24.2295, Review: Phonetics: Hardcastle, Laver & Gibbon (2012)

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Subject: 24.2295, Review: Phonetics: Hardcastle, Laver & Gibbon (2012)

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Mateja Schuck, U of Wisconsin Madison
Anja Wanner, U of Wisconsin Madison
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Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2013 12:43:51
From: Chiara Meluzzi [chiara.meluzzi at yahoo.it]
Subject: The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences, 2nd Edition

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EDITOR: William J Hardcastle
EDITOR: John  Laver
EDITOR: Fiona E Gibbon
TITLE: The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences, 2nd Edition
SERIES TITLE: Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Wiley-Blackwell
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Chiara Meluzzi, University of Pavia

SUMMARY

The second edition of the ‘Handbook of Phonetic Sciences’ covers five main
sections in phonetic research: experimental phonetics (Part I), a survey on
biological perspectives in phonetic research (Part II), models of speech
production and perception (Part III), linguistic correlates of phonetic
research (Part IV), and a synthesis of the main speech technologies available
nowadays (Part V). Across these five parts, a total of 22 chapters were
written by experts in each sub-field.

The first part (Experimental Phonetics) is comprised of four chapters
dedicated to techniques, measurements, and instruments in phonetics research.
Maureen Stone (Laboratory Techniques for Investigating Speech Articulation)
offers a survey of methods for investigating the oral/vocal tract both
directly and indirectly during speech, with considerations given to
applications and weaknesses and strengths of each method. One of the most
widespread methods of studying what happens in the mouth during speech is
electopalatography (EPG), which basically uses small electrodes embedded in a
pseudopalate. This method allows the researcher to see what happens in the
mouth in real time, and provides useful information about tongue motion as
well as tongue-palate contact. EPG can provide good information for lingual
consonants, but not for those sounds which do not involve tongue-palate
contact (e.g. vowels). In any case, EPG is especially used for studying tongue
movements in different languages and in speakers with speech disorders.

Christine H. Shadle (The Aerodynamics of Speech) reviews the basic concepts of
static and dynamic fluid, and applies these concepts to the aerodynamic
description of vocal tract behaviours (e.g. breathing, frication, and so on).
The author also explores the main methods for measuring pressure in the vocal
tract during phonation. The manometer is the basic instrument of studying
pressure variation in the vocal tract, but other indirect and medical
procedures have been used by scholars (e.g. tracheal puncture). The major
disadvantages of such methods are that they are very invasive and require
medical supervision in order to carry out an experiment.

Jonathan Harrington (Acoustic Phonetics) examines the basic concepts of
experimental phonetics, in particular, as related to differences between
vowels and consonants in spectrographic representations and spectral shape.
Concerning vowels, the author concentrates on formant analysis, while also
taking into account the whole-spectrum approach, which argues that “vowel
identity is based on gross spectral properties such as auditory spectral
density” (p. 89).

In the last chapter of the section (Investigating the Physiology of Laryngeal
Structures), Hajime Hirose takes into account the very latest techniques
available for observing the larynx during speech in order to understand
laryngeal adjustments in different phonetic conditions. A general difficulty
with these techniques is providing high quality images of the vocal tract in
addition to a good time-resolution of laryngeal movements. For instance,
ultra-high-speed photography was, until recently, one the most widespread
systems used to study vocal fold vibration; it provided good resolution images
but, on the other hand, forced the researcher to work on a frame-by-frame
analysis (p. 132). Other techniques available are, for instance, laryngeal
electromyography (EMG), which is also used for the analysis of non-speech
gestures such as throat clearing or sniffs. Hirose also points out that
research in this particular phonetic field is still attempting to find the
best way to describe laryngeal activity through phonation. Moreover, a
particular interest has been developed regarding the investigation of the
nature of pathological voice production, aiming to find parameters that
quantitatively describe “the degree of voice abnormality” (p. 149).

The second section (Biological Perspectives) contains three chapters related
to two fundamental apparatuses in speech production: the vocal apparatus and
the brain. Janet Mackenzie Beck (Organic Variation of the Vocal Apparatus)
analyses differences in speech production in terms of different anatomical
characteristics of the vocal organs or different uses of the vocal organs. The
author highlights that not only age, but also genetic and environmental
factors affect the way people use their vocal apparatus. For instance, the
author points out that “given any group of people of the same age and gender,
there will still be marked differences in vocal tract morphology” (p. 157) due
to genetic and environmental conditioning. Moreover, organic consequences of
trauma or disease are another source of variation in the coordination and
timing of voice among individuals.

