The study aims to compare vowel reduction in read and fully spontaneous speech in English and Pol... more The study aims to compare vowel reduction in read and fully spontaneous speech in English and Polish. It hypothesizes that (i) vowels exhibit stronger reduction in fully spontaneous speech in comparison with read speech in the two languages (ii) vowel reduction is more robust in English than it is in Polish (iii) high speech rate of triggers vowel reduction. The aims were achieved by an acoustic analysis of interviews and word lists from PAC (9 speakers) and the Corpus of Modern Spoken Polish in the area of Greater Poland (9 speakers). The study takes centralization of formants and short vowel duration as vowel reduction (Lindblom 1963) which were normalized to compare the values across speakers. For Polish subjects, speakers’ canonical schwa was operationalized as an average of peripheral vowels /i/, /a/ and /u/ due to the fact that Polish has no schwa (Jassem 2003). Comparison of two speech styles consisted in measuring spectral and temporal properties of vowel tokens from the wordlist and from interviews. The rate-reduction hypothesis was tested by means of comparing vowel reduction for three fastest and three slowest speakers for each language and using Pearson correlation. In light of the obtained results, the two first hypotheses were positively verified. The third one produced mixed results. The study establishes a significant difference in vowel reduction across two speech styles, read and fully spontaneous across two unrelated languages. All vowel tokens were shorter and centralized in spontaneous speech, relative to their duration as well as placed in less peripheral positions than in read speech. It has been shown that reduction in English is considerably stronger than in Polish. With respect to the third hypothesis, assuming a straightforward relationship between speech rate and reduction, the findings of the current study did not provide a definite answer. To a certain extent, the correlation between rate and duration was found in Polish but not in English. As Zwicky notes, “casual speech need not to be fast; some speakers [...] use a quite informal speech even at fairly slow rates of speech, while others [...] give the impression of great precision even in hurried speech” (Zwicky 1972: 607).
The study seeks to establish the frequency of occurrence for processes of connected speech and to... more The study seeks to establish the frequency of occurrence for processes of connected speech and to examine the role of rate, hypothesizing that high rate fosters processes. Auditory and acoustic analysis was performed on 4.5 hs of speech of 9 speakers of Lancashire from the Phonologie de l’Anglais Contemporain corpus (PAC). As for the first aim, the following ranking emerges: /d/ deletion (34%), /t/ deletion (31%), /h/ deletion (20 %), fricativization (9%), yod coalescence (3%) and assimilation of place (2%). This hierarchy of occurrence can be explained with the two factors: lexical frequency and interspeaker variability.
A surprising finding is that rate effects, with exception of /t/ deletion, were not observed for individual processes or across the gradient/categorical division, pointing to a less significant role of tempo than it is assumed. Instead, it is suggested that connected speech processes are phonological, not phonetic.
The paper reports the results of a study investigating vowel reduction in the speech of non-nativ... more The paper reports the results of a study investigating vowel reduction in the speech of non-native speakers of English. The aim is to unravel the links between reduction and speech rate, phonetic training and gender. We hypothesize that (i) Polish speakers of English reduce vowels (ii) they speak slower than native speakers (iii) the higher the rate, the higher the reduction degree (iv) speakers with phonetic training reduce less than those lacking it (v) male subjects reduce more than the female ones.
In order to realize these aims, the acoustic analysis of vowels was performed on 2 hs 42 mins of speech produced by 12 Polish speakers of English. The subjects were divided into the experimental group consisting of 6 students of English and the control group with 6 speakers who had no phonetic training.
The obtained results positively verify that non-native speakers reduce vowels and cast some doubts whether they speak slower than native speakers. The role of rate and gender could not be established due to statistical and methodological issues. The group with no phonetic training outperformed the group which underwent phonetic training, pointing instead to the role of exposure and perhaps music training in acquiring native-like reduction patterns.
