Would this shaping of the vocal tract explain why some people have such distinct accents when they learn a second language whereas some people don't? I always just "assumed" it had something to do with how well some people can hear--some being better able to hear the fine nuances between sounds. And the tongue of course--some of the musculature develops differently across languages.
Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 [email protected] ________________________________________ From: Mike Palij [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 7:41 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: re: [tips] question on speech perception On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:13:37 -0700, Carol L DeVolder wrote: >Dear TIPSters, >I have tried and tried to understand the concept of formants, but >something isn't clicking in my head. Can anyone explain it to me? >I can recite the definition, but I just can't seem to picture what they >represent. I've done a fair amount of reading and it still hasn't helped. >I think I'm stuck on the idea of frequency over time and I need to >get beyond that. >Thanks for any help anyone can provide. I'm not sure how helpful this will be but one way of thinking of formants is that they represent resonant properties of the vocal tract. That is, formants represent frequencies that are reinforced by the configuration of the vocal tract. A speech sound can then be characterized by its fundamental frequency and the formants that the vocal tract supports. Changing the configuration of the vocal tract changes the formants because the resonance properties of the tract are now different. One useful source on this and related concepts is Denes & Pinson's "The Speech Chain", the 2nd edition of which is available on books.google.com, see: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZMTm3nlDfroC&pg=PA153&dq=%22speech+perception%22+denes+pinson&cd=1#v=onepage&q=formants&f=false or http://tinyurl.com/3ae9wsx There is an entry on Wikipedia for speech perception which provides some coverage of formants and their properties but I think Denes & Pinson is probably a better source; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_perception -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a21b0&n=T&l=tips&o=2222 or send a blank email to leave-2222-13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a2...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=2231 or send a blank email to leave-2231-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
