The international journal of speech language and the law, Sep 18, 2009
The DyViS project (‘Dynamic Variability in Speech: a Forensic Phonetic Study of British English’)... more The DyViS project (‘Dynamic Variability in Speech: a Forensic Phonetic Study of British English’) at the University of Cambridge has compiled a large-scale database of speech recordings which will be freely available for (non-commercial) research purposes. The database comprises recordings of 100 male speakers of Standard Southern British English, aged 18-25, undertaking four tasks involving different speaking styles: a simulated police interview, a telephone call with an ‘accomplice’, a reading passage, and a set of read sentences. This paper describes the motivation for developing the DyViS database and explains its structure, including the novel techniques developed for eliciting spontaneous yet phonetically controlled speech under simulated forensic conditions.
This paper presents statistical data for the fundamental frequency of 100 young male speakers of ... more This paper presents statistical data for the fundamental frequency of 100 young male speakers of Standard Southern British English producing spontaneous speech under cognitive stress. The material comes from the new DyViS database, for which subjects underwent a simulated police interview. The distribution of F0 in a large homogeneous group of speakers is of forensic significance since it provides a framework for understanding the significance of F0 measurements in casework. Long-term F0 for the 100 speakers yielded a mode of 102 Hz, a mean of 106 Hz and a median of 105 Hz, and had a near-normal distribution. We demonstrate the limitations of F0 as a discriminatory feature for the majority (60%) of our speaker group, whose long-term F0 occurred within a narrow window of 20 Hz. Conversely, we see the forensic implications for recordings where a speaker's F0 is outside this window.
This paper presents data for a tightly controlled recognition and production study of English lan... more This paper presents data for a tightly controlled recognition and production study of English language intonation in reading by speakers of British English and second language learners of English in Hong Kong. We demonstrate a relatively high correlation between the scores for the two studies when data are separated by utterance type (statement, echo, WH-question, etc.). Our finding that this cohort of English learners performs better at production of nuclear tones than in the corresponding recognition study when both are judged by a template for British English adds support to the claim that the perception-production link, a theory that production is contingent on perception, is not borne out by the empirical study of learners of World Englishes. Data collected for the British English speakers give insight into a changing intonational phonology, while Hong Kong data indicate differences in intonational categories, a different distribution of tones, and possibly tonal innovation.
Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners ... more Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners can inform theories of prosody perception and production, especially with regard to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and for the implementation of prosody in Foreign Language Teaching (FLT). The perception and production of prosody in L2 speech are often analyzed separately, but the link between the two is rarely the focus of investigation [e.g. 1, 2]. In a previous study [3], we analyzed the perception of prosody in read speech by German learners of English (n=20), who performed similarly to the British English (BrE) control group (n=25) for some sentence types (e.g. statements, yes/noquestions) and worse for others (e.g. open and closed tag questions, sarcasm). The present study extends this analysis by comparing the same learners' perception and production of prosody in read speech with the same sentence types. Overall, the learners (n=20) performed better in production and were more similar to the native speakers' (n=10) performance than in the perception task. However, the learners significantly differed from the native controls in production, i.e. closed tag questions and checking questions. Interestingly, the learners also performed significantly better in yes/no and statement questions than the native speakers.
This paper presents data for a tightly controlled recognition and production study of English lan... more This paper presents data for a tightly controlled recognition and production study of English language intonation in reading by speakers of British English and second language learners of English in Hong Kong. We demonstrate a relatively high correlation between the scores for the two studies when data are separated by utterance type (statement, echo, WH-question, etc.). Our finding that this cohort of English learners performs better at production of nuclear tones than in the corresponding recognition study when both are judged by a template for British English adds support to the claim that the perception-production link, a theory that production is contingent on perception, is not borne out by the empirical study of learners of World Englishes. Data collected for the British English speakers give insight into a changing intonational phonology, while Hong Kong data indicate differences in intonational categories, a different distribution of tones, and possibly tonal innovation.
In this article the authors aim to offer some practical advice for phoneticians being confronted ... more In this article the authors aim to offer some practical advice for phoneticians being confronted with a voice parade request for the first time, by providing a detailed description of a parade carried out successfully in the UK. The methodology used in this parade is based on a number of studies on earwitnesses carried out since the 1990s. However, it primarily builds on the work by Nolan [5] for general advice on the construction of parades and on Rietveld and Broeders [7] for measuring the similarity of voices. In addition, useful ways are suggested to instruct and train identification officers involved. Special care is taken to ensure an efficient and smooth execution of the parade, keeping the risk of errors to a minimum. Finally, general issues important to voice parades are raised and discussed.