The study reports the results of an acoustic analysis of vowel reduction of the /iː/ vowel, consi... more The study reports the results of an acoustic analysis of vowel reduction of the /iː/ vowel, considering all three traditionally explored aspects of vowel reduction, i.e. duration, F1 and F2 in read speech produced by 12 native speakers of English. Starting from the observation that the standard literature considers only duration as a proxy for overall reduction, the aim of the study is to verify whether duration, F1 and F2 exhibit reduction (construed as shortening of duration and centralization of formants, respectively) to the same degree. The r test reveals the lack of a robust linear correlation between duration, F1 and F2, the highest value being 0.51 (the correlation between duration and F1) and 0.24 (the correlation between duration and F2), neither of which is a strong correlation. In light of the results, the study seeks to establish a gradual scale of vowel reduction, combining the spatial and the temporal aspects by means of averaging the distances between the least and the most reduced tokens across duration, F1/F2 on an equal basis. The resulting degree is expressed on a scale of reduction, ranging from 0 (no reduction whatsoever) to 100 per cent (reduction to schwa).
The study aims to compare vowel reduction in read and fully spontaneous speech in English and Pol... more The study aims to compare vowel reduction in read and fully spontaneous speech in English and Polish. It hypothesizes that (i) vowels exhibit stronger reduction in fully spontaneous speech in comparison with read speech in the two languages (ii) vowel reduction is more robust in English than it is in Polish (iii) high speech rate of triggers vowel reduction. The aims were achieved by an acoustic analysis of interviews and word lists from PAC (9 speakers) and the Corpus of Modern Spoken Polish in the area of Greater Poland (9 speakers). The study takes centralization of formants and short vowel duration as vowel reduction (Lindblom 1963) which were normalized to compare the values across speakers. For Polish subjects, speakers’ canonical schwa was operationalized as an average of peripheral vowels /i/, /a/ and /u/ due to the fact that Polish has no schwa (Jassem 2003). Comparison of two speech styles consisted in measuring spectral and temporal properties of vowel tokens from the wordlist and from interviews. The rate-reduction hypothesis was tested by means of comparing vowel reduction for three fastest and three slowest speakers for each language and using Pearson correlation. In light of the obtained results, the two first hypotheses were positively verified. The third one produced mixed results. The study establishes a significant difference in vowel reduction across two speech styles, read and fully spontaneous across two unrelated languages. All vowel tokens were shorter and centralized in spontaneous speech, relative to their duration as well as placed in less peripheral positions than in read speech. It has been shown that reduction in English is considerably stronger than in Polish. With respect to the third hypothesis, assuming a straightforward relationship between speech rate and reduction, the findings of the current study did not provide a definite answer. To a certain extent, the correlation between rate and duration was found in Polish but not in English. As Zwicky notes, “casual speech need not to be fast; some speakers [...] use a quite informal speech even at fairly slow rates of speech, while others [...] give the impression of great precision even in hurried speech” (Zwicky 1972: 607).
The study seeks to establish the frequency of occurrence for processes of connected speech and to... more The study seeks to establish the frequency of occurrence for processes of connected speech and to examine the role of rate, hypothesizing that high rate fosters processes. Auditory and acoustic analysis was performed on 4.5 hs of speech of 9 speakers of Lancashire from the Phonologie de l’Anglais Contemporain corpus (PAC). As for the first aim, the following ranking emerges: /d/ deletion (34%), /t/ deletion (31%), /h/ deletion (20 %), fricativization (9%), yod coalescence (3%) and assimilation of place (2%). This hierarchy of occurrence can be explained with the two factors: lexical frequency and interspeaker variability.
A surprising finding is that rate effects, with exception of /t/ deletion, were not observed for individual processes or across the gradient/categorical division, pointing to a less significant role of tempo than it is assumed. Instead, it is suggested that connected speech processes are phonological, not phonetic.
The paper reports the results of a study investigating vowel reduction in the speech of non-nativ... more The paper reports the results of a study investigating vowel reduction in the speech of non-native speakers of English. The aim is to unravel the links between reduction and speech rate, phonetic training and gender. We hypothesize that (i) Polish speakers of English reduce vowels (ii) they speak slower than native speakers (iii) the higher the rate, the higher the reduction degree (iv) speakers with phonetic training reduce less than those lacking it (v) male subjects reduce more than the female ones.
In order to realize these aims, the acoustic analysis of vowels was performed on 2 hs 42 mins of speech produced by 12 Polish speakers of English. The subjects were divided into the experimental group consisting of 6 students of English and the control group with 6 speakers who had no phonetic training.
