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W Hardcastle

Publications and source records attributed to W Hardcastle.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

An electropalatographic (EPG) study of the speech of two stuttering subjects.

Two stuttering subjects and two control subjects were used in a comparative pilot study using EPG. The subjects read twenty sentences and repeated three words, 'a deer', 'a clock' and 'a kitkat', ten times. These data allowed three main methods of EPG analysis: variability measures on the three words in isolation; qualitative comparison between stuttering and control speakers' production of perceptually fluent speech and analysis of specific disfluencies. Results showed that compared to control speakers the stuttering subjects displayed increased contacts for fluent alveolar and velar plosives and fricative undershoot. They also showed less temporal variability for velar stop articulations. The results suggest that EPG is a useful technique in the analysis of articulatory characteristics of stuttering behaviour.

Adult↗

Qualitative analysis: a guide to best practice--forensic science extension.

Qualitative analysis is arguably the cornerstone of analysis since what cannot be recognised cannot be quantified. This is especially true in the case of the forensic sciences where, for example, the mere presence of a prohibited, or controlled, substance in an unauthorized setting is indicative of a potential offence. This paper presents a set of principles of good practice in qualitative analysis. The principles are placed in the context of forensic science and extend earlier published guidance.

Forensic Medicine↗

A comparative investigation of coarticulation in fricatives: electropalatographic, electromagnetic, and acoustic data.

The principal aim of this investigation was to compare coarticulatory effects at different levels of the speech production system, in order to gain insight into the relations between the different levels. To this end, the relative magnitudes of carryover and anticipatory coarticulation with adjacent vowels were measured at the midpoints of the two lingual fricatives /s/ and /integral of/ in two speakers each of English, French, and German. Linguopalatal contact patterns derived from electropalatographic recordings were compared with an analysis of the acoustic output. The results indicated, firstly, that mismatches between articulatory and acoustic results are not uncommon. Secondly, and more surprisingly, while there was no difference in the overall magnitude of coarticulatory effects for /s/ and /integral of/, not all speakers showed a predominance of the same coarticulatory direction on both fricatives; this complicated the observed tendency for the predominance of carryover coarticulation to be greater in German and English than in French. Two speakers were retested using comparative analyses of electropalatography and electromagnetic articulography. These two procedures gave a closely parallel picture of lingual coarticulatory regularities (while complementing each other in terms of characterizing articulation). The implications of these results for identifying language-specific coarticulatory regularities are discussed.

Female↗

Temporal and spatial aspects of lingual coarticulation in /kl/ sequences: a cross-linguistic investigation.

Temporal and spatial aspects of lingual coarticulation in /kl/ clusters in intervocalic position (VklV) were investigated in six European languages: Catalan, English, French, German, Italian, and Swedish. Three speakers of each language repeated a set of real words and nonsense items five times. Temporal overlap of /k/ and /l/ gestures, as represented by a numerical "overlap index", was interpreted as tongue-tip/tongue-body coarticulation, and was measured from electropalatographic and airflow records. Results revealed several language-specific features. For example, the tendency to overlap was different for the six languages. All the languages except Swedish showed some instances of overlap, and Catalan showed the strongest tendency. The vowel environment also had a significant effect: The presence of an open back vowel in V1 and V2 positions increased the tendency for overlap to occur. However, there was no statistically significant difference in overlap between nonsense and real words. Spatial information from EPG data showed that articulatory placement of the tongue-body gesture was more retracted in a /kl/ cluster compared to a singleton consonant. All the languages under investigation showed this phenomenon. These findings are discussed in terms of possible constraints operating between the tip/blade and tongue-body systems.

Female↗