The Impacts of Phonetically Variable Input on Language Learning

Dear Colleagues,

We are happy to invite submissions to the Special Issue “The Impacts of Phonetically Variable Input on Language Learning” for the online journal Languages. Today’s language users and learners are equipped with various virtual communication devices and have quick and easy daily access to speech samples of multiple talkers. The goal of this Special Issue is to gauge whether and how real-world phonetic variability affects people’s daily communication and language learning. We welcome papers that report empirical findings of how multi-talker input or multi-dialectal input impacts language processing and learning in diverse communities.

Research on the effect of exposure to multi-talker input has demonstrated that receiving input from multiple talkers facilitates the extraction of common acoustic features, and it benefits listeners in various tasks such as word recall, learning foreign phonemes, and adapting to new accents (e.g., Barcroft & Sommers, 2005; Bradlow and Bent, 2008; Bradlow et al., 1997, Goldinger et al., 1991). Recent studies have shown that multi-talker input can challenge early-stage L2 learners while facilitating statistical learning (Wiener et al., 2018; 2021) and that the effect of multi-talker input is not limited to phoneme or word learning and benefits adult L2 learners’ acquisition of novel syntactic frames (Ito & Wong, 2022). As for the phonetic variation in real-world communication, we need more data on what types of variations exist and how to best use it and, most importantly, for whom.

We invite submissions of research that reports systematic analyses of phonetic variations in any situations that may make people face dialectal, sociolectal and individual differences in pronunciation, or research studies that report the effect of phonetically variable input on various language learners and users, including children, adult L2 learners, sign language users, aging adults, and individuals with developmental disorders. 

The example topics are:

• Phonetic variation in classrooms and course materials;
• Miscommunication based on differences in pronunciation;
• Child/youth L1 language acquisition;
• Adult L2 language processing and acquisition;
• Virtual communication (including conversations with AI);
• Language processing in aging adults;
• Language development in individuals with a perceptual/attention disorder.

While the possible topics are not limited to the above list, we particularly welcome the use of non-standard varieties of languages or dialects.

Interested authors are required to submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their contribution. Please send this to the Guest Editor (kiwako.ito@newcastle.edu.au) or to Languages Editorial Office (languages@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

References

Barcroft, J., & Sommers, M. S. (2005). Effects of acoustic variability on second language vocabulary learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 387–414.

Bradlow, A., & Bent, T. (2008). Perceptual adaptation to non-native speech. Cognition, 106, 707–729.

Bradlow, A., Pisoni, D., Akahane-Yamada, R. & Tohkura, Y. (1997). Training Japanese listeners to identify

English /r/ and /l/: IV. Some effects of perceptual learning on speech production. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 101, 2299–2310.

Goldinger, S. D., Pisoni, D. B., & Logan, J. S. (1991). On the nature of talker variability effects on recall of spoken word lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 17, 152–162.

Ito, K. & Wong, W. (2022). Sometimes less is more: The effects of phonetically variable input on auditory processing instruction for L2 French. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 44 (4), 1045-1070.

Wiener, S., Ito, K.,& Speer, S. (2018). Early L2 spoken word recognition combines input-based and knowledge based processing. Language and Speech, 61, 632–656.

Wiener, S., Ito, K., & Speer, S. R. (2021). Effects of multi-talker input and instructional method on the dimension-based statistical learning of syllable-tone combinations: An eye-tracking study. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 43, 155–180.

Dr. Kiwako Ito
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• phonetic variability
• variation in speech production and its effect on comprehension
• individual differences
• dialectal/sociolectal variation
• effect of phonetically variable input on language processing or acquisition