The obtained results positively verify that non-native speakers reduce vowels and cast some doubts whether they speak slower than native speakers. The role of rate and gender could not be established due to statistical and methodological issues. The group with no phonetic training outperformed the group which underwent phonetic training, pointing instead to the role of exposure and perhaps music training in acquiring native-like reduction patterns.
The study reports the results of an acoustic analysis of vowel reduction of the /iː/ vowel, consi... more The study reports the results of an acoustic analysis of vowel reduction of the /iː/ vowel, considering all three traditionally explored aspects of vowel reduction, i.e. duration, F1 and F2 in read speech produced by 12 native speakers of English. Starting from the observation that the standard literature considers only duration as a proxy for overall reduction, the aim of the study is to verify whether duration, F1 and F2 exhibit reduction (construed as shortening of duration and centralization of formants, respectively) to the same degree. The r test reveals the lack of a robust linear correlation between duration, F1 and F2, the highest value being 0.51 (the correlation between duration and F1) and 0.24 (the correlation between duration and F2), neither of which is a strong correlation. In light of the results, the study seeks to establish a gradual scale of vowel reduction, combining the spatial and the temporal aspects by means of averaging the distances between the least and the most reduced tokens across duration, F1/F2 on an equal basis. The resulting degree is expressed on a scale of reduction, ranging from 0 (no reduction whatsoever) to 100 per cent (reduction to schwa).
Uploads
Papers by malgorzata kul
The aims were achieved by an acoustic analysis of interviews and word lists from PAC (9 speakers) and the Corpus of Modern Spoken Polish in the area of Greater Poland (9 speakers). The study takes centralization of formants and short vowel duration as vowel reduction (Lindblom 1963) which were normalized to compare the values across speakers. For Polish subjects, speakers’ canonical schwa was operationalized as an average of peripheral vowels /i/, /a/ and /u/ due to the fact that Polish has no schwa (Jassem 2003). Comparison of two speech styles consisted in measuring spectral and temporal properties of vowel tokens from the wordlist and from interviews. The rate-reduction hypothesis was tested by means of comparing vowel reduction for three fastest and three slowest speakers for each language and using Pearson correlation.
In light of the obtained results, the two first hypotheses were positively verified. The third one produced mixed results. The study establishes a significant difference in vowel reduction across two speech styles, read and fully spontaneous across two unrelated languages. All vowel tokens were shorter and centralized in spontaneous speech, relative to their duration as well as placed in less peripheral positions than in read speech. It has been shown that reduction in English is considerably stronger than in Polish. With respect to the third hypothesis, assuming a straightforward relationship between speech rate and reduction, the findings of the current study did not provide a definite answer. To a certain extent, the correlation between rate and duration was found in Polish but not in English. As Zwicky notes, “casual speech need not to be fast; some speakers [...] use a quite informal speech even at fairly slow rates of speech, while others [...] give the impression of great precision even in hurried speech” (Zwicky 1972: 607).
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
����������������������������������������������������
�
��������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������
����������� ����� ������� ��������� ������������������������� ��������������� ���� ������ ����
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
����������������� ��������� �������������� �������������������� ������� �������������� ����
������������ ���������������� ����������� ���������������� ������ ��������������� ��� ������
���������������� ��������������������� ��� ������������������ ������������ ����� ������������ ����
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������������
A surprising finding is that rate effects, with exception of /t/ deletion, were not observed for individual processes or across the gradient/categorical division, pointing to a less significant role of tempo than it is assumed. Instead, it is suggested that connected speech processes are phonological, not phonetic.
In order to realize these aims, the acoustic analysis of vowels was performed on 2 hs 42 mins of speech produced by 12 Polish speakers of English. The subjects were divided into the experimental group consisting of 6 students of English and the control group with 6 speakers who had no phonetic training.