Hermann Ackermann and Wolfram Ziegler (Brain Mechanisms Underlying Speech
Motor Control) address the problem of brain organization during speech
production through a review of findings related to neural diseases or lesions.
One example of such trouble in the organization of speech is the so-called
syndrome of apraxia of speech (AOS), which mostly arises from ischemic
infarctions within the left hemisphere (i.e. the language-dominant
hemisphere). Psycholinguistic experiments have shown that in patients affected
by such a disease, the capability of planning speech movements at the level of
the syllable may be seriously compromised (Ziegler 2005).

The neural correlates of articulatory movements in speech production are also
at the core of Anne Smith’s contribution (Development of Neural Control of
Orofacial Movements for Speech). The author presents a vast and accurate
review of studies focusing on both central and peripheral mechanisms involved
in speech production by taking into account biological differences related
mainly (but not limited) to age and gender. Scholars have demonstrated that
younger speakers show a high degree of variability in the coordination of
speech movements (e.g. lip aperture), and that this variability decreases with
age. This pattern has been interpreted as an index of neuromotor maturation.

The third section (Modeling Speech Production and Perception) moves from the
organisation of speech production in brain to the issue of modelling speech
production and perception. This is the largest part of the handbook,
incorporating seven contributions. Barbara L. Davis (Speech Acquisition)
reviews past and very recent research paradigms of speech acquisition by
contrasting formalist phonological perspectives with functionalist phonetic
science perspectives. The main theoretical difference between the two
approaches is that from a formalist phonological perspective, every child’s
expression underlies an innate system of phonological knowledge, whereas
functionalist phonetic perspectives investigate the relation between biology,
physiology and the social function of speech forms in the acquisition of
phonological patterns. Moreover, Davis also points out that different
perspectives influence not only analyses, but also methods of data collection;
for instance, small corpora are generally used in formalist perspectives,
whereas functionalist research uses a “mosaic of data and information about
peripheral subsystem capacities during the process of speech acquisition” (p.
304).

Edda Farnetani and Daniel Recasens (Coarticulation and Connected Speech
Processes) explore models analysing connected speech from both a theoretical
and an experimental point of view. The authors point out that two general
control principles have been repeatedly advocated by scholars dealing with
coarticulation: the principle of economy, and the principle of output
constraints. The first principle was proposed by Lindblom (e.g. Lindblom
1983), who stated that phonetic variation is “a continuous adaptation of
speech production to the demands of the communicative situation” (p. 329).
Lindblom also introduced the concept of the acoustic target, which is an ideal
spectral configuration in a context-free situation. However, the acoustic
target is rarely completely reached; in different speaking situations,
speakers adapt their production strategies to approach the target by avoiding
or reducing coarticulation. However, the degree of variation is limited by the
so-called output constraints, which basically preserve the contrast between
phonological units in each language. Thus, the degree of variation in
vowel-to-vowel coarticulation is limited by the need to preserve the
perceptual contrast between vowels (see also Van der Harst 2011). Given these
two general principles, the authors explore the main models that deal with
coarticulation in different languages, concluding that for anticipatory
coarticulation, “no model in its present version can account for the diverse
results within and across languages” (p. 347) because languages differ in
anticipatory coarticulation strategies for both the lips and the velum.

Theories and models of speech production are also addressed in Anders
Löfqvist’s contribution (Theories and Models of Speech Production), which
focuses on how different parts of the vocal tract are accommodated by
speakers, and to what degree of control and with how much freedom such
accommodation takes place. As a matter of fact, during normal speech
production, articulators are synchronized in a proper temporal and spatial
sequence to convey the speech signal. When spatial or temporal conditions
change (e.g. if speaking rate increases), articulatory movements vary as well
in order to maintain a degree of intelligibility.

Christer Gobl and Ailbhe Ní Chasaide (Voice Source Variation and Its
Communicative Functions) address the problem of the acoustic representation of
phonation, and discuss the role of voice quality in signalling speakers’ mood
and attitude. The authors also discuss the sociolinguistic correlates of voice
quality, like the identification of a speaker, or differences in either
regional, linguistic or social groups based on variation in voice quality. For
instance, at the suprasegmental level, tonal languages often show specific
voice qualities associated with specific tones, e.g., the fourth falling tone
in Mandarin is often associated with creaky voice (p. 407).