This study investigates whether patterns of diachronic sound change within a language variety can... more This study investigates whether patterns of diachronic sound change within a language variety can predict phonetic variability useful for distinguishing speakers. An analysis of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) monophthongs is undertaken to test whether individuals differ more widely in their realisation of sounds undergoing change than in their realisation of more stable sounds. The vowels /ae, ʊ, uː/, demonstrated by previous research to be changing in SSBE, are compared with the relatively stable /iː, ɑː, ɔː/. Read speech of 50 male speakers of SSBE aged 18-25 from the DyViS database is analysed and compared with earlier results for 20 speakers. First, the data confirm the stability of /iː, ɑː, ɔː/, the fact that /ʊ, uː/ have indeed fronted and that the articulation of /ae/ has become more open. Results from discriminant analysis based on F1 and F2 frequencies show speaker classification rates well above chance. The non-stable vowels all achieved higher levels of discrimination than the stable /ɔː/. However, the highly variable pronunciation of some changing vowels in the case of a few individuals and the 'special' status of F1 for /ɑː/ and F2 for /iː/, increasing the rate for those vowels, made the overall picture more complicated.
Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, 2009
Multiple cues interact to signal multiple functions in intonation simultaneously, which makes int... more Multiple cues interact to signal multiple functions in intonation simultaneously, which makes intonation notoriously complex to analyze. The Autosegmental-Metrical model for intonation analysis has proved to be an excellent vehicle for separating the components, but evidence for the phonetics/phonology dichotomy on which it hinges has proved elusive. Advocating a multidisciplinary approach, this paper outlines a new research project which combines traditional behavioural experiments with neuro-linguistic data to advance our understanding of the linguistic representation and neural correlates of intonation.
This paper presents statistical data for the fundamental frequency of 100 young male speakers of ... more This paper presents statistical data for the fundamental frequency of 100 young male speakers of Standard Southern British English producing spontaneous speech under cognitive stress. The material comes from the new DyViS database, for which subjects underwent a simulated police interview. The distribution of F0 in a large homogeneous group of speakers is of forensic significance since it provides a framework for understanding the significance of F0 measurements in casework. Long-term F0 for the 100 speakers yielded a mode of 102 Hz, a mean of 106 Hz and a median of 105 Hz, and had a near-normal distribution. We demonstrate the limitations of F0 as a discriminatory feature for the majority (60%) of our speaker group, whose long-term F0 occurred within a narrow window of 20 Hz. Conversely, we see the forensic implications for recordings where a speaker’s F0 is outside this window.
This paper presents descriptive statistical data for F0 of the 100 young male speakers of Standar... more This paper presents descriptive statistical data for F0 of the 100 young male speakers of Standard Southern British English in the newly created ‘Dynamic Variability in Speech’ (DyViS) database [UK ESRC award number RES-000-23-1248]. All speech samples are taken from simulated police interviews where the participants were required to produce spontaneous speech under cognitive stress. The material for each speaker is an extraction of the last 3-5 minutes of his side of the interview. The wave files were passed through a long-term pitch analysis Praat script which generated the F0 mean, median and standard deviation for each speaker. A mode was obtained from the distribution of F0 in 2.5 Hz bins within a 50-300 Hz range to give an indication of central tendancy unaffected by a ‘tapering off’ at higher frequencies of an individual speaker’s range. F0 is a frequently cited variable in forensic casework since it has a degree of robustness (Braun 1995). The distribution of F0 in a large h...
Subjects rated the (dis)similarity of paired voice samples on a nine-point scale. The short voice... more Subjects rated the (dis)similarity of paired voice samples on a nine-point scale. The short voice samples were taken from the DyViS database of young male speakers with ‘Standard Southern British’ pronunciation. Accent was thus controlled, and ratings can be presumed to tap perceived personal voice quality differences. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) was applied to the ratings to derive five pseudo-perceptual dimensions. These were then correlated with measures of f0 and the first three formants. Significant correlations were found with all measures. The first MDS dimension correlated with f0, confirming f0’s key role in voice similarity, followed in order of importance by F3, F2, and F1.
