https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36318 2026-05-05T23:55:19Z 2026-05-05T23:55:19Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/37433 2018-12-17T15:01:22Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Conversational patterns in Maltese talk-shows : a perspective on politeness Abstract: This thesis sets out to investigate (im)politeness as this arises in the conversational patterns of television talk-shows. More specifically, it explores the extent to which overlapping is accepted in Maltese and looks at the use of certain expressions (or EPMs) which are tied to (im)politeness, by seeing whether their perception is contextually bound or not. To this end, two studies were conducted on the basis of a sample corpus of television talk-shows. The first involved a critical analysis of the corpus, with the second seeking to expand on the corpus study observations by collecting data on the (im)politeness perception of a larger group of Maltese speakers. The corpus study revealed a tendency to link non-threatening overlaps with politeness and threatening ones with impoliteness respectively, with EPMs being present in instances belonging to both sides of the (im)politeness spectrum, suggesting that their use is primarily governed by context. The perception study then, corroborated the idea that EPMs are contextually bound, but also showed that threatening overlaps may still not be viewed as entirely impolite in Maltese, since their perception hovered around impoliteness in a marginal way. This, coupled with certain cases were even threatening overlaps were judged as polite by the study participants, suggests that all kinds of overlap may be found acceptable in Maltese. Description: M.A.LINGUISTICS

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/37432 2018-12-17T08:25:47Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The pronunciation of Sicilian speakers of Maltese Abstract: This dissertation examines the pronunciation of Sicilian speakers of Maltese, focusing on the realisation of the glottal fricative /h/ and glottal stop /ʔ/. A brief description of the Sicilian dialect of Italian and of contact with Maltese is provided as a means to setting the scene and motivating this study. A review of the relevant literature on Second Language Acquisition and a description of the segmental phonologies of Maltese and Sicilian are then provided with a view to homing in on the specific elements investigated in this study. A brief outline of the articulatory and acoustic properties of the two sounds /h/ and /ʔ/ is also given. The literature review is followed by an outline of the methodology used. Two Sicilian speakers of Maltese aged 21 (Speaker B) and 23 (Speaker A), were involved in this study, Speaker B started learning Maltese at a younger age than Speaker A and has a more advanced level of proficiency in the language. A dominant speaker of Standard Maltese (DM) also took part in the study, data from this speaker serving as a baseline for comparison of the patterns of pronunciation exhibited by the two Sicilian speakers. Three main tasks were used as a means of collecting data: a map task, a read text task and a carrier sentence task. No map task data were collected from DM. The material incorporated in the three tasks included target words containing the target sounds /h/ and /ʔ/ in four contexts or word-positions: word-initial, word-medial, word-final and in clusters. The map task data were recorded first (the two Sicilians only). Each speaker then did the read task and the carrier sentence task in this order. It was hypothesised that the two Sicilian speakers might have difficulties pronouncing the Maltese phonemes /h/ and /ʔ/, neither of which occur in Sicilian. The results of the auditory analysis show that none of the speakers ever omitted /h/ and /ʔ/ except, in a few cases in clusters. However, differences in the durational realisation of both /h/ and /ʔ/ were observed across the three speakers. Longest durations for both sounds were noted in Speaker A while the highest variability was found in Speaker B’s pronunciation of the target sounds. The variability in the more advanced of the two Sicilian speakers can be attributed to continuing attempts, on the part of the learner, towards more native-like pronunciation of the target elements. Interestingly, although both Sicilian speakers showed differences in duration as compared to DM, target elements exhibited durations in word-initial > word-medial > clusters > word-final. Only in the case of Speaker B’s /ʔ/ data was there a deviation in this pattern, with the order being: word-medial > word-initial > clusters > word-final. Description: B.A.(HONS)LINGUISTICS

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/37430 2018-12-17T14:56:17Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Pitch and pitch range in Maltese and Maltese English speech : a production and perception study Abstract: This thesis sets out to examine Mean Pitch and Pitch Range in Maltese and Maltese English, building on the findings of Bailey (2016). The study is divided into two parts, a production task and a perception task. The production data collected served two purposes. First, it was used to follow up on Bailey's earlier study on pitch and pitch range in Maltese and Maltese English. The aim was to find out whether the results would differ for spontaneous, as compared to read speech data. Second, the production data was used as the basis for creating stimuli for the perception task. Two perception experiments were run. The first aimed to find out whether Maltese bilinguals are able to correctly judge whether masked stimuli are higher or lower in pitch than a baseline stimulus. The second investigated whether Maltese bilinguals would be able to identify masked stimuli as involving either English or Maltese based on the pitch information. A brief overview of the Maltese bilingual context is provided. This is followed by a review of the relevant literature on pitch and pitch range research as well as on speech perception, including of a number of studies dealing with pitch perception. Mean Pitch and Pitch Range in a population of twenty female bilingual speakers aged 18-31 were examined in recordings involving speakers completing a picture-based task. Half the speakers were Maltese dominant and the other Maltese English dominant. Recordings were made whilst speakers completed the task in both Maltese and English. Pitch perception was tested using 2 experiments. Forty Maltese bilingual speakers, also aged 18-31, participated in this part of the study. The results of the analysis of the production task data show that language dominance seems to affect the overall pitch of each group: ED have a higher mean pitch and wider mean Pitch Range than MD overall. Contrary to what was expected, language dominance does not seem to affect the pitch of each individual speaker when speaking her dominant as compared to her second language. Comparison of the results examining spontaneous speech (this study), to those on read speech (Bailey, 2016) indicate, somewhat surprisingly, that overall pitch is higher but Pitch Range narrower in the latter case. The results of the perception task show that Maltese speakers are capable of identifying whether a masked stimulus is higher or lower than a baseline stimulus, but that they cannot identify masked stimuli as either Maltese or English on the basis of pitch information. Description: M.A.LINGUISTICS

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36751 2018-11-28T06:55:55Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Conventionalised metaphors and use of gestures across English and Maltese Abstract: This dissertation deals with the use of metaphoric gestures produced by English and Maltese bilingual speakers. Ten speakers were selected to take part in an experiment, providing data where I explored whether the speakers express the same abstract notions and gestures, and whether these gestures are semi-conventionalised, due to individual creativity or affected by language, in this case English or Maltese. The analysis includes both a qualitative and a quantitative approach. The data used in this research are short films in which the participants describe a number of concepts presented to them in English or Maltese sentences, and provide gestures to illustrate the concepts. The gestures in the clips were annotated using a video annotation tool, Anvil (Kipp, 2004), and hence data features were extracted and analysed statistically using the statistical tool R (R Core Team, 2013) to find out if there were language-related differences in the way the concepts are expressed in the gestures. Only few such differences reach statistical significance, showing that language does not seem to affect the metaphorical gestures targeted here. Description: B.SC.(HONS)HUMAN LANGUAGE TECH.

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z