Ocke-Schwen Bohn

Last updated

Ocke-Schwen Bohn (born in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 14 May 1953 [1] ) is a professor of English Linguistics at Aarhus University in Denmark. [2] He specializes in phonetics and psycholinguistics, especially second language and cross-language speech perception, foreign accented speech, and infant speech perception, and he has also conducted work on the phonetics of an endangered language (Föhr North Frisian), [3] on interlanguage intelligibility, and on language in autobiographical memory. Bohn currently serves as member of the editorial board of Journal of Phonetics [4] and Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics. [5] He also organized the 2016 edition of the International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech (New Sounds) conference. [6]

Contents

Biography

Bohn received an M.A. (“Staatsexamen”) in English and Geography from Kiel University in 1979,[ citation needed ] and Ph.D. (”dr. phil.”) in English Linguistics from Kiel University in 1984. [7] He completed a postdoctoral fellowship on an NIH grant (PI: James E. Flege) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1989.[ citation needed ] Since 1996, he has been professor of English Linguistics at Aarhus University in Denmark. [1]

Research

Bohn is internationally recognized for his research on infant speech perception, cross-language speech perception, vowel perception, and second language speech. [8] Bohn's collaborations in these areas have resulted in the influential [9] Speech Learning Model and its revision, [10] [11] in insights on infant, native, and cross-language vowel perception (with Winifred Strange and with Diane Kewley-Port), in the discovery of universal patterns of infant vowel perception (with Linda Polka), and in the study of cross-language perception of a range of consonants and vowels (with Catherine Best and with Terry Gottfried). Bohn is probably best known for his Desensitization Hypothesis [12] and for his work (with Linda Polka) on the Natural Referent Vowel framework. [13] His work on second language speech has provided support for the assumption that the capacity for phonetic category formation remains intact over the life-span. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phonetics</span> Branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human language

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. The field of phonetics is traditionally divided into three sub-disciplines based on the research questions involved such as how humans plan and execute movements to produce speech, how various movements affect the properties of the resulting sound, or how humans convert sound waves to linguistic information. Traditionally, the minimal linguistic unit of phonetics is the phone—a speech sound in a language which differs from the phonological unit of phoneme; the phoneme is an abstract categorization of phones, and it is also defined as the smallest unit that discerns meaning between sounds in any given language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Föhr North Frisian</span> North Frisian dialect of Föhr, Germany

Föhr Frisian, or Fering, is the dialect of North Frisian spoken on the island of Föhr in the German region of North Frisia. Fering refers to the Fering Frisian name of Föhr, Feer. Together with the Öömrang, Söl'ring, and Heligolandic dialects, it forms part of the insular group of North Frisian dialects and it is very similar to Öömrang.

The voiceless alveolar, dental and postalveolarplosives are types of consonantal sounds used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is ⟨t⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t. The voiceless dental plosive can be distinguished with the underbridge diacritic, ⟨t̪⟩ and the postalveolar with a retraction line, ⟨t̠⟩, and the Extensions to the IPA have a double underline diacritic which can be used to explicitly specify an alveolar pronunciation, ⟨t͇⟩.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiced labiodental nasal</span> Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ɱ⟩ in IPA

The voiced labiodental nasal is a type of consonantal sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɱ⟩. The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter m with a leftward hook protruding from the lower right of the letter. Occasionally it is instead transcribed as an with a dental diacritic: ⟨m̪⟩.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open front unrounded vowel</span> Vowel sound represented by ⟨a⟩ in IPA

The open front unrounded vowel, or low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. It is one of the eight primary cardinal vowels, not directly intended to correspond to a vowel sound of a specific language but rather to serve as a fundamental reference point in a phonetic measuring system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open back unrounded vowel</span> Vowel sound represented by ⟨ɑ⟩ in IPA

The open back unrounded vowel, or low back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɑ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is A. The letter ⟨ɑ⟩ is called script a because it lacks the extra hook on top of a printed letter a, which corresponds to a different vowel, the open front unrounded vowel. Script a, which has its linear stroke on the bottom right, should not be confused with turned script a,, which has its linear stroke on the top left and corresponds to a rounded version of this vowel, the open back rounded vowel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Close central unrounded vowel</span> Vowel sound represented by ⟨ɨ⟩ in IPA

The close central unrounded vowel, or high central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɨ⟩, namely the lower-case letter i with a horizontal bar. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as barred i.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Close-mid central rounded vowel</span> Vowel sound represented by ⟨ɵ⟩ in IPA

The close-mid central rounded vowel, or high-mid central rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɵ⟩, a lowercase barred letter o.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open-mid central unrounded vowel</span> Vowel sound represented by ⟨ɜ⟩ in IPA

The open-mid central unrounded vowel, or low-mid central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɜ⟩. The IPA symbol is not the digit ⟨3⟩ or the Cyrillic small letter Ze (з). The symbol is instead a reversed Latinized variant of the lowercase epsilon, ɛ. The value was specified only in 1993; until then, it had been transcribed ⟨ɛ̈⟩.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Near-open front unrounded vowel</span> Vowel sound represented by ⟨æ⟩ in IPA

The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase of the ⟨Æ⟩ ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Ladefoged</span> British phonetician (1925–2006)

Peter Nielsen Ladefoged was a British linguist and phonetician.

The phonology of second languages is different from the phonology of first languages in various ways. The differences are considered to come from general characteristics of second languages, such as slower speech rate, lower proficiency than native speakers, and from the interaction between non-native speakers' first and second languages.