A study of individual differences in the fluency disruptions of speakers of two different accents... more A study of individual differences in the fluency disruptions of speakers of two different accents, Standard Southern British English (SSBE) and York English is presented. Distributions of rates of occurrence per 100 syllables are examined for filled and silent pauses, repetitions, prolongations and (self-)interruptions, and subcategories of these. Patterns of occurrence of disfluency features show considerable between-speaker variation in both SSBE and York English. Similar ranges of speakers’ overall disfluency rates are exhibited by both accents, but cross-accent differences are present in the patterning of some disfluency feature categories. The results suggest that a detailed record of disfluency features is a useful additional tool in forensic speaker comparison.
DyViS is a forensic phonetics research project which investigates dynamic variability in speech f... more DyViS is a forensic phonetics research project which investigates dynamic variability in speech from two perspectives: firstly, the use of dynamic (timevarying) properties of the speech signal for characterising speakers, especially formant dynamics; and secondly, the speaker-distinguishing potential of phonological variability due to sound change. In order to explore these two sources of dynamic variability, a large-scale database of speech material collected in simulated forensic conditions is being compiled. This paper outlines our motivation for the investigation, the methods and structure of the DyViS database, and some findings for the sound change study.
This study investigates whether patterns of diachronic sound change within a language variety can... more This study investigates whether patterns of diachronic sound change within a language variety can predict phonetic variability useful for distinguishing speakers. An analysis of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) monophthongs is undertaken to test whether individuals differ more widely in their realisation of sounds undergoing change than in their realisation of more stable sounds. The vowels /ae, ʊ, uː/, demonstrated by previous research to be changing in SSBE, are compared with the relatively stable /iː, ɑː, ɔː/. Read speech of 50 male speakers of SSBE aged 18-25 from the DyViS database is analysed and compared with earlier results for 20 speakers. First, the data confirm the stability of /iː, ɑː, ɔː/, the fact that /ʊ, uː/ have indeed fronted and that the articulation of /ae/ has become more open. Results from discriminant analysis based on F1 and F2 frequencies show speaker classification rates well above chance. The non-stable vowels all achieved higher levels of discrimi...
9th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2018, Jun 13, 2018
Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners ... more Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners can inform theories of prosody perception and production, especially with regard to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and for the implementation of prosody in Foreign Language Teaching (FLT). The perception and production of prosody in L2 speech are often analyzed separately, but the link between the two is rarely the focus of investigation [e.g. 1, 2]. In a previous study [3], we analyzed the perception of prosody in read speech by German learners of English (n=20), who performed similarly to the British English (BrE) control group (n=25) for some sentence types (e.g. statements, yes/noquestions) and worse for others (e.g. open and closed tag questions, sarcasm). The present study extends this analysis by comparing the same learners' perception and production of prosody in read speech with the same sentence types. Overall, the learners (n=20) performed better in production and were more similar to the native speakers' (n=10) performance than in the perception task. However, the learners significantly differed from the native controls in production, i.e. closed tag questions and checking questions. Interestingly, the learners also performed significantly better in yes/no and statement questions than the native speakers.
Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners ... more Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners can inform theories of prosody perception and production, especially with regard to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and for the implementation of prosody in Foreign Language Teaching (FLT). The perception and production of prosody in L2 speech are often analyzed separately, but the link between the two is rarely the focus of investigation [e.g. 1, 2]. In a previous study [3], we analyzed the perception of prosody in read speech by German learners of English (n=20), who performed similarly to the British English (BrE) control group (n=25) for some sentence types (e.g. statements, yes/no-questions) and worse for others (e.g. open and closed tag questions, sarcasm). The present study extends this analysis by comparing the same learners' perception and production of prosody in read speech with the same sentence types. Overall, the learners (n=20) performed better in production and wer...
The effect of telephone transmission on a listener's ability to recognise a speaker in a voice pa... more The effect of telephone transmission on a listener's ability to recognise a speaker in a voice parade is investigated. 100 listeners (25 per condition) heard one of five 'target' voices, then returned a week later for a voice parade. The four conditions were: target exposure and parade both at studio quality; exposure and parade both at telephone quality; studio exposure with telephone parade; and vice versa. Fewer correct identifications followed from telephone exposure and parade (64%) than from studio exposure and parade (76%). Fewer still resulted for studio exposure/telephone parade (60%), and, dramatically, only 32% for telephone exposure/studio parade. Certain speakers were identified more readily than others across all conditions. Confidence ratings reflected this effect of speaker, but not the effect of exposure/parade condition.
