Event Details

HL2C-SLLAT Seminar: Sarah Si Chen (Hong Kong Polytechnic)

Title: Modelling representations in speech normalization of prosodic cues by native and non-native speakers

Presenter(s): Sarah Si Chen (Hong Kong Polytechnic)

How to join: The seminars are free to attend. Simply sign up to the HL2C Mailing List or to the SLLAT mailing list to receive the link to join us via Microsoft Teams link. You do not need a Teams account to access the talk.

About: This is a joint event, co-organized by the Heritage Language 2 Consortium (HL2C) and the Second Language Learning and Teaching (SLLAT) Research Group.

Abstract:

The lack of invariance problem in speech perception refers to a fundamental problem of how listeners deal with differences of speech sounds produced by various speakers. This talk covers how listeners might make use of mentally stored distributional information in normalization of prosodic cues. Based the results of native speakers, we proposed a probabilistic parametric representation (PPR), which accounts for how knowledge is integrated from previously established distributions of speakers with their indexical information into tone perception. In addition, we also examined how native and non-native speakers differ in tone perception and how knowledge of distributional information may be affected with the presence of contextual cues.