The obtained results positively verify that non-native speakers reduce vowels and cast some doubts whether they speak slower than native speakers. The role of rate and gender could not be established due to statistical and methodological issues. The group with no phonetic training outperformed the group which underwent phonetic training, pointing instead to the role of exposure and perhaps music training in acquiring native-like reduction patterns.
all three traditionally explored aspects of vowel reduction, i.e. duration, F1 and F2 in read
speech produced by 12 native speakers of English. Starting from the observation that the standard
literature considers only duration as a proxy for overall reduction, the aim of the study is to verify
whether duration, F1 and F2 exhibit reduction (construed as shortening of duration and centralization
of formants, respectively) to the same degree. The r test reveals the lack of a robust
linear correlation between duration, F1 and F2, the highest value being 0.51 (the correlation between
duration and F1) and 0.24 (the correlation between duration and F2), neither of which is a
strong correlation. In light of the results, the study seeks to establish a gradual scale of vowel reduction,
combining the spatial and the temporal aspects by means of averaging the distances between
the least and the most reduced tokens across duration, F1/F2 on an equal basis. The resulting
degree is expressed on a scale of reduction, ranging from 0 (no reduction whatsoever) to 100
per cent (reduction to schwa).
The aims were achieved by an acoustic analysis of interviews and word lists from PAC (9 speakers) and the Corpus of Modern Spoken Polish in the area of Greater Poland (9 speakers). The study takes centralization of formants and short vowel duration as vowel reduction (Lindblom 1963) which were normalized to compare the values across speakers. For Polish subjects, speakers’ canonical schwa was operationalized as an average of peripheral vowels /i/, /a/ and /u/ due to the fact that Polish has no schwa (Jassem 2003). Comparison of two speech styles consisted in measuring spectral and temporal properties of vowel tokens from the wordlist and from interviews. The rate-reduction hypothesis was tested by means of comparing vowel reduction for three fastest and three slowest speakers for each language and using Pearson correlation.
In light of the obtained results, the two first hypotheses were positively verified. The third one produced mixed results. The study establishes a significant difference in vowel reduction across two speech styles, read and fully spontaneous across two unrelated languages. All vowel tokens were shorter and centralized in spontaneous speech, relative to their duration as well as placed in less peripheral positions than in read speech. It has been shown that reduction in English is considerably stronger than in Polish. With respect to the third hypothesis, assuming a straightforward relationship between speech rate and reduction, the findings of the current study did not provide a definite answer. To a certain extent, the correlation between rate and duration was found in Polish but not in English. As Zwicky notes, “casual speech need not to be fast; some speakers [...] use a quite informal speech even at fairly slow rates of speech, while others [...] give the impression of great precision even in hurried speech” (Zwicky 1972: 607).
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
����������������������������������������������������
�
��������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������
����������� ����� ������� ��������� ������������������������� ��������������� ���� ������ ����
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
����������������� ��������� �������������� �������������������� ������� �������������� ����
������������ ���������������� ����������� ���������������� ������ ��������������� ��� ������
���������������� ��������������������� ��� ������������������ ������������ ����� ������������ ����
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������������
A surprising finding is that rate effects, with exception of /t/ deletion, were not observed for individual processes or across the gradient/categorical division, pointing to a less significant role of tempo than it is assumed. Instead, it is suggested that connected speech processes are phonological, not phonetic.
In order to realize these aims, the acoustic analysis of vowels was performed on 2 hs 42 mins of speech produced by 12 Polish speakers of English. The subjects were divided into the experimental group consisting of 6 students of English and the control group with 6 speakers who had no phonetic training.
The obtained results positively verify that non-native speakers reduce vowels and cast some doubts whether they speak slower than native speakers. The role of rate and gender could not be established due to statistical and methodological issues. The group with no phonetic training outperformed the group which underwent phonetic training, pointing instead to the role of exposure and perhaps music training in acquiring native-like reduction patterns.
all three traditionally explored aspects of vowel reduction, i.e. duration, F1 and F2 in read
speech produced by 12 native speakers of English. Starting from the observation that the standard
literature considers only duration as a proxy for overall reduction, the aim of the study is to verify
whether duration, F1 and F2 exhibit reduction (construed as shortening of duration and centralization
of formants, respectively) to the same degree. The r test reveals the lack of a robust
linear correlation between duration, F1 and F2, the highest value being 0.51 (the correlation between
duration and F1) and 0.24 (the correlation between duration and F2), neither of which is a
strong correlation. In light of the results, the study seeks to establish a gradual scale of vowel reduction,
combining the spatial and the temporal aspects by means of averaging the distances between
the least and the most reduced tokens across duration, F1/F2 on an equal basis. The resulting
degree is expressed on a scale of reduction, ranging from 0 (no reduction whatsoever) to 100
per cent (reduction to schwa).