Presentations of the 4th Variamu Workshop online!

Here are the slides of the presentations given to the 4th Variamu Workshop, held on January 7th & 8th, 2016, @ Polyu, HK.

Thanks to all the contributors!

Keynote speech
William S-Y Wang: Language in Diachrony

How to compare languages

From party games to language resources

Distributional semantics  

Social variations     

Dysarthria    

  • Serge Pinto: Dysarthria : Presentation of the French – Portuguese data
  • Vivian Lee,Karen Yiu, Jasmin Sadat, Serge Pinto, Iris Lam and Angel Chan: Speech Characteristics of Cantonese Patients with Parkinson’s Disease
  • Dustin Lau: Phonology-to-Orthography Conversions in Chinese: Evidence from a dysgraphic patient

Keynote speech
Noël Nguyen: Studies on phonetic convergence between speakers in interactional speech

Chinese as a second language

Articulation  

Regional variations

Neuro-imaging study of language differences

  • Chotiga Pattamadilok: The Influence of Writing System Characteristics on Spoken Language Processing: A comparison between logographic and alphabetic system
  • Caicai Zhang: Neural Impairment of Tone Language Speakers with Congenital Amusia

Fourth Variamu Workshop

The 4th Variamu workshop will be held at the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, on January 6th and 7th, 2015.

Here is the programme:

The First Day (Jan. 6th, 2016)
8.30-8.45 Registration Venue: GH803
8.45-9.00 Opening Ceremony Venue: GH803
09.00-09.50 Keynote Speech William S-Y Wang

Language in Diachrony

  Themes Talks
09.50-10.45 How to compare languages Philippe Blache

Computational Typology: How to Compare Languages from Treebanks

Chu-Ren Huang

Endurant vs. Perduant: An Ontological View of How Variations are Linguistically Conventionalized

10.45-11.05 Tea Break
11.05-12.00 From party games to language resources Laurent Prévot

Quantitative Linguistics of Social Interactions

Yao Yao

Conversations in Party Games

12.00-12.55 Distributional semantics Emanuele Chersoni

Dependency-based Modeling of Joint-context in Distributional Similarity

Enrico Santus, Qin Lu, Alessandro Lenci, and Chu-Ren Huang

Not All Contexts are Equal: Automatic Detection of Antonyms, Hyponyms, Co-hyponyms, and Synonyms in Distributional Semantic Model

12.55-14.25 Lunch Break
14.25-15.20 Social variations Julie Abbou

Sounding Like You? What For? Linguistic Accommodation at the Crossroad of Individual Agency, Norms and Social Categories

Sophia Y. M. Lee

Emotion and Code-switching

 

15.20-16.35 Dysarthria Serge Pinto

 

Dysarthria : Presentation of the French – Portuguese data

Vivian LeeKaren Yiu, Jasmin Sadat, Serge Pinto, Iris Lam and Angel Chan

Speech Characteristics of Cantonese Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

Dustin Lau

 

Phonology-to-

Orthography Conversions in Chinese:

Evidence from a dysgraphic patient

16.35-16.55 Tea Break
16.55-17.55 Internal Discussion on Collaboration Possibilities I
The Second Day (Jan. 7th, 2016)
9.00-9.50 Keynote speech Noël Nguyen

Studies on phonetic convergence between speakers in interactional speech

  Themes Talks
09.50-10.45 Chinese as a second language Marco Cappellini

Telecollaborations and (learner) corpora for French and Chinese as Foreign Languages

 

Sun-A Kim

Chinese character learning: Interplay of character types, working memory, and Chinese proficiency

10.45-11.05 Tea Break
11.05-12.00 Articulation Yohann Meynadier

Make Whisper Intelligible: Aerodynamics of Voicing Contrast and Vocal Effort in Whispered Fricatives

Mantak Leung et. al.

TBC

12.00-12.55 Regional variations James German

Intonational Meaning and Regional Indexing in Corsican French Listeners

Angel Chan

Asymmetries in Cantonese Children’s Processing of Relative Clauses: Variations and Competition

12.55-14.30 Lunch Break
14.30-15.25 Neuro-imaging study of language differences Chotiga Pattamadilok

The Influence of Writing System Characteristics on Spoken Language Processing: A comparison between logographic and alphabetic system

Caicai Zhang

Neural Impairment of Tone Language Speakers with Congenital Amusia

15.25-15.35 Closing Session
15.35-16.05 Tea Break
16.05-18.05 Internal Discussion on Collaboration Possibilities II

Presentations of the 3d Workshop online!

