911吃瓜

By Nicole North

鈥婭ndigenous Languages and Linguistics Master of Arts (INLL MA) students Martina Joe and Randeana Peter鈥� and Graduate Program Chair Henny Yeung鈥� 鈥� 鈥媎uring the XVIth International Congress for the Study of Child Language鈥�. The conference took place from July 15th to 19鈥媡h, 2024. The congress is organized 鈥媌y the International Association for the Study of Child Language ()鈥�, whose mission is to promote international and interdisciplinary cooperation in the study of child language. Martina and Randeana's research work and travel to the conference were supported by the SSHRC Partnership Grant for the project 鈥淓nsuring full literacy in a multicultural and digital world鈥� (Principal Investigator Dr. Janet Werker, UBC; co-Investigator Dr. Henny Yeung).

鈥婳n July 16鈥媡h, during the symposium 鈥淒eveloping materials on healthy language development with and for Indigenous communities鈥� organized by Shanley Allen of the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany, Randeana Peter delivered a presentation. The symposium focused on the development of language-related materials in Indigenous communities around the world, in collaborations between community members and academics, to revitalize and strengthen the acquisition of those languages. Randeana's work is titled t鈥檜t鈥檃鈥檛hut 鈥榰n thathun: Beatboxing exercises for children learning Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� sounds鈥�. During her talk, Randeana鈥� emphasized that, in order to learn Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥�, it is vital that children learn 鈥媡he sounds of Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥�, which 鈥媔nvolve glottalization, ejectives, and complex consonant clusters not found in English.鈥� You can read the full description below. 

July 17鈥媡h was the day that Henny Yeung presented research titled Visual speech enhances children鈥檚 looking but does not speed naming: A priming study鈥�, during a symposium organized by Fleur Vissers. 鈥婬is co-authors are listed below, along with the abstract. Their work examines whether visual speech processing has distinct connections to speech production versus perception tasks.

On July 18th, during a symposium organized by Henny Yeung titled "Language acquisition in Indigenous North and Central American contexts", Martina Joe presented a talk. Her work is titled Child pronunciation in a language revitalization context: Evidence from Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥�. Martina's co-authors are listed below, along with the abstract. The research seeks to examine at what point children master specific sounds, and how L2 adult input affects children鈥檚 pronunciation of these sounds. 

t鈥檜t鈥檃鈥檛hut 鈥榰n thathun: Beatboxing exercises for children learning Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� sounds

Author
Randeana Peter

Decription
hakwush 鈥榰n shqwultun 鈥榠鈥� thuythut 鈥榰n sqwal. 鈥榚鈥檜t wulh t鈥檜t鈥檃鈥檛hut 鈥榰n thathun 鈥榠鈥� 鈥榰n tuhwthulh 鈥榠鈥� 鈥榰n shhw鈥檜thqun. This is how we begin our Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� beatboxing alphabet. I am a Kindergarten and Grade 1 Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� teacher at the Quw鈥檜tsun Smuneem Elementary School in my home of Quw鈥檜stun (Cowichan). The Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� language spans from Snuw鈥檔uw鈥檜s (Nanoose) to Me鈥檒uxutth鈥� (Malahat) on Vancouver Island in Western Canada, and is an Indigenous Coast Salish language. Our communities have been working on revitalizing our language for many years. My research is on how children learn sounds of Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥�, which uses glottalization, ejectives, and complex consonant clusters not found in English. Pronouncing Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� involves learning new muscle movements and I remembered what people said about speaking it: 鈥淥ur people, when they spoke, it was like they were singing to each other,鈥� and 鈥渢he muscles we are using [when speaking Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥橾 aren鈥檛 used all the time.鈥� This had me thinking about when my kids would hold their throat because it was sore. I discuss here how I teach beat boxing warm-ups to help us speak and keep our Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥檝ocal muscles in shape. In this presentation, I will share examples of nonsense words and sentences that keep us walking around the house practicing everyday, reinforcing the kinds of movements that help us produce the new sounds. For example, in the following passage, all the consonants sounds are used for making beats and the vowels are used for harmony or a transition: p鈥檜q鈥� (white) lhsuq鈥� (half) shewuq (carrot) | p鈥�, q鈥�, s, lh, q, sh, w - consonants | u, e - vowels. Our Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� speaking at home and school has become stronger because of these beatboxing activities that prime our muscles to work in a Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� way, and has made us鈥攂oth children and adults鈥攎ore confident speakers.