The international journal of speech language and the law, Sep 18, 2009
The DyViS project (‘Dynamic Variability in Speech: a Forensic Phonetic Study of British English’)... more The DyViS project (‘Dynamic Variability in Speech: a Forensic Phonetic Study of British English’) at the University of Cambridge has compiled a large-scale database of speech recordings which will be freely available for (non-commercial) research purposes. The database comprises recordings of 100 male speakers of Standard Southern British English, aged 18-25, undertaking four tasks involving different speaking styles: a simulated police interview, a telephone call with an ‘accomplice’, a reading passage, and a set of read sentences. This paper describes the motivation for developing the DyViS database and explains its structure, including the novel techniques developed for eliciting spontaneous yet phonetically controlled speech under simulated forensic conditions.
This paper presents statistical data for the fundamental frequency of 100 young male speakers of ... more This paper presents statistical data for the fundamental frequency of 100 young male speakers of Standard Southern British English producing spontaneous speech under cognitive stress. The material comes from the new DyViS database, for which subjects underwent a simulated police interview. The distribution of F0 in a large homogeneous group of speakers is of forensic significance since it provides a framework for understanding the significance of F0 measurements in casework. Long-term F0 for the 100 speakers yielded a mode of 102 Hz, a mean of 106 Hz and a median of 105 Hz, and had a near-normal distribution. We demonstrate the limitations of F0 as a discriminatory feature for the majority (60%) of our speaker group, whose long-term F0 occurred within a narrow window of 20 Hz. Conversely, we see the forensic implications for recordings where a speaker's F0 is outside this window.
This paper presents data for a tightly controlled recognition and production study of English lan... more This paper presents data for a tightly controlled recognition and production study of English language intonation in reading by speakers of British English and second language learners of English in Hong Kong. We demonstrate a relatively high correlation between the scores for the two studies when data are separated by utterance type (statement, echo, WH-question, etc.). Our finding that this cohort of English learners performs better at production of nuclear tones than in the corresponding recognition study when both are judged by a template for British English adds support to the claim that the perception-production link, a theory that production is contingent on perception, is not borne out by the empirical study of learners of World Englishes. Data collected for the British English speakers give insight into a changing intonational phonology, while Hong Kong data indicate differences in intonational categories, a different distribution of tones, and possibly tonal innovation.
Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners ... more Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners can inform theories of prosody perception and production, especially with regard to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and for the implementation of prosody in Foreign Language Teaching (FLT). The perception and production of prosody in L2 speech are often analyzed separately, but the link between the two is rarely the focus of investigation [e.g. 1, 2]. In a previous study [3], we analyzed the perception of prosody in read speech by German learners of English (n=20), who performed similarly to the British English (BrE) control group (n=25) for some sentence types (e.g. statements, yes/noquestions) and worse for others (e.g. open and closed tag questions, sarcasm). The present study extends this analysis by comparing the same learners' perception and production of prosody in read speech with the same sentence types. Overall, the learners (n=20) performed better in production and were more similar to the native speakers' (n=10) performance than in the perception task. However, the learners significantly differed from the native controls in production, i.e. closed tag questions and checking questions. Interestingly, the learners also performed significantly better in yes/no and statement questions than the native speakers.
This paper presents data for a tightly controlled recognition and production study of English lan... more This paper presents data for a tightly controlled recognition and production study of English language intonation in reading by speakers of British English and second language learners of English in Hong Kong. We demonstrate a relatively high correlation between the scores for the two studies when data are separated by utterance type (statement, echo, WH-question, etc.). Our finding that this cohort of English learners performs better at production of nuclear tones than in the corresponding recognition study when both are judged by a template for British English adds support to the claim that the perception-production link, a theory that production is contingent on perception, is not borne out by the empirical study of learners of World Englishes. Data collected for the British English speakers give insight into a changing intonational phonology, while Hong Kong data indicate differences in intonational categories, a different distribution of tones, and possibly tonal innovation.
In this article the authors aim to offer some practical advice for phoneticians being confronted ... more In this article the authors aim to offer some practical advice for phoneticians being confronted with a voice parade request for the first time, by providing a detailed description of a parade carried out successfully in the UK. The methodology used in this parade is based on a number of studies on earwitnesses carried out since the 1990s. However, it primarily builds on the work by Nolan [5] for general advice on the construction of parades and on Rietveld and Broeders [7] for measuring the similarity of voices. In addition, useful ways are suggested to instruct and train identification officers involved. Special care is taken to ensure an efficient and smooth execution of the parade, keeping the risk of errors to a minimum. Finally, general issues important to voice parades are raised and discussed.