For those who could not attend the workshop (and those who did) you will find here the slides of the presentation offered during the third Variamu Workshop.

Click on the presentation’s title to access the slides

Marie-Claude Paris
IUF / Paris 7
Adverbial clauses in Mandarin Chinese: some aspects of their syntax and semantics with reference to French
Philippe Blache
Aix-Marseille University
Chunks and properties: a new language processing architecture
Emanuele Chersoni
Aix-Marseille University
Distributional data for constraint-based semantic parsing
Laurent Prévot
Aix-Marseille University
Quantitative Comparative Interactional Linguistics
James Sneed German
Aix-Marseille University
“Lexical” statistics for prosody: Goals and challenges
Chu-Ren Huang, Menghan Jiang, Jingxia Lin
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Comparable Corpus Based Approach to Description and Identification of Varieties of Chinese
Marco Cappellini
Aix-Marseille University
Learning French and Mandarin Chinese through Skype: some conversational variations and methodological considerations
Grégoire de Montcheuil
Aix-Marseille University
4-Couv : building a new treebank based on backcovers
Jiajuan Xiong, Qingqing Zhao, and Chu-Ren Huang
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Linguistic Synaesthesia in Chinese
Francesca Strik Lievers
University of Milano-Bicocca
Synaesthesia across languages
Chu-Ren Huang
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
A Summary of Variamu sub-projects in PolyU
Cathy Wong
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Variation in progress–English loanwords and borrowings in newspaper columnists’ writing in Hong Kong in the 1990s                                        (video-conference)
Ana Nunes
University of Macau
Considerations of Portuguese linguistic variation in Macau: VariAmu Project
Jasmin Sadat & Serge Pinto
Aix-Marseille University
Cross-liguistic comparison of dysarthria in Parkisnon’s disease: Cantonese vs. French

 

Third Variamu Workshop

[UPDATED PROGRAMME]

We are gald to announce the 3d Variamu Workshop to be held at the Speech and Language Laboratory, Aix-en-Provence, on 1 & 2 October, 2015.
Please find below the programme.
All welcome!

Looking forward to seeing you

PROGRAMME

Thursday October 1st

09h00-09h15:     Opening                                                                 [Room A003]

Laurent Prévot
Aix-Marseille University
Perspectives for Variamu

09h15 – 10h15: Plenary session                                                 [Room A003]

Marie-Claude Paris
IUF / Paris 7
Adverbial clauses in Mandarin Chinese: some aspects of their syntax and semantics with reference to French

 10h15 – 10h30:   Coffee Break

 10h30 – 12h00:  Session 1                                                               [Room A003]

Philippe Blache
Aix-Marseille University
Chunks and properties: a new language processing architecture
Emanuele Chersoni
Aix-Marseille University
Distributional data for constraint-based semantic parsing
Laurent Prévot
Aix-Marseille University
Quantitative Comparative Interactional Linguistics

 12h00 – 13h30: Lunch

 13h30 – 15h00:  Session 2                                                [Conference Room]

James Sneed German
Aix-Marseille University
“Lexical” statistics for prosody: Goals and challenges
Chu-Ren Huang, Menghan Jiang, Jingxia Lin
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Comparable Corpus Based Approach to Description and Identification of Varieties of Chinese
Marco Cappellini
Aix-Marseille University
Learning French and Mandarin Chinese through Skype: some conversational variations and methodological considerations.