Kenneth N. Stevens and Helen M. Hanson (Articulatory-Acoustic Relations as the
Basis of Distinctive Contrasts) deeply analyse the acoustic properties of
speech sounds by reviewing works within quantal/enhancement theory. Changes in
articulators result in changes in the acoustic parameters of sounds produced
in the vocal tract, which is captured by quantal theory’s notion that “a
feature can be defined by a quantal relation between an articulatory parameter
and an acoustic parameter” (p. 429, see Stevens 1972). This means that the
acoustic parameters change in a not-monotonic way, and that certain regions in
the articulatory space may increase acoustic parameters more than other
regions.  The authors also explore the acoustic correlates of articulatory
variations during phonation, and their perceptual correlates. For instance,
the authors analyse variation produced in the acoustic resonator during the
production of nasalized vowels, in which the opening of the front cavity is
seen as an “enhancing gesture” (p. 442) that affects the formant values of
vowels, resulting in reduced amplitudes of formants in nasalized vowels when
compared with oral vowels.

Perception and auditory processing are at the core of Brian C. J. Moore’s
contribution (Aspects of Auditory Processing Related to Speech Perception).
The author takes into account the main features affecting speech perception,
and concludes that “speech perception is robust, and resistant to distortion
of the speech and to background noise” (p. 454). For instance, during phone
calls, the fundamental frequency (f0) of male speakers often gets lost, but
hearers are usually able to perceive a low pitch. In this respect, Ritsma
(1967) introduced the principle of dominance, according to which hearers
select the region in which some harmonics are dominant, even if this region is
not absolute.

The last chapter of the section (Cognitive Processes in Speech Perception), by
James McQueen and Anne Cutler, addresses the problem of speech perception from
a cognitive point of view. The authors analyse how the speech signal is
perceived, extracted, mapped, analysed and finally stored as cognitive
representations. They focus on the relationship between lexical and prelexical
processing, that is, between the recognition of words and the representation
of words starting from acoustic input. The degree of interaction between these
two features of speech perception has been tested in various ways. For
instance, hearers are more precise in distinguishing /d/ and /t/ when they
occur in real words. Moreover, the authors show that suprasegmental features
influence the ability to discriminate boundaries among words, as demonstrated
by Cho et al. (2007).

The fourth section (Linguistic Phonetics) presents five contributions. Janet
Fletcher (The Prosody of Speech: Timing and Rhythm) explores suprasegmental
features, such as stress and prosody, as related to durational patterns of
segments and syllables in various languages. For instance, many studies have
investigated differences in rhythm by dividing languages into two main
categories: stress-timed languages and syllable-timed languages. Languages in
the first group are, for instance, English or Arabic, in which stressed
syllables are sources of rhythm that recur at equal intervals of time. On the
other hand, syllable-timed languages’ (e.g. Italian or Yoruba) syllables are
the source of rhythm even when they are not accentually prominent. This
classification has been discussed and criticized, but is still a reference
point.

Mary Beckman and Jennifer Venditti (Tone and Intonation) also address speech
prosody from the point of view of tone and intonation. The authors provide a
vast review of literature concerning both the representation of tone and
intonation in phonetic sciences, and the parameters proposed by various
scholars in order to reach a formal model of tone and intonation in languages.
However, the authors point out that previous studies show many differences in
both theoretical orientation and achieved results. Thus, in the concluding
remarks of the chapter, Beckman and Venditti ask themselves if it is really
necessary to distinguish different linguistic typologies based on features
like tone and intonation. In particular, the authors emphasize that in the
examples provided in the literature, it is possible to find an equal number of
counter-examples. Moreover, it is worth noticing that we have in-depth
descriptions of intonation systems of about two dozen languages, which is not
much when considering that there are thousands of languages spoken in the
world, and thus, a taxonomy or a typology of intonational features is judged
as premature (p. 643).

John J. Ohala (The Relation between Phonetics and Phonology) explores how in
the last century, phonological paradigms have affected phonetic research by
emphasizing the need for both of these fields of research to be informed by
the other. The author points out that the split between these two fields was
emphasized during the rise of structuralism, even if, historically speaking,
it was more common to see the two fields integrated. Ohala then states that
“the integration of phonetics and phonology is evident” (p. 664), and that
many questions about phonology may benefit from phonetic studies. For
instance, the issue of how phonemes are represented in the minds of speakers
could be informed by phonetic research on speech processing, as has been fully
illustrated in other chapters of the handbook (e.g. Moore’s and McQueen &
Cutler’s chapters). Moreover, Ohala points out that phonetic-based analyses
may enhance phonological theories of sound change in different languages.

