JCPSLP Vol 18 No 3 2016

25 / 156

JCPSLP Volume 18, Number 3 2016 127
Vietnamese phonotactic inventory
Almost all words in Vietnamese are monosyllabic. The
Vietnamese syllable is the smallest unit of pronunciation and
Vietnamese is a syllable-timed language (in contrast to
English, which is a stress-timed language). The structure of
the Vietnamese syllable is: (C1)(w1)V(C 2/w2)T where C1 is the
initial consonant, w1 is the medial semivowel, V is the main
vowel, C2 is the final consonant, w2 is the final semivowel,
and T is the tone (Pha. m & McLeod, 2016). The vowel and
the tone are the two compulsory components, whereas,
the presence of the other components is optional. The VSA
contains all Vietnamese speech sounds in every possible
position in the Vietnamese syllable as follows: initial
consonant, medial semivowel, main vowel, final consonant,
final semivowel, and tone.
There are no consonant clusters in the Vietnamese
language so that all Vietnamese speech sounds in the VSA
are elicited in singleton contexts. Morphophonological
contexts do not occur as the Vietnamese language does
not use bounded morphemes to mark verb tense, aspect,
or plurality (Pham, 2011). All stimuli in the VSA are
monosyllabic words; the exception is the rare loan word for
the initial consonant /p/ - pa-tê (pate). The classifiers, e.g.,
cái (inanimacy), con (animacy), are excluded although they
commonly precede nouns (Pham & Kohnert, 2009; Tran,
2011). For example, the single word task elicited thỏ (rabbit)
instead of con thỏ; and chuông (bell) instead of cái chuông.
Vietnamese speech sounds
The VSA includes all potential Vietnamese consonants,
semivowels, vowels, and tones to assess speech
production of Vietnamese-speaking children spoken in
three main dialects. A comprehensive summary of all
Vietnamese speech sounds in Standard Vietnamese and in
Purpose
The current purpose of the VSA is to describe children’s
ability to produce consonants, semivowels, vowels, and
tones in the northern, central, and southern Vietnamese
dialects. Once normative data have been collected and
analysed, the other purposes will be for diagnosis of
speech sound disorders, to assist with goal setting for
intervention, and to determine the outcomes of intervention.
Intended population
The VSA is designed for Vietnamese-speaking children
ranging from 2;0 to 6;11 years who live in different regions
of Viet Nam and in other countries. Children may be either
monolingual or multilingual speakers. Examiners using the
VSA should be speech-language pathologists, special
educators, psychologists or other professionals who are
Vietnamese native speakers with experience in Vietnamese
phonetic transcription and working with children (Smit,
1986). It may be possible for non-Vietnamese-speaking
speech-language pathologists to use the VSA with support
from interpreters or family members (see McLeod, Verdon &
IEPMCS, in press, for guidelines).
Target skill
The VSA has been designed as a picture-naming task to
elicit single words.
Scope
The scope of the VSA includes the type of words selected
and methods used to elicit target words. Six areas were
considered to ensure the scope matched the purpose of
VSA: phonotactic inventory, Vietnamese speech sounds,
elicitation of each speech sound, word selection,
presentation, and test administration.
Figure 1. The authors of the Vietnamese Speech Assessment