15h00 – 15h30:   Coffee Break

15h30- 17h30: Session 3                                                    [Conference Room]

Grégoire de Montcheuil
Aix-Marseille University
4-Couv : building a new treebank based on backcovers
Jiajuan Xiong, Qingqing Zhao, and Chu-Ren Huang
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Linguistic Synaesthesia in Chinese
Francesca Strik Lievers
University of Milano-Bicocca
Synaesthesia across languages
Chu-Ren Huang
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
A Summary of Variamu sub-projects in PolyU

19h00:               Diner

 

Friday October 2nd

09h30-10h45:     Session 4                                                             [Room –A001]

Cathy Wong
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Variation in progress–English loanwords and borrowings in newspaper columnists’ writing in Hong Kong in the 1990s                                        (video-conference)

Organisational session 1 (video-conference)

10h45-11h00:     Coffee break

11h00-12h30:     Session 5                                                 [Conference Room]

Ana Nunes
University of Macau
Considerations of Portuguese linguistic variation in Macau: VariAmu Project
Jasmin Sadat & Serge Pinto
Aix-Marseille University
Cross-liguistic comparison of dysarthria in Parkisnon’s disease: Cantonese vs. French

12h30-14h00:      Lunch

 14h00-15h30:     Organisational session                  [Conference Room]

15h30-15h45:      Coffee Break

15h45-17h30:     Organisational session                  [Conference Room]

19h30:               Diner

Mobilities go on!

Summer 2015 reveals a busy time for Variamu:

  • Roxana Fung (PolyU) had a research stay in the LPL to work on the SPPAS project with Brigitte Bigi, from March to May 2015.
  • Early July, we also welcomed Chu-ren Huang (PolyU)  and Yao Yao (PolyU) at the LPL for few days each working respectively on organisation issues and on the Werewolf project.
  • In August, it is Jasmin Sadat (AMU) who is heading to Macau and Hong Kong to supervise students from the new Master of Speech Therapy at Hongkong Polytechnic University and to work with Ana Nunes in Macau about the project “Speech in Bilingual Parkinson’s Disease Patients”.

Presentation by Roxana Fung at the LPL

Roxana Fung is currently doing a 3-months research stay at the LPL for working with Brigitte Bigi on the Adding Cantonese into SPPAS project.

We take advantage of her presence for a presentation of her current work, to be held on May 6th (11am-12am), room B011

The Asymmetry of the asymmetry: An interplay of production and perception in the multiple tone mergers in Hong Kong Cantonese

Merger is a much-studied sound change that involves the lost of contrast between two formerly distinct phonemes. It showcases the asymmetry of production and perception in sound change as numerous studies have documented that the collapse of phonemic distinction may not processing in the same rate in these two language faculties (such as DeCamp 1953, Labov et al 1991). The asymmetry fuels the hot debate on which faculty starts a sound change: perception, or production? This paper may shed intriguing lights on this debate by presenting a complicated interplay of the two language faculties in multiple and competing mergers in Hong Kong Cantonese (HKC) tones based on a study of 120 participants of three age groups. HKC stands out from other tone languages in the world by having a rich tonal inventory with six contrastive tones. However, this rich system is in the process of merging. Among the five tone pairs that exhibited merger, an asymmetry of the asymmetry was attested in that production led perception in some mergers but followed perception in others. This paper attempts to provide an explanation for the asymmetry and fill the gap of limited studies on the interaction of the two language faculties in competing sound changes.

 

Dr Roxana Fung is Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her main research interests are language variation and language change. She has carried out studies on voice quality and speech prosody on the distinction of Cantonese accents, variations and mergers in Cantonese tones and consonant codas, and the interplay of phonology, semantics, and pragmatics of sentence-final particles.

Jasmin Sadat will be at PolyU in August 2015

Jasmin Sadat’s  stay abroad in Hongkong is linked to two student research projects that she co-supervises together with Serge Pinto in the Master of Speech Therapy at Hongkong Polytechnic University. In these projects, the students evaluate the impact of dysarthria in Parkinson’s disease in Cantonese in a similar manner as in a current ANR project that Jasmin works on in Aix-en-Provence. However, the students do not have any neurologist support in Hongkong to administer the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale with the patients and control participants that is necessary to classify the stage of the disease. Thus, during he stay, Jasmin Sadat will meet and evaluate all the patients and control participants that were previously tested and will prepare the next steps of the data analysis for their projects. In addition, she will spend several days in Macau to reinforce the collaboration previously initiated by Serge Pinto and Ana Nunes.

