轻声音和文白音的规范问题——兼评新版《现代汉语词典》的部分注音

新版《现代汉语词典》是目前规范普通话语音最新、最具权威性的词典。但某些注音和社会上流行的实际读音存在着较大距离，轻声词和白坊音的规范问题尤其明显。有的轻声词有区别词性和词义的作用，有的轻声词大众已习惯轻声读法，都不宜硬性取消。、白两种读音不能让人感到无序可循，也应以大众是否认可来决定取舍。     

试论以发音方法为纲的声母教学顺序

声母的教学顺序多年来一直以发音部位为纲，本以发音方法为纲，综合发音部位，以最大限度地实现对比为目的，重新设计了声母的分组和顺序，将声母分为3大类、6小类。这样的分类不但符合声母的内在对比特征，也更方便声母教学的课时分配。     

Spanish dyslexic spelling abilities: the case of consonant clusters

This paper investigates Spanish dyslexic spelling abilities: specifically, the influence of syllabic linguistic structure (simple vs consonant cluster) on children's spelling performance. Consonant clusters are phonologically complex structures, so it was anticipated that there would be lower spelling performance for these syllabic structures than in simple ones, because of the poor phonological processing of dyslexic children. The participants were 31 dyslexic children, 31 chronological age‐matched children and 31 reading level‐matched children. A dictation task with words and pseudowords (with and without consonant clusters) was used. Word lexical frequency was controlled. The results show that the spelling of consonant clusters presents difficulties for dyslexic spelling performance despite this structure being orthographically consistent. Dyslexic children present a higher performance difference in items with consonant clusters than in simple items, compared with typically developing children. The work raises questions about the items used for the identification of dyslexic children's difficulties.     

Newborn infants orient to sounds.

In 2 experiments, the majority of 21 newborn infants who were maintained in an alert state consistently turned their heads toward a continuous sound source presented 90 degrees from midline. For most infants this orientation response was rather slow, taking median latencies of 2.5 sec to begin and 5.5 sec to end. The most important factors in producing this impressive response seem to be the method of holding the infants during testing and the nature of the auditory stimulus.     

新乡方言音系

新乡方言总体上分西部入声区和东部尖团音区两大块,两区内部又有差异,但是现存资料中对新乡方言各地的差异描写很少。新乡方言里的陈堡土语,其音位系统,包括声母系统、韵母系统、声调系统以及声韵调配合规律都有其自身的特点,以求对新乡方言的研究作出些补充。     

Event-related potentials and consonant differentiation in newborns with familial risk for dyslexia

We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to synthetic consonant-vowel syllables (/ba/, /da/, /ga/) from 26 newborns with familial risk for dyslexia and 23 control infants participating in the Jyv?skyl? Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia. The syllables were presented with equal probability and with interstimulus intervals ranging from 3,010 to 7,285 ms. Analyses of averaged ERPs from the latencies identified on the basis of principal component analysis (PCA) revealed significant group differences in stop-consonant processing in several latency ranges. At the latencies of 50-170 ms and 540-630 ms, the responses to /ga/ were larger and more positive than those to /ba/ and /da/ in the right hemisphere in the at-risk group. Between 740 and 940 ms, the responses to /ba/ and /da/ differed between anterior and posterior electrode sites in the control group. These results indicate that the cortical electric activation evoked by speech elements differs between children with and without risk for dyslexia even immediately after birth. Group-related effects at early and late latency ranges of ERPs suggest differences both in the early sound processing based on activation of afferent elements and in later phases of syllable encoding.     

衡水市方言的声母

衡水市方言的声母,比普通话多出好几个,在运用上与普通话相比可以至少有10种差异。了解衡水方言的详细情况,可以帮助衡水人学习普通话、纠正方言音,可以让外地人更好地了解衡水语音,以便于交际,列举的材料可以作为研究衡水方言的很好的材料。     

Learning to spell and learning phonology: the spelling of consonant clusters in Kiswahili

In orthographies studied to date, children learning to spell tend to omit one consonant of a cluster—for initial clusters, the second consonant, and for medial nasal clusters, the nasal. Explanations have included a special status for the initial consonant of a word, and the fact that in English nasal clusters are not true clusters but consist of a nasalised vowel plus a consonant. We tested children’s spelling of initial and medial clusters consisting of a nasal consonant followed by another consonant, but non-nasalised vowels, in Kiswahili. For both initial and medial clusters, the nasal was spelled wrongly more often than the other consonant. The initial position in a word does not seem to have special properties. Rather, the spelling of clusters seems to depend on the properties of the individual phonemes, nasals being particularly difficult to spell. It is concluded that cross-linguistic studies of spelling development are necessary to draw generalised conclusions about phonological processing.     

Learning-related shifts in generalization gradients for complex sounds

Learning to discriminate stimuli can alter how one distinguishes related stimuli. For instance, training an individual to differentiate between two stimuli along a single dimension can alter how that individual generalizes learned responses. In this study, we examined the persistence of shifts in generalization gradients after training with sounds. University students were trained to differentiate two sounds that varied along a complex acoustic dimension. The students were subsequently tested on their ability to recognize a sound that they had experienced during training when it was presented among several novel sounds varying along this same dimension. Peak shift was observed in Experiment 1, in which generalization tests immediately followed training, and in Experiment 2, in which the tests were delayed by 24 h. These findings further support the universality of generalization processes across species, modalities, and levels of stimulus complexity. They also raise new questions about the mechanisms underlying learning-related shifts in generalization gradients. The sound stimuli from this study are available as .wav files from http://lb.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

The impact of L1 writing system on ESL knowledge of vowel and consonant spellings

Orthographic knowledge, the general ability to learn, store, and use information about the orthographic form of words (Stanovich & West, 1989), is a crucial skill for supporting literacy. Although the development of first language (L1) orthographic awareness is impacted by the characteristics of a learner’s L1 writing system, relatively little is known about what impact the L1 may have on second language (L2) orthographic awareness. In this study, English language learners from three L1s (French, Hebrew, Mandarin Chinese), plus L1 English speakers, were tested on their English spelling knowledge using a word-pseudohomophone discrimination task. In addition to allowing for the cross-linguistic comparisons, items were designed to examine whether learners had differing performance on pseudohomophones (misspellings) that targeted vowels versus consonants. Consistent with previous research (e.g., McBride-Chang, Bialystok, Cong, & Li, 2004), the L1 Chinese speakers had the highest (L2) accuracy, followed by the L1 Hebrew and the L1 French speakers. The participants from non-alphabetic languages (Hebrew and Chinese) had significantly lower accuracy on items with misspellings involving vowels compared to consonants, and the size of the vowel-consonant accuracy difference varied substantially across L1 groups. The results demonstrate that the characteristics of a learner’s L1 writing system, particularly the existence of vowel and consonant graphemes, impact the development of L2 orthographic knowledge and sensitivity to different types of word misspellings.