Contrast in Phonology: Theory, Perception, Acquisition

Written by
Mouton de Gruyter
Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.

Reviewed by
Kaaf Iklilah Siregar
State Islamic University of North Sumatera, Indonesia

OUTLINE OF A BOOK REVIEW

Languages that maintain distinctive secondary articulation contrasts

tend to avoid multiple vowel contrasts, particularly rounding
contrasts in front and back vowels. At the same time, languages with
complex vowel inventories very rarely show distinctions in
secondary consonant articulations, for example, in palatalization or
labialization. These observations are based both on an analysis of
the UPSID Database (Maddieson & Precoda 1992) and on an
examination of inventories of a number of languages of Europe that
exhibit at least one of the above mentioned contrasts. In this paper I
GOAL
provide an explanatory account of these co-occurrence restrictions
on seemingly unrelated segments and derive the two mutually
exclusive patterns through a learning simulation. I demonstrate that
these markedness effects emerge naturally from low-level
interactions between a speaker and a listener/learner as a result of
limits on what can be successfully transmitted through the speech
communication channel.
The key factor in the process is the failure on the part of the listener
to correctly process overlapped gestures that happen to share the
 same articulator. The results suggest that physical limitations on
production and perception of speech sounds play an important role
in the emergence of common systems of phonological contrasts.
The final three chapters deal with the acquisition of contrasts in a
new language (the target language) and the role that the native
language plays in this acquisition. Boersma and Escudero (Dutch
learners of Spanish) and Cebrian (Catalan learners of English) look
at the acquisition of vowel systems, while Goad (French and English
learners of Thai) focuses on laryngeal contrasts. The three chapters
METHOD
all involve perceptual experiments. Taken as a whole, these
chapters show that learners do not blindly map from their first
language phonetics onto the second language phonetics, though
Boersma and Escudero argue that in the initial stages this is the
default strategy. Rather, learners dealing with a new phonemic
system recalibrate their perception of it in a language-specific way.
These results can be explained if, as traditional phonological
analyses have proposed, English speakers represent only the
feature [voice] in their lexical representations, and not aspiration,
encoded by the feature [spread glottis]. Goad concludes that lexical
representations are abstract, and that a feature that is present in the
RESULTS
phonetics, but not in lexical representations, does not necessarily
aid in the perception of L2 contrasts that use that feature. Goad
goes on to discuss results that appear to point in another direction,
arguing that the position that English stops are unspecified for
[spread glottis] can be upheld.
The three main areas covered in this volume – theory, perception,
and acquisition – are tightly interconnected: research on the
acquisition of a contrast may assign a central role to perception;
CONCLUSION
neither of these can be studied in isolation from an account of the
place of contrast in phonological theory and description. We hope
that this volume will help to illuminate these interconnections and a
 variety of approaches in contemporary research on contrast, and
that it will stimulate further research in these areas.
1. This book has a lightweight language that is easy to
understand
2. This book presents some opinions from experts with

COMMENTS complete
3. The contents of the book is not too much but it can
summarize all its contents
4. The author gives a clear and accountable opinion
Personally, I agree with Dresher that looks at how phonologists
decide which feature specifications are contrastive and which are
redundant in the phonemes of a given phonological inventory. He
argues that phonologists have vacillated between two different and
incompatible approaches to this question, one based on minimal
pairs, and the other based on a hierarchy of features (Jakobson and
Halle 1956). He argues that the former approach is fundamentally

POSITION inadequate, despite its intuitive appeal, and that the latter approach
is superior. One consequence of adopting an approach to contrast
that depends on a feature hierarchy is that the same inventory can
be assigned different sets of contrastive feature specifications under
different orderings of the features. It follows that the set of contrasts
operative in a given inventory are not selfevident, and allow for
variability, to the extent that the ordering of features can vary from
one language to another.
 A Review on

Contrast in Phonology: Theory, Perception, Acquisition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 978-3-11-019821-8

Written by
Mouton de Gruyter
Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.

By comparison of several books:

1. Introducing Phonology by David Odden

Cambridge University Press, The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, UK

2. A Critical Introduction to Phonetics by Ken Lodge

Continuum International Publishing Group, The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane, Suite
704, 11 York Road New York London SE1 7NX NY 10038

3. Input Based Phonological Acquisition by Tania S. Zamuner

Published in Great Britain by Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE,
www.routledge.co.uk

4. English Phonetics and Phonology by Peter Roach

Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press

5. Fundamental Concepts in Phonology by Ken Lodge

Edinburgh University Press Ltd, 22 George Square, Edinburgh
 Reviewed by
Kaaf Iklilah Siregar
State Islamic University of North Sumatera, Indonesia

Systematic of writing has been compiled well and clearly starting from the title of
research, author name, abstract, introduction, literature review, methods, results and
discussion, conclusions, suggestions, and bibliography. The research title used by the
author is also quite clear, accurate, unambiguous, and describes what will be examined.
But the title still has a shortcoming that has not fulfilled the principle of 5W + 1H where
the title is not included in the year of study so that reviewers do not know when the
research is done.