Sino-European Research

Interview of Professor Chu-ren HUANG in Euraxess

The pan-European platform EURAXESS published an interview of Professor Chu-ren HUANG, Dean of Faculty of Humanities, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Coordinator of  Variamu.

The EU-funded platform provides information on Sino-European research and on high-profile personalities that shape the Sino-European research landscape, through extensive research experience including projects with European partners.

The interview is available here.

Variamu Seminar #3

Visioseminar (LPL, PolyU, Macau U)

The third Variamu Seminar was held on Tuesday 24th of March.
We listen a talk by:

Angel Chan

 Typological variations in the acquisition of relative clauses: evidence from child Cantonese

Abstract:
Relative clause (RC) is a widely recognized topic of investigation in the fields of language typology, acquisition and processing. The Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH, a “putative” linguistic universal) has a long history in accounting for the acquisition of RCs in European languages. Recently however, conceptual changes in rethinking the typology of RCs and child language data from certain Asian languages led researchers of language acquisition to question how far NPAH could account for the learning patterns observed. For instance, Chen & Shirai (2014) hypothesized that in attributive clause languages, multiple factors including input frequency and similarity to canonical clauses, rather than purely structure-based accounts, determine the learning trajectory of RCs. Currently, there is little direct testing of these competing theoretical perspectives. Thus far the evidence from child first acquisition of attributive clause languages (e.g. Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese) suggesting that the developmental patterns do not follow predictions from NPAH is largely based on naturalistic speech production or comprehension data which have their own methodological limitations.

As an attributive clause language, Cantonese provides an interesting test case. In this talk, I will first review the current literature including recent and ongoing works by myself and collaborators, highlighting phenomena of apparent conflicting findings (or “variations”) that also happen in other Asian attributive clause languages, but appear to rarely occur in European languages. I will then outline a proposed project that uses multiple methods to better test the alternative theoretical perspectives. The findings offer a rich testing ground to evaluate a range of theoretical perspectives. An important innovation of the proposed project is the extension of experimental studies to not only Cantonese, and eventually to other attributive clause languages such as Japanese, Mandarin and Thai. Moreover, computational linguists can make use of these new datasets to model the acquisition and processing of RCs in attributive clause languages. The project will broaden and deepen our understanding of RC acquisition/processing in an Asian linguistic context.

Variamu Seminar #2

Erratum: the seminar will be held on Tuesday 13th January
at 5pm (Hong Kong, Macau) / 10am (Aix)
We are happy to announce you the next Variamu Seminar, to be held Tuesday 16th December 2014, at 5pm (Hong Kong, Macau) / 10am (Aix)

Visioseminar (LPL, PolyU, Macau U)

Speech disorders in Huntington´s disease, Sydenham’s chorea and Neuroacanthocytosis
Tiago Attoni
Postdoc Fellow at the LPL (w/ Serge Pinto)
The basal ganglia are related classically to motor functions, being referred as the extra-pyramidal system. The assumed importance of these structures is seen in motor performance disorders as in Huntington’s disease, Sydenham’s chorea and Neuroacanthocytosis, whose common trait changes in the functioning of the basal ganglia. Speech motor disorders are reported as a common sign at the three diseases, characterized as hyperkinetic dysarthria which occurs mainly as a consequence of choreatic movements. The quality of speech performance is negatively affected by the involuntary contractions of vocal muscles, with incoordination of the jaw, tongue, palate, and facial movements. Thus, the aim current study was to examine principal disturbances of speech presented in the literature for these three diseases. In addition, the new study prospects of the Brazilian group.

SPPAS available in Cantonese

A new software for annotation and segmentation in Cantonese

Thanks to the Variamu project and a collaboration with Tan Lee (University of Hong Kong), Brigitte Bigi and Roxana Fung launched the new version of SPPAS including the Cantonese language (sppas-1.6.3).

SPPAS is a software developed by the Laboratoire Parole et Language to perform automatic annotations including word segmentation and phoneme and syllable segmentation from a recorded speech sound and its transcription.; it also proposes components to perform the analysis of annotated data.

The inclusion of Cantonese into SPPAS will definitely facilitate the phonetic study of Cantonese.

Further efforts will be done to improve this version (dictionary, phone set in SAMPA) and the collaboration will continue!

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