Hypocorrection is a sociolinguistic phenomenon that involves the purposeful addition of slang or a shift in pronunciation, word form, or grammatical construction and is propelled by a desire to appear less intelligible or to strike rapport. That contrasts with hesitation and modulation because rather than not having the right words to say or choosing to avoid them, the speaker chooses to adopt a nonstandard form of speech as a strategy to establish distance from or to become closer to their interlocutor.

The mid front unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound that is used in some spoken languages. There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the exact mid front unrounded vowel between close-mid and open-mid, but it is normally written ⟨e⟩. If precision is required, diacritics may be used, such as ⟨e̞⟩ or ⟨ɛ̝⟩. In Sinology and Koreanology, ⟨ᴇ⟩ is sometimes used, for example in the Zhengzhang Shangfang reconstructions.

The mid back rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. While there is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the exact mid back rounded vowel between close-mid and open-mid, it is normally written ⟨o⟩. If precision is desired, diacritics may be used, such as ⟨o̞⟩ or ⟨ɔ̝⟩, the former being more common. There was an alternative IPA symbol for this sound, ⟨ꭥ⟩. A non-IPA letter ⟨ⱺ⟩ is also found.

Phonemic contrast refers to a minimal phonetic difference, that is, small differences in speech sounds, that makes a difference in how the sound is perceived by listeners, and can therefore lead to different mental lexical entries for words. For example, whether a sound is voiced or unvoiced matters for how a sound is perceived in many languages, such that changing this phonetic feature can yield a different word ; see Phoneme. Other examples in English of a phonemic contrast would be the difference between leak and league; the minimal difference of voicing between [k] and [g] does lead to the two utterances being perceived as different words. On the other hand, an example that is not a phonemic contrast in English is the difference between and. In this case the minimal difference of vowel length is not a contrast in English and so those two forms would be perceived as different pronunciations of the same word seat.

William John Barry is a phonetician in Germany.

Patrice (Pam) Speeter Beddor is John C. Catford Collegiate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Michigan, focusing on phonology and phonetics. Her research has dealt with phonetics, including work in coarticulation, speech perception, and the relationship between perception and production.

John Henry Esling, is a Canadian linguist specializing in phonetics. He is a Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Victoria, where he taught from 1981 to 2014. Esling was president of the International Phonetic Association from 2011 to 2015 and a co-editor of the 1999 Handbook of the International Phonetic Association.

<i>Phonological Knowledge</i> Book edited by Noel Burton-Roberts, Philip Carr & Gerard Docherty

Phonological Knowledge: Conceptual and Empirical Issues is a 2000 book edited by Noel Burton-Roberts, Philip Carr and Gerard Docherty in which the authors deal with different approaches to describing and explaining the nature of phonological knowledge in the speaker’s grammar.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Nyvad, Annemette (2019). "Preface". In Nyvad, Annemette; Hejná, Michaela; Højen, Anders; Jespersen, Anna Bothe; Sørensen, Mette Hjortshøj (eds.). A Sound Approach to Language Matters: In Honor of Ocke-Schwen Bohn. Aarhus: Department of English, Aarhus University. pp. 18–10. doi:10.7146/aul.322.218. ISBN   978-87-7507-440-2.
  2. ↑ "Ocke-Schwen Bohn - Research - Aarhus University" . Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  3. ↑ Bohn, Ocke-Schwen (2004). "How to organize a fairly large vowel inventory: the vowels of Fering (North Frisian)" (PDF). Journal of the International Phonetic Association . 34 (2): 161–173. doi:10.1017/s002510030400180x. S2CID   59404078.
  4. ↑ "Editorial Board - Journal of Phonetics". Elsevier. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  5. ↑ "Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics". De Gruyter. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  6. ↑ "New Sounds 2016 - Conference organizer" . Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  7. ↑ Bohn, Ocke-Schwen (1984). The L2 acquisition of English sentence structure: the early stages: a case study of four German children. Kiel: Kiel University.
  8. ↑ Interview in Organon: Cardoso, W., & Alves, U. K. (2015). "Interview with Ocke-Schwen Bohn". Organon, 30(58), 321-239.
  9. ↑ Wayland, Ratree. Preface. (2021). In R. Wayland (Ed.), Second Language Speech Learning: Theoretical and Empirical Progress (pp. Xxiii-Xxvi). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108886901.001
  10. ↑ Flege, James Emil; Bohn, Ocke-Schwen (2021). The Revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r). In Wayland, R. (ed.). Second Language Speech Learning: Theoretical and Empirical Progress. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 3–83. doi:10.1017/9781108886901.002. S2CID   234057047.
  11. ↑ Flege, James Emil; Bohn, Ocke-Schwen; Aoyama, Katsura (2021). The revised speech learning model (SLM-r). In Wayland, R. (ed.). Second language speech learning: Theoretical and empirical progress, 84-118. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 84–118. doi:10.1017/9781108886901.002. S2CID   234057047.
  12. ↑ Bohn, Ocke-Schwen (1995). Cross-language speech perception in adults: First language transfer doesn't tell it all. In Strange, W. (ed.). Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research. Timonium: York Press. pp. 279–304.
  13. ↑ Polka, Linda; Bohn, Ocke-Schwen (2011). "Natural Referent Vowel (NRV) framework: An emerging view of early phonetic development" (PDF). Journal of Phonetics . 39 (4): 467–478. doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2010.08.007.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.