John H. Esling (Phonetic Notation) traces the history of phonetic symbols and
diacritics in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) up until the last
revised version of the IPA chart of 2005. The author points out that
differences in each version of the IPA chart accounted for the debate
surrounding articulatory and auditory systems, as well as the structure of the
vocal tract during speech. However, vocal tract theories need to be balanced
with practical issues, such as avoiding a chart that is too wide. A clear
example of this is the decision to include epiglottals in the category “other
symbols” in the 1989 IPA chart; although the prevalent theory at that time
considered epiglottals as a categorical place of articulation stricture to be
placed between pharyngeal and glottal, the editors judged that it was better
to not add another column among the pulmonic consonants (p. 688). Thus,
phonetic notation is based on the articulatory shape of the vocal tract, which
can be reinterpreted thanks to improvements in articulatory and auditory
phonetic research. For instance, Esling (2005), among others, has shown that
both the larynx and pharynx play a role in the production of “back” vowels,
which could be more clearly divided into “raised” and “retracted” (p. 689).

In the last contribution of this section, Paul Foulkes, James M. M. Scobbie,
and Dominic Watt (Sociophonetics) explore theoretical and methodological
issues in a new field of research, i.e., sociophonetics, whose unifying theme
is “the aim of identifying, and ultimately explaining, the sources, loci,
parameters, and communicative functions of socially structured variation in
speech” (p. 704). The authors discuss the main sources of variation, loci of
variation, and then explore some methodological issues related to
sociophonetic research. Firstly, the authors emphasize that inter-speaker
variation has been judged as “undesirable noise in the data” (p.716) by a
large part of phonetic literature. Moreover, they discuss the main loci of
variation, that is, which segmental and suprasegmental features may reveal
interesting socially structured variation in speech. The authors point out
that the majority of studies have focused on vowels (e.g. Van der Harst 2011),
whereas there are very few works dealing with consonantal variables. In the
remaining part of the chapter, some methodological issues are discussed by
emphasizing that data collection in sociophonetic research has “no fixed
protocol” (p. 729), since the amount of data and range of samples strongly
depend on the main aims of research. Finally, the authors state that the
analysis of data in this field is based on fine-grained variation in both
production and perception by using statistical analysis to account for complex
sources of variation (i.e. linguistic and social variation) that may affect
the data.

The fifth and last section of the handbook (Speech Technology) collects three
contributions on automated speech processing, synthesis and recognition.
Daniel P.W. Ellis (An Introduction to Signal Processing for Speech) first
introduces basic concepts related to digital processing and manipulation of
the speech signal (e.g. Fourier analysis, spectral analysis, and so on).

Then, Rolf Carlson and Björn Granström (Speech Synthesis) review the main
methods of speech synthesis available in phonetic research and discuss the
advantages and disadvantages of each method. The most widespread applications
of speech synthesis are text-to-speech systems, which are supposed to read
aloud a text given as input. The main problem with this is the degree of
naturalness and acceptability of the output produced by the synthesizer. In
this respect, one interesting solution is provided by articulatory models,
which work not only on speech synthesis, but also on the extraction of vocal
tract configurations. However, such models need to be integrated with models
of speech production based on volumes, masses, and airflow. For the authors,
the future of text-to-speech systems lies in the inclusion of these models in
a comprehensive system.

Finally, Steve Renals and Simon King (Automatic Speech Recognition) describe
the purposes, models and techniques for the automatic transcription of
acoustic speech into words. As has been shown in the third section of
handbook, speech recognition is a very complex task which must take into
account many possible sources of variation. On the other hand, the authors
emphasize that automatic speech recognition systems show great improvements
annually due to increased computational resources and the availability of
transcribed speech corpora. Speech corpora are important in order to train the
system with large amounts of data. For instance, Hidden Markov Models (HMMs)
are based on very large amounts of data representing a mathematically and
computationally clear model. However, these models are based on the
unrealistic assumption that each acoustic feature is independent of all past
and future observations (p. 810). In the remainder of the chapter, the authors
also provide a discussion of models that use acoustic features of the speech
signal to reduce errors in speech recognition systems. The main purpose in
this respect is to emphasize relevant features while also removing unimportant
ones. One example of these models is the very widespread phone model, which is
generally based on pronunciation dictionaries as training data; moreover,
phone models may be enhanced by adding HMM systems. In the conclusion, the
authors point out that there is still a considerable gap between human and
automatic speech recognition, and that automatic speech recognition needs to
be informed by developments in research on human speech recognition.

The handbook ends with a general index containing notes, figures, and tables.
	
EVALUATION

The paperback edition of ‘The Handbook of Phonetics Sciences’ is not different
than the hardcover edition from 2012. Thus, the main differences of interest
are between the first edition of the handbook (1997) and the current one; this
second edition provides an excellent, updated review of the latest theoretical
and methodological approaches to phonetic sciences.

