EVIDENCE OF FINE PHONETIC DETAIL IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS ’ VOWELS: CROSS-LINGUISTIC PRODUCTION & PERCEPTION STUDIES

Previous studies of vowels produced by adults have shown that there are cross-linguistic differences in the acoustic characteristics of vowels that share the same phonemic symbol (e.g., Bradlow, 1995). It has also been reported that young children start to produce these language-specific phonetic details very early (e.g., de Boysson-Bardies, Halle, Sagart, & Durand, 1989). Although a considerable amount of work has been done to understand the acoustic characteristic of vowels produced by adult speakers, there is less work on vowel acquisition. This study is unique in the literature in that it examines production of the same set of “shared ” vowels (vowels with the same phonemic symbol) across five languages and three age groups, using both static and dynamic acoustic measures, and it also examines the relationship between these acoustic measures and naïve-listeners ’ perception of these vowels. The overall aim of the three studies included in this dissertation was to examine language-specific fine phonetic detail in shared vowels produced by adults, 5-year-olds, and 2-year-olds, who are monolingual speakers of American English, Cantonese, Greek, Japanese, or Korean. Values of the first two formant frequencies were extracted both at the vowel midpoint in Study 1, and from onset to midpoint (formant trajectories) in Study 3, and examined acros