic analyses focused on the
olds' speech than in either 3- or 5-year-olds' speech. This segmental measures corresponding to target attainment
particular age-dependent difference did not interact with for vowels Euid consonants. Recall that mean compari-
the effect of style. Style x Age, F{2, 493) = 0.08, p = .927; sons of the rating results indicated that word- and vowel-
however, the figure indicates that, once again, 3-year- focused listeners reliably distinguished between the clear
olds' productions were the most variable, and so the rela- and casual productions of 5-year-olds but not between
tive vowel durations overlapped in their clear ahd casual those of 3- and 4-year-olds. Accordingly, we expected that
productions. 5-year-olds would show reliable differences in segmental
Pitch range also varies in adult clear and casual tai^et attainment as a function of speaking condition.
speech (Bradlow et al., 1996), but the fO measurements This expectation was not met for vowel production but
indicated that this was not the case for children's clear was met for some aspects of consonantal production.
and casual productions. In particular, analyses of the per- Vowels. Vowels in adult clear speech are more dis-
item f 0 range (maximum minus minimum) and per-item tributed in an Fl X F2 vowel space and exhibit more F2
SD around the fO mean showed that neither measure displacement compared with vowels in adult casual or
was significantly affected by style. lower inteUigibility speech (Bradlow et al., 1996; Ferguson
Although dispersion around the mean was the same & Kewley-Port, 2002; Krause & Braida, 2004; Moon
regardless of speaking condition and children's age, mean & Lindblom, 1992; Picheny et al., 1986; Smiljanic &
fO varied systematically with these two factors, Style x Bradlow, 2005). An analysis of Fl and F2 midpoints
Age, K2, 27) = 4.06, p = .029, as shown in Figure 5. The and F2 displacement in children's speech did not show
simple effect of age was also significant, Fi2, 27) = 4.74, these same effects.
p = .017, but neither style nor age interacted with any Figure 6 shows the clear and casual vowels in an
other factors. Fl X F2 vowel space for children, aged 3,4, and 5 years,
Figure 5 shows that the significant Style x Age in- respectively. The estimated maximum likelihood proce-
teraction on mean fO was probably due to a developmental dure was used to assess the random effect of child, the
change that occurred between ages 3 and 4. Three-year- between-subjects effect of age, and the within-subjects
olds produced vowels with higher fDs in the clear speech effects of style and vowel type (or height for Fl and back-
condition than in the casual speech condition, but the re- ness for F2) on the formant measures. The results con-
verse was true for 4- and 5-year-olds. Figure 5 also sug- firm what is evidentfit)mthefigure—namely,that vowels
gests, though, that 4-year-olds' clear and casual speech were produced with similar Fl and F2 values regardless
of speaking condition. Specifically, our measure of acous-
tic distance (Fl - F2) varied with vowel type, F(5, 91) =
Figure 5. The Speaking Style x Age interodion is shown for overoge fO.
423.25, p < .001, but not with style or any interaction be-
tween style and the other factors. F2 only varied sys-
tematically with vowel backness, F\2, 47) = 586.29,
p < .001, and F2 transition only varied systematically
with age and vowel backness, F(4,47) = 2.76, p = .039. Fl
varied systematically with vowel height, F(50, 278.41) =
278.41), p < .001, and with style, F( 1,27) = 4.34, p = .047,
but not with the interaction of these factors. The effect of
style on Fl was, therefore, not related to changes in the
distribution of vowels with respect to Fl but rather to an
overall raising of Fl in the clear compared with casual
condition.
Consonants. In adult clear speech, voiceless stop con-
sonants are produced with longer VOTs, final stops are
250-
more likely to be released, and all consonants—especially
3 4 5 sibilants—are produced with more energy in the higher
Child's Age (years) frequencies (Krause & Braida, 2004; Picheny et al., 1986;
van Son & Pols, 1999). Analyses of word-initial stop
Age 3
4000
1000
200 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
1444 Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research • Vol.52 • 1434-1448 • December 2009
VOTs, word-final stop releases, and the CoG of strident Figure 7. The Speaking Style x Age interactian is shown for the mean
consonants showed some of these same clear speech ef- spectral energy (CoG) of word-initial sibilants.
fects, especially in 5-year-olds' productions.
Voiced and voiceless stops were categorically dis- Style
tinguished by VOT in the clear and causal speech of all 6000- • Clear
X Casual
preschool children. The mean VOT for voiced stops was
(Hz)
J
-8 ms (SD = 52), 4-4 ms (SD = 43), and +9 milliseconds
iSD = 38) for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds, respectively. The 8
U
5000'
^*
mean VOT for voiceless stops was -i-90 ms (SD = 61), n
+103 ms (SD = 56), and +102 ms {SD = 52) for 3-, 4-, and
tral me
1 r""' \
m l
4000-
5-year-olds, respectively. Due to the categorical differ-
ences in the realization of voiced and voiceless stops, we Ö
only investigated the effects of age and style on VOTs SL I
3000-
within the voiced and voiceless stop category. These anal-
yses indicated no significant effects of either age or style
on VOT for voiced or voiceless stops: age, voiced, Fi2,50) =
1.63, p = .21; age, voiceless, F{2, 50) = 0.48, p = .622; style, 3 4 5
144Ó Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research " Vol. 52 • 1434-1448 • December 2009
item and may be weighted to reflect adult speech char- to requests for clarification. Journal of Speech and Hearing
acteristics. Such a weighting assumes that language ac- Research, 29, 75-81.
quisition is motivated by a desire to communicate with Cutler, A., & Butterfield, S. (1990). Durational cues to
others, and so, self-productions would have a minimal word boundaries in cleiir speecb. Speech Communication,
effect on the representation. Of course, the articulatory 9, 485-495.