As the editors point out in the Introduction, all chapters were updated by the
authors in order to inform the reader of the very latest developments,
especially concerning speech technology and phonological theory. Some authors
were also asked to offer a new treatment of particular topics, and this
resulted in chapters by Harrington (Acoustic Phonetics), Ackermann and Ziegler
(Brain Mechanisms Underlying Speech Motor Control), Smith (Development of
Neural Control of Orofacial Movements for Speech), Davis (Speech Acquisition),
Ellis (An Introduction to Signal Processing for Speech), and Renals and King
(Automatic Speech Recognition).

Moreover, new chapters were added to this edition, which are all included in
Part IV (Linguistic Phonetics), together with a revised chapter by Ohala. Two
commissioned chapters reflect the growing interest in phonetic sciences
related to suprasegmental features, which are addressed by Fletcher (The
Prosody of Speech: Timing and Rhythm), and Beckman and Venditti (Tone and
Intonation). The main strength of these chapters is the discussion of various
models used in the analysis of suprasegmental aspects of speech, which is done
through numerous examples from different languages (e.g. German, Japanese, and
Chinese). Furthermore, Esling’s new chapter on phonetic notation is a very
useful and precise update to previous treatises on this subject (e.g. Laver
1994), and also offers helpful advice on the use of phonetic notation, in
particular, how to read the phonetic chart. Obviously, this is particularly
useful for young scholars, especially for those moving from general to more
fine-grained phonetic transcriptions. Finally, the new chapter by Foulkes,
Scobbie and Watt (Sociophonetics) introduces this new paradigm by emphasizing
its main aim, as well as possible applications of investigating phonetic
variation within and between groups of individuals. The authors also emphasize
the theoretical implications of sociophonetic research for both
sociolinguistic studies and phonological theory (e.g. exemplar based models
such as Pierrehumbert 2002). By including this chapter in the handbook, the
editors recognize the growing interest in sociophonetics as a branch of
phonetic sciences in recent years, and also emphasize that sociophonetics is a
rich and promising field of research whose results may positively affect both
sociolinguistic and phonetic sciences.

Overall, the main strength of this volume is the high degree of expertise of
all the contributors in their respective fields, which is directly reflected
in the chapters. Additional useful features include examples from a vast array
of languages, as well as the complete lists of references at the end of each
chapter. The handbook also fulfills the editors’ main goal of offering an
updated and multidisciplinary orientation to the phonetic analysis of speech.

In conclusion, the second edition of ‘The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences’ is an
invaluable reference. The clarity of its explanations, its accurate and
updated review of theories and methods, and its analysis of both the strengths
and weaknesses of each tool at the disposal of researchers will all be of
great help to scholars involved in various degrees of speech analysis.

REFERENCES

Cho, Taehong & James M. McQueen. 2005. Prosodic influences on consonant
production in Dutch: effects of prosodic boundaries, phrasal accent and
lexical stress. Journal of Phonetics. 33, 121-57.

Hardcastle, William J., John Laver & Fiona E. Gibbon, eds. 1997. The Handbook
of Phonetic Sciences. First Edition. Oxford: Blackwell.

Laver, John 1994. Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Lindblom, Björn 1983. Phonetic invariance and the adaptive nature of speech.
In B.A.G. Elsendoorn & H. Bouma, eds. The Production of Speech. New York:
Springer Verlag, 217-45.

Pierrehumbert, J. B. 2002. Word-specific phonetics. In C. Gussenhoven & N.
Warner, eds. Laboratory Phonology VII. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 101-39.

Ritsma, R. J. 1967. Frequencies dominant in the perception of the pitch of
complex sounds. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 42. 191-8.

Stevens, Kenneth N. 1972. The quantal nature of speech: evidence from
articulatory-acoustic data. In P. B. Denes & E. E. David Jr., eds. Human
Communication: a unified view. New York: Mc Graw-Hill, 51-66.

Van der Harst, Sander. 2011. The vowel space paradox. Utrecht. LOT.

Ziegler, Wolfram. 2005. A nonlinear model of word length effects in apraxia of
speech. Cognitive Neuropsychology. 22, 603-23.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Chiara Meluzzi is a PhD student in Linguistics at University of Pavia and Free
University of Bozen (Italy). After an MA dissertation on the sociolinguistics
of Ancient Greek comedy (University of Eastern Piedmont-Vercelli), her PhD
thesis provides a sociophonetic analysis of the Italian variety spoken in
Bozen (South Tyrol, Italy). Her main research interests include
sociolinguistics, sociophonetics, language variation and change, as well as
historical linguistics and pragmatics.








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