In the abstract in my opinion is good, because the authors were able to clearly
describe the problem research, research objectives, methodologies and results
obtained and include keywords. However, this book does not provide any
recommendations given for further research.

According to my analysis, the method used by the author in this study is

appropriate in accordance with the focus of research whose purpose is to explaine
contrast in phonology: theory, perception, acquisition clearly. Qualitative research with
descriptive approach means that this research describes, describes reveal facts,
circumstances, phenomena, variables and circumstances that occur when the study
goes and serve what it is. Qualitative research descriptive approach to interpret and tell
the relevant data with the current situation, attitudes and views that occur in society,
relationships between variables, differences between facts, influence on a condition,
and others.

In the writing of the results of the study and discussion, according to reviewers
there are several typos because there are several similar sentences used repeatedly by
the author and according to reviewers it will reduce the strength of this research journal.
In addition, the material written in the discussion section is also less profound and my
suggestion for the author to further expand the collection of vocabulary so that
sentences written more interesting read and easy to understand.

The book includes good enough; the concluding section already contains
conclusions in accordance with the objectives of the study. The authors also include
suggestions as a hope for the condition of research subjects to be better, as one
solution to the problems that occur.

After analyzing as a whole, I think this research journal is systematically good

enough because the author has followed the rules of correct writing but in terms of
theory are still a lot of shortcomings. The author needs to add some literatures to be
used as a comparison material in conducting research because viewed from the list of
authors listed literature no previous book as a comparison material. In a study of
literature sources not only derived from books, but also sourced from journals, internet,
legal sources, papers, newspapers, magazines, etc.

Summary of the Book by

Kaaf Iklilah Siregar

Phonology can be described as an aspect of language that deals with rules for the
structure and sequencing of speech sounds. Every language has a wide variety of
speech sounds (phonemes). For example in English, the ng sound, as in ring, will never
appear at the beginning of a word. Phonology rules also determine which sounds may
be combined. For example, the combination of dn will not appear in sequence in the
same syllable.

Phonological processes are patterns of speech found in many typically developing

children. For example, weak syllable deletion is when a child deletes syllables from a
multisyllabic word. A child may say, nana rather than saying, banana, a child may also
delete final consonants from words, cu for cup. Phonological processes become
problematic when they do not disappear by a certain age. There is developmental data
that indicates when phonological processes typically disappear. There are different
norms for different processes.

Most professionals characterize a child with an articulation disorder as someone

who has difficulty producing a few phonemes and the child’s errors may be linked to oral
motor weakness and/or normal development. A phonological disorder may be
characterized as a child who has numerous phoneme errors that can usually be
grouped into categories (phonological processes), and they are usually not linked to oral
motor difficulties and/or normal development.

There are various therapy approaches for phonological disorders. One approach is
to focus on the phonological processes rather than focusing therapy on remediating
errors phoneme-by-phoneme. For example, if a child presents with final consonant
deletion, then all final consonants may be targeted during therapy. The goal is to teach
the child that the meaning changes when final consonants are left off. This may be done
through play, using pictures, and/or using minimal word pairs. Minimal pair therapy is
when you show a child two picture representing words that differ by only one sound. If
you are targeting the phonological process of final consonant deletion, then the target
pictures would be one picture of an object ending in a vowel and one picture of an
object ending with a final consonant. For example, toe/toad, my/mile, ray/rain etc. The
clinician would show the child the 2 pictures and ask the child to point to toe and then
point to toad. The clinician would be looking to see if the child understands that the two
words have different meanings. The clinician would then move on to have the child
practice saying the words appropriately.

Phonological awareness can be described as an understanding of the ways in

which speech can be manipulated and divided into smaller parts. This includes:
rhyming; segmenting words and syllables; along with blending sounds and syllables.
Improving phonological awareness skills has been shown to help with reading readiness
skills and improve literacy development.
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Amanda L. Miller- ockhuizen, (2003). Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics,

Routledge: Great Britain.

Bert Vaux and Andrew Nevins, (2008). Rules, Constraints, and Phonological
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Christopher McCully, (2009). The sound structure of english, Cambridge University

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Dresher B. Elan, (2009). The Contrastive hierarchy in Phonology, Cambridge University

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Gussenhoven Carlos, (2004). The Phonology of Tone and Intonation, Cambridge

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Hansen jette G, (2006). Acquiring a non – native phonology, Continuum: London.

Hayes Bruce, (2009). Introductory Phonology, Wiley-blackwell: United Kingdom.

McMahon April, (2000). Lexical Phonology And The History Of English, Cambridge
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McMahon April, (2002). An introduction to English Phonology, Edinburgh University

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