Research Hanne Kloots

Abstract

Until recently children who were born "deaf" remained "deaf", and thus were unable to acquire spoken language. Fortunately nowadays deaf children with a cochlear deficit can be helped with a surgical intervention: they receive a cochlear implant (CI) very early in life so that they can "hear", i.e., can experience sound sensations. The first concern that the parents of these children phrase, is: "will my child hear with an implant?" The answer is definitely positive. The second question usually is: "will my child speak and sound like a normal hearing (NH) child of the same age?" This question remains unanswered. We want to address this issue from two perspectives: the identifiability and intelligibility of CI children. Recent findings indicate that the speech of 6- to 7-year-old CI users deviates from that of NH peers in particular fine details. But are those details that we can measure also detectable by the human ear? Are they sufficient to reliably identify CI children's speech? This will be investigated by having people listen to recordings of speech of CI children, children with an acoustic hearing aid (HA), and NH children. A second main research question concerns the intelligibility of CI children's speech. When the children enter mainstream primary school, it is quintessential to know if they are intelligible for people not familiar with them. In this project we will assess their intelligibility using different methodologies.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gillis Steven
• Co-promoter: Kloots Hanne
• Fellow: Boonen Nathalie

Research team(s)

• Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Until recently children who were born "deaf" remained "deaf", and thus were unable to acquire spoken language. Fortunately nowadays deaf children with a cochlear deficit can be helped with a surgical intervention: they receive a cochlear implant (CI) very early in life so that they can "hear", i.e., can experience sound sensations. The first concern that the parents of these children phrase, is: "will my child hear with an implant?" The answer is definitely positive. The second question usually is: "will my child speak and sound like a normal hearing (NH) child of the same age?" This question remains unanswered. We want to address this issue from two perspectives: the identifiability and intelligibility of CI children. (1) Identifiability: Recent findings indicate that the speech of 6- to 7-year-old CI users deviates from that of NH peers in particular fine details. But are those details that we can measure also detectable by the human ear? Are they sufficient to reliably identify CI children's speech? This will be investigated by having people listen to recordings of speech of CI children, children with an acoustic hearing aid (HA), and NH children. (2) Intelligibility: A second main research question concerns the intelligibility of CI children's speech. When the children enter mainstream primary school, it is quintessential to know if they are intelligible for people not familiar with them. In this project we will assess their intelligibility using different methodologies.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gillis Steven
• Co-promoter: Kloots Hanne
• Fellow: Boonen Nathalie

Research team(s)

• Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kloots Hanne

Research team(s)

• Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The aim of this project consists in systematically archiving and making available 200 hours of spoken Standard Dutch, produced by 160 Flemish and Dutch teachers of Dutch. The speech collection concerned is highly valuable. With respect to the composition of the corpus several social and linguistic variables were taken into account. Furthermore, the recordings are of high (stereo) quality. Therefore this corpus can be used for phonetic, phonological as well as for sociolinguistic purposes.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kloots Hanne

Research team(s)

• Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gillis Steven
• Fellow: Kloots Hanne

Research team(s)

• Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The aim of this project is the study of reduction phenomena in spontaneous (= non-read) Standard Dutch. Reduction is studied in mono-, bi- and trisyllabic words, especially in pronouns, suffixes and loan words. We use speech that is already collected, digitalized and transcribed for the Corpus Gesproken Nederlands (Spoken Dutch Corpus), and as a part of the VNC-project Variation in the pronunciation of Standard Dutch. The VNC-speech consists of interviews with teachers of Dutch. From the Corpus Gesproken Nederlands, three components are selected: speeches, (non-read) lectures and lessons from high school teachers (except for Dutch lessons). These three types of spontaneous speech are fully comparable: it is non-broadcast speech, produced by one speaker before an audience. A more specific aim of this project is to verify the claim that the pronunciation of highly educated speakers without linguistic training differs from the pronunciation of teachers of Dutch, who are often considered to be prototypical speakers of Standard Dutch. This project links up with the renewed interest in standard language, where variation patterns in Standard Dutch in Flanders and the Netherlands are studied from a perspective of convergence and divergence. This study is also in line with international research of variation in standard languages, e.g. in German (e.g. Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and in French (e.g. France, Canada, Belgium).

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gillis Steven
• Co-promoter: De Schutter Georges
• Fellow: Kloots Hanne

Research team(s)

• Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The aim of this project is the study of reduction phenomena in spontaneous (= non-read) Standard Dutch. Reduction is studied in mono-, bi- and trisyllabic words, especially in pronouns, suffixes and loan words. We use speech that is already collected, digitalized and transcribed for the Corpus Gesproken Nederlands (Spoken Dutch Corpus), and as a part of the VNC-project Variation in the pronunciation of Standard Dutch. The VNC-speech consists of interviews with teachers of Dutch. From the Corpus Gesproken Nederlands, three components are selected: speeches, (non-read) lectures and lessons from high school teachers (except for Dutch lessons). These three types of spontaneous speech are fully comparable: it is non-broadcast speech, produced by one speaker before an audience. A more specific aim of this project is to verify the claim that the pronunciation of highly educated speakers without linguistic training differs from the pronunciation of teachers of Dutch, who are often considered to be prototypical speakers of Standard Dutch. This project links up with the renewed interest in standard language, where variation patterns in Standard Dutch in Flanders and the Netherlands are studied from a perspective of convergence and divergence. This study is also in line with international research of variation in standard languages, e.g. in German (e.g. Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and in French (e.g. France, Canada, Belgium).

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gillis Steven
• Co-promoter: De Schutter Georges
• Fellow: Kloots Hanne

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

• Research Project