Chapter 10

Question 1

Bottom-up processing

Answer 1

Helps us decode incoming speech, providing the data for top-down processing. Based on phonetic (stress, rhythm, and intonation), lexical, and morpho-syntactic levels.

Question 2

Top-down processing

Answer 2

Background knowledge and schemata used to interpret the data and create expectations for new input. Listener provides the knowledge and schemata,
Other top-down processes
coming to a conclusion
making a prediction
synthesizing information from two or more sources
relating information to your own knowledge and experiences.
evaluating information (good/bad, right/wrong, agree/disagree)
considering causes, results, and relationships not explicitly mentioned.

Question 3

Segmentation

Answer 3

dividing the stream of speech into separate words. Stressed syllables mark word boundaries in 90% of speech. Upon hearing a stressed syllable, listeners expect both a word boundary and the beginning of a content word. Pauses occur between groups of words (thought groups). Prominent syllables have full vowels and are much less vulnerable to reduction or modification.

Question 4

Metrical template

Answer 4

a distinctive pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Question 5

Mishearings

Answer 5

Slips of the ear, e.g., mondegreens, often resulting from improper segmentation of words. Mishearings often have the same rhythm and use the same or similar sounds. “The answer, my friends, is blowin’ in the wind.=> The ants are my friends, they’re blowin’ in the wind.” Teachers must remind themselves that learners can find it hard to properly segment incoming speech due to difficulties in sound discrimination, hearing unstressed syllables, and segmenting words.

Question 6

Juncture

Answer 6

perceptible difference in word segmentation.

Question 7

Skills needed for decoding native-speaker speech

Answer 7

discerning thought groups
recognizing stressed elements
interpreting unstressed elements
determining the full forms underlying reduced speech.

Question 8

Reduced speech

Answer 8

Over 300 forms, 50-70 are important for listening. Most common: wanna, gonna, hafta (every two minutes in NAE conversation), Speed of speech affects use of reduced forms — faster speech, more reductions.

Question 9

Morpho-syntax

Answer 9

Formal term for grammar. The smallest units of meaning. The system of the internal structure of words (morphology) and the way in which words are put together to form phrases and sentences (syntax).

Question 10

Dictation

Answer 10

A non-communicative task.