This study investigates whether patterns of diachronic sound change within a language variety can... more This study investigates whether patterns of diachronic sound change within a language variety can predict phonetic variability useful for distinguishing speakers. An analysis of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) monophthongs is undertaken to test whether individuals differ more widely in their realisation of sounds undergoing change than in their realisation of more stable sounds. The vowels /ae, ʊ, uː/, demonstrated by previous research to be changing in SSBE, are compared with the relatively stable /iː, ɑː, ɔː/. Read speech of 50 male speakers of SSBE aged 18-25 from the DyViS database is analysed and compared with earlier results for 20 speakers. First, the data confirm the stability of /iː, ɑː, ɔː/, the fact that /ʊ, uː/ have indeed fronted and that the articulation of /ae/ has become more open. Results from discriminant analysis based on F1 and F2 frequencies show speaker classification rates well above chance. The non-stable vowels all achieved higher levels of discrimination than the stable /ɔː/. However, the highly variable pronunciation of some changing vowels in the case of a few individuals and the 'special' status of F1 for /ɑː/ and F2 for /iː/, increasing the rate for those vowels, made the overall picture more complicated.
Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, 2009
Multiple cues interact to signal multiple functions in intonation simultaneously, which makes int... more Multiple cues interact to signal multiple functions in intonation simultaneously, which makes intonation notoriously complex to analyze. The Autosegmental-Metrical model for intonation analysis has proved to be an excellent vehicle for separating the components, but evidence for the phonetics/phonology dichotomy on which it hinges has proved elusive. Advocating a multidisciplinary approach, this paper outlines a new research project which combines traditional behavioural experiments with neuro-linguistic data to advance our understanding of the linguistic representation and neural correlates of intonation.
This paper presents statistical data for the fundamental frequency of 100 young male speakers of ... more This paper presents statistical data for the fundamental frequency of 100 young male speakers of Standard Southern British English producing spontaneous speech under cognitive stress. The material comes from the new DyViS database, for which subjects underwent a simulated police interview. The distribution of F0 in a large homogeneous group of speakers is of forensic significance since it provides a framework for understanding the significance of F0 measurements in casework. Long-term F0 for the 100 speakers yielded a mode of 102 Hz, a mean of 106 Hz and a median of 105 Hz, and had a near-normal distribution. We demonstrate the limitations of F0 as a discriminatory feature for the majority (60%) of our speaker group, whose long-term F0 occurred within a narrow window of 20 Hz. Conversely, we see the forensic implications for recordings where a speaker’s F0 is outside this window.
This paper presents descriptive statistical data for F0 of the 100 young male speakers of Standar... more This paper presents descriptive statistical data for F0 of the 100 young male speakers of Standard Southern British English in the newly created ‘Dynamic Variability in Speech’ (DyViS) database [UK ESRC award number RES-000-23-1248]. All speech samples are taken from simulated police interviews where the participants were required to produce spontaneous speech under cognitive stress. The material for each speaker is an extraction of the last 3-5 minutes of his side of the interview. The wave files were passed through a long-term pitch analysis Praat script which generated the F0 mean, median and standard deviation for each speaker. A mode was obtained from the distribution of F0 in 2.5 Hz bins within a 50-300 Hz range to give an indication of central tendancy unaffected by a ‘tapering off’ at higher frequencies of an individual speaker’s range. F0 is a frequently cited variable in forensic casework since it has a degree of robustness (Braun 1995). The distribution of F0 in a large h...
Subjects rated the (dis)similarity of paired voice samples on a nine-point scale. The short voice... more Subjects rated the (dis)similarity of paired voice samples on a nine-point scale. The short voice samples were taken from the DyViS database of young male speakers with ‘Standard Southern British’ pronunciation. Accent was thus controlled, and ratings can be presumed to tap perceived personal voice quality differences. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) was applied to the ratings to derive five pseudo-perceptual dimensions. These were then correlated with measures of f0 and the first three formants. Significant correlations were found with all measures. The first MDS dimension correlated with f0, confirming f0’s key role in voice similarity, followed in order of importance by F3, F2, and F1.