Visual speech enhances children鈥檚 looking but does not speed naming: A priming study

Authors
Henny Yeung (911吃瓜), Theresa Rabideau (University of Ottawa), Margarethe McDonald (The University of Kansas), and Tania Zamuner (University of Ottawa). 

Abstract
How multimodal information is integrated in children鈥檚 speech remains an active area of research. Following predictions from adult neuroimaging models, we ask here whether visual speech processing has distinct connections to speech production versus perception tasks. We previously measured 2-8 year-olds鈥� looking to a target object (e.g., ball) over a distractor object (e.g., coat) after children either saw a visual prime (a face silently articulating ball), heard an auditory prime (the word ball), or were presented with an audiovisual prime (a face saying the word ball). Results suggested increasing target-object looking across age in V, A, and AV modalities, and although visual speech had comparably weaker effects, it reliably increased in strength from the youngest to oldest ages. The current study investigates whether children were able to use visual speech to prime spoken word production in an almost identical procedure. Instead of two target images, however, only one image was shown (e.g., ball), which was preceded by the same V, A, or AV primes, which presented either the target word (ball), or an unrelated word (coat). Naming latencies for the target object were also recorded instead of looking times. Data collection is ongoing but results to date from 48 children in the 4-6 year range (M = 5;4 years) show strong priming effects in AV and A conditions, but surprisingly, no priming effect or age-related improvement in the V condition. Overall, we replicate the finding that visual speech is less effective than audio speech at activating (or inhibiting) lexical representations in children. Critically, we also show that visual speech is far more effective at enhancing looking (a perceptual skill) than speeding word naming (a production skill). This suggests a rich avenue of future research that investigates why visual speech may interface differently with children鈥檚 perceptual versus productive lexical development. 

Child pronunciation in a language revitalization context: Evidence from Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥�

Authors
Martina Joe, Boey Kwan, Elise McClay, Henny Yeung, and Sonya Bird

Abstract
Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� is an Indigenous language spoken on southeastern Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada). Through intense grassroots activism, many communities have a remarkable increase in the number of young children learning Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� through early home- and school-based language programs. Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� has a rich consonant inventory, including many place and manner contrasts not used in English, as well as complex consonant clusters, and children most commonly learn Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� from their teachers and parents, who are themselves adult L2 speakers. In our research, we ask at what point children master specific sounds, and how L2 adult input affects children鈥檚 pronunciation of these sounds. As community- and university-based linguists, including an adult learner of Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� who is a parent of young children enrolled in this language programming, we have been examining children鈥檚 recitations of word and phrase lists that are representative of the language鈥檚 sound system. In our talk, we present an overview of a corpus of 173 transcribed words from 8 children, and we track the acquisition of individual consonants based on children鈥檚 age and adult input patterns. Results show that (1) the more often children hear a particular sound, the more often they faithfully reproduce it, (2) consonants present in both English and Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� are more easily produced at earlier ages, whereas consonants unique to Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� are produced more accurately at older ages, and (3) some select non-English sounds are nevertheless produced accurately from an early age (e.g., uvular /q/). These patterns are beginning to build a full picture of the developmental pathway of pronunciation acquisition among young Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥�-learning children. Our research furthers our understanding of phonological acquisition in languages with more complex consonant inventories than those currently well-studied in the literature. Results will also provide benchmarks that can be used by parents, teachers, and clinicians in supporting Hul鈥檘鈥檜mi鈥檔um鈥� speaking children.