plan that a child develops to correspond with the lexical Diehl, R. L., & Lindblom, B. (2002). Explaining tbe struc-
representation must have internal structure. This struc- ture of feature and phonemic inventories. In S. Greenberg,
W. Ainsworth, A. Popper, & R. Fay (Eds.), Speech processing
ture may be best described in discrete and paradigmatic in the auditory ^stem (pp. 101-162). New York: Springer.
terms (i.e., in distinctive feature or gestural terms), albeit
Ferguson, S., & Kewley-Port, D. (2002). Vowel intelligibility
those specific to the child's physiology and motor practice
in clear and conversational speech for normal-bearing and
with speech. Nonetheless, if the objective is to speak like hearing-impaired listeners. The Journal ofthe Acoustical
an adult, then the child's early clear speech strategy may Society of America, 112, 259-271.
be a strategy aimed at executing a whole word pattern Ferrier, S., Dunham, P., & Dunham, F. (2000). Tbe confused
that sounds roughly like an adult's rather than a strat- robot: Two-year-olds' responses to breakdowns in conversa-
egy aimed at highlighting the internal structure of their tion. Social Development, 9, 337-347.
own articulatory plan. If ever this plan were highlighted Frazier, L., Carlson, K., & Clifton, C. (2006). Prosodie phras-
under more formal social conditions and undershot in ing is central to language comprehension. Trends in Cogni-
casual ones, then the distinct styles could probably be tive Science, 10, 244-249.
characterized along a hjrper-hypo speech continuum, Gay, T. (1981). Mechanisms in the control of speech rate.
just as in adult speech. Phonetica, 38, 148-158.
Genesee, F. (2001). Bilingual first language acquisition: Ex-
ploring the limits ofthe language faculty. Annual Review of
Acknowledgments Applied Linguistics, 21, 153-168.
Genesee, F., & Nicoladis, E. (1997). Language development
This work was supported, in part, by a Summer Research in prescbool bilingual children. Journal of Speech-Language
Award from The University of Oregon. We thank Tatiana Pathology and Audiology, 21. 258-270.
Furrow, Jennifer Peddicord, and Gennifer Fink for help with Giles, H., Coupland, J., & Coupland, N. (Eds.). (1991).
participant recruitment and data collection. Gennifer Fink Contexts of accommodation: Developments in applied socio-
also contributed as the second rater. We aire grateful to Robin linguistics. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge Uni-
Higb (formerly tbe University of Oregon statistical consultant versity Press.
and programmer) for developing sophisticated statistical models
Green, J. R., Moore, C. A,, Higashikawa, M., & Steeve,
to accommodate tbe complex design of this study, Susan Guion R. W. (2000). Tbe physiological development of speecb motor
for providing us witb expert advice on tbe rating task and some control: Lip and jaw coordination. Journal of Speech, Lan-
aspects of tbe acoustic measures, Lou Moses for letting us guage, and Hearing Research, 43, 239-255.
use bis lab to run subjects, and the University of Oregon
Psychology Department for access to the baby and cbild Green, J. R., Moore, C. A., & ReiUy, K. J. (2002). Tbe se-
database for participant recruitment. quential development of lip and jaw control for speech. Jour-
nal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 66-79.
Hay, J. F., Sato, M., Coren, A. E., Moran, C, L., & Diehl,
R. L. (2006). Enhanced contrast for vowels in utterance
References focus: A cross-language study. The Journal ofthe Acoustical
Alexander, D-, Wetherby, A., & Prizant, B. (1997). The Society of America, 119, 3022-3033.
emergence of repair strategies in infants and toddlers. Johnson, K., Flemming, E., & Wright, R. (1993). The hyper-
Seminars in Speech and Language, 18, 197-213. space effect. Language, 69. 505-528.
Beckman, M. E., & Edwards, J. (2000). The ontogeny of Kelso, J. A. S., Vatikiotis-Bateson, E., Saltzman, E., &
phonological categories and the primacy of lexical learning Kay, B. (1985). A qualitative dynamic analysis of réitérant
in linguistic development. Child Development, 71, 240-249. speech production: Phase portraits, kinematics, and dy-
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2007). Praat: Doing phonetics namic modeling. The Journal ofthe Acoustical Society of
by computer (Version 4.5.16) [Computer program]. Re- America, 77, 266-280,
trieved February 2007 from bttp://www.praat.org. Krause, J. C, & Braida, L. D. (2004), Acoustic properties
Bond, Z. S., & Moore, T. J. ( 1994). A note on the acoustic- of naturally produced clear speecb at normal speaking rates.
phonetic characteristics of inadvertent clear speech. Speech The Journal ofthe Acoustical Society of America, 115,
Communication, 14, 325-337. 362-378.
Bradlow, A. i t , Torretta, G. M., & Pisoni, D. B. (1996). Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia, PA:
Intelligihility of normal speech. I: Global and fine-grained University of Pennsylvania Press,
acoustic-pbonetic talker characteristics. Speech Communi- Lee, S., Potamianos, A., & Narayanan, H. (1999). Acoustics
cation, 29, 255-272. of children's speech: Developmental changes of temporal and
Brinton, B., Fujiki, M., Loeb, D. F., & Winkler, E. (1986). spectral parameters. The Journal ofthe Acoustical Society of
Development of conversational repair strategies in response America, 105, 1455-1468.
1448 Journal of Speech, Uinguage, and Hearing Research • Vol. 52 • 1434-1448 • December 2009
Copyright of Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research is the property of American Speech-Language-
Hearing Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv
without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email
articles for individual use.