August 12, 200520 yr I finally finished my master's proposal (my Herculean task of the summer) and will be giving it to members of my committee in the next hour (after I make copies, and dance joyously in my office). I AM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HAPPY!!!!!! So cross your fingers and hope that they enjoy "Schwa Deletion and Epenthesis: Acquiring phonological variants using an artificial lexicon" as much as I do! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOO! Hopefully I'll propose the first week of September then start running participants soon after that! HAHAHAHAHAAHAHA! I win.
August 12, 200520 yr Congrats. Sounded like a learning and cognition class that I took, so just like that class, I have no idea what you're talking about either... Will you be able to share a little bit of what the proposal is and what the experiments generally consist of?
August 12, 200520 yr You shouldn't pat yourself on the back so much. I'd never do anything like that. You should be more humble, like me. Congratulations! Edited August 12, 200520 yr by Milkman delivers
August 12, 200520 yr No children, I'm not crazy writing an upside down e on the board. It is the schwa. Congrats!
August 12, 200520 yr QUOTE(ChiSoxyGirl @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 12:24 PM) So cross your fingers and hope that they enjoy "Schwa Deletion and Epenthesis: Acquiring phonological variants using an artificial lexicon" as much as I do! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOO! I have the comic book version of that, and Ben Affleck would be AWESOME in a film adaptation.
August 12, 200520 yr I can imagine you feel roughly about the same way I did right after I passed my oral qualifying exams here. (I cleaned up my office for want of anything better to do) Congrats! Go have a beer. It helps.
August 12, 200520 yr Author QUOTE(SleepyWhiteSox @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 02:56 PM) Will you be able to share a little bit of what the proposal is and what the experiments generally consist of? Thank you so much everyone! I'm so happy to be done writing it--that I honestly haven't stopped smiling like an idiot. So, thank you all! Here's the Reader's Digest Version (you all get spared the 25 pager): The schwa is an unstressed vowel (like the first vowel in: believe, suppose, tureen and the second in catholic, general, and broccoli). We've found in a previous research you can pronounce words without the schwa and people will still recognize them. Unfortunately, the frequency of the deletion rate of the schwa and actual word frequencies vary so much that it is hard to manipulate only deletion rate. So, I made up a lexicon of 32 words (two and three syllable) that have a schwa in the same position as the previous examples and the same stress pattern. The question is: if the frequency with which participants hear the words is controlled and only the deletion frequency is manipulated will participants learn one form better? Other research has shown that inserting a schwa into a word (where there is NO schwa really, called epenthesis) causes faster and more accurate recognition. Other research suggests that the presence or absence of a schwa is not as predictive as the actual frequency with which they hear either production. So, we're trying to figure out if one of those two theories (it's the extra schwa or it's frequency) is a better predictor of how people will acquire the variant productions of the word. Should be interesting. I'm excited. And now, I'm going on vacation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 12, 200520 yr QUOTE(ChiSoxyGirl @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 02:54 PM) Thank you so much everyone! I'm so happy to be done writing it--that I honestly haven't stopped smiling like an idiot. So, thank you all! Here's the Reader's Digest Version (you all get spared the 25 pager): The schwa is an unstressed vowel (like the first vowel in: believe, suppose, tureen and the second in catholic, general, and broccoli). We've found in a previous research you can pronounce words without the schwa and people will still recognize them. Unfortunately, the frequency of the deletion rate of the schwa and actual word frequencies vary so much that it is hard to manipulate only deletion rate. So, I made up a lexicon of 32 words (two and three syllable) that have a schwa in the same position as the previous examples and the same stress pattern. The question is: if the frequency with which participants hear the words is controlled and only the deletion frequency is manipulated will participants learn one form better? Other research has shown that inserting a schwa into a word (where there is NO schwa really, called epenthesis) causes faster and more accurate recognition. Other research suggests that the presence or absence of a schwa is not as predictive as the actual frequency with which they hear either production. So, we're trying to figure out if one of those two theories (it's the extra schwa or it's frequency) is a better predictor of how people will acquire the variant productions of the word. Should be interesting. I'm excited. And now, I'm going on vacation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hey, whatever floats your boat! Seriously, congrats.
August 12, 200520 yr Wow! That is a very, very impressive task. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Congrats.
August 13, 200520 yr Congrats Chisoxy. Some of the sounds like my Anthro class I took on the history of modern language (the lexicon aspects at least). Heck of an accomplishment and you've definately earned a nice celebration
August 13, 200520 yr QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 12:26 PM) I have no idea what any of that means, so I'll just say CONGRATS SOXY!!! Ya, that. Congrats
August 15, 200520 yr Congrats Soxy!! Soxy, I assume this is limited to English speaking or will you expand to other languages? How are you controlling for each individual's English mastery? How are you controlling the pronunciations? Will the test be taped and played back? What ages are you testing? If the pronunciation has, for example, a midwest accent, and the participant is from the Bronx, how do you think that may affect the results? The topic is fascinating, controlling the experiment seems like a Herculean task.
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