A study of individual differences in the fluency disruptions of speakers of two different accents... more A study of individual differences in the fluency disruptions of speakers of two different accents, Standard Southern British English (SSBE) and York English is presented. Distributions of rates of occurrence per 100 syllables are examined for filled and silent pauses, repetitions, prolongations and (self-)interruptions, and subcategories of these. Patterns of occurrence of disfluency features show considerable between-speaker variation in both SSBE and York English. Similar ranges of speakers’ overall disfluency rates are exhibited by both accents, but cross-accent differences are present in the patterning of some disfluency feature categories. The results suggest that a detailed record of disfluency features is a useful additional tool in forensic speaker comparison.
DyViS is a forensic phonetics research project which investigates dynamic variability in speech f... more DyViS is a forensic phonetics research project which investigates dynamic variability in speech from two perspectives: firstly, the use of dynamic (timevarying) properties of the speech signal for characterising speakers, especially formant dynamics; and secondly, the speaker-distinguishing potential of phonological variability due to sound change. In order to explore these two sources of dynamic variability, a large-scale database of speech material collected in simulated forensic conditions is being compiled. This paper outlines our motivation for the investigation, the methods and structure of the DyViS database, and some findings for the sound change study.
This study investigates whether patterns of diachronic sound change within a language variety can... more This study investigates whether patterns of diachronic sound change within a language variety can predict phonetic variability useful for distinguishing speakers. An analysis of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) monophthongs is undertaken to test whether individuals differ more widely in their realisation of sounds undergoing change than in their realisation of more stable sounds. The vowels /ae, ʊ, uː/, demonstrated by previous research to be changing in SSBE, are compared with the relatively stable /iː, ɑː, ɔː/. Read speech of 50 male speakers of SSBE aged 18-25 from the DyViS database is analysed and compared with earlier results for 20 speakers. First, the data confirm the stability of /iː, ɑː, ɔː/, the fact that /ʊ, uː/ have indeed fronted and that the articulation of /ae/ has become more open. Results from discriminant analysis based on F1 and F2 frequencies show speaker classification rates well above chance. The non-stable vowels all achieved higher levels of discrimi...
9th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2018, Jun 13, 2018
Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners ... more Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners can inform theories of prosody perception and production, especially with regard to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and for the implementation of prosody in Foreign Language Teaching (FLT). The perception and production of prosody in L2 speech are often analyzed separately, but the link between the two is rarely the focus of investigation [e.g. 1, 2]. In a previous study [3], we analyzed the perception of prosody in read speech by German learners of English (n=20), who performed similarly to the British English (BrE) control group (n=25) for some sentence types (e.g. statements, yes/noquestions) and worse for others (e.g. open and closed tag questions, sarcasm). The present study extends this analysis by comparing the same learners' perception and production of prosody in read speech with the same sentence types. Overall, the learners (n=20) performed better in production and were more similar to the native speakers' (n=10) performance than in the perception task. However, the learners significantly differed from the native controls in production, i.e. closed tag questions and checking questions. Interestingly, the learners also performed significantly better in yes/no and statement questions than the native speakers.
Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners ... more Investigations of the link between the perception and production of prosody by language learners can inform theories of prosody perception and production, especially with regard to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and for the implementation of prosody in Foreign Language Teaching (FLT). The perception and production of prosody in L2 speech are often analyzed separately, but the link between the two is rarely the focus of investigation [e.g. 1, 2]. In a previous study [3], we analyzed the perception of prosody in read speech by German learners of English (n=20), who performed similarly to the British English (BrE) control group (n=25) for some sentence types (e.g. statements, yes/no-questions) and worse for others (e.g. open and closed tag questions, sarcasm). The present study extends this analysis by comparing the same learners' perception and production of prosody in read speech with the same sentence types. Overall, the learners (n=20) performed better in production and wer...
The effect of telephone transmission on a listener's ability to recognise a speaker in a voice pa... more The effect of telephone transmission on a listener's ability to recognise a speaker in a voice parade is investigated. 100 listeners (25 per condition) heard one of five 'target' voices, then returned a week later for a voice parade. The four conditions were: target exposure and parade both at studio quality; exposure and parade both at telephone quality; studio exposure with telephone parade; and vice versa. Fewer correct identifications followed from telephone exposure and parade (64%) than from studio exposure and parade (76%). Fewer still resulted for studio exposure/telephone parade (60%), and, dramatically, only 32% for telephone exposure/studio parade. Certain speakers were identified more readily than others across all conditions. Confidence ratings reflected this effect of speaker, but not the effect of exposure/parade condition.
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