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The Contribution of Prosody to the Foreign Accent of Chinese Talkers’ English Speech

이주경|Liu Xing
한국음성학회 (The Korean Society of Speech Sciences)|2012.09|말소리와 음성과학 (Phonetics and Speech Sciences)|제4권 제3호|pp. 59-73

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참고문헌

키워드

segmentprosodycomprehensibilityforeign accentTD-PSOLAtransplanted stimuli
주제분류학제간연구

초록

This study attempts to investigate the contribution of prosody to the foreign accent in Chinese speakers’ English production by examining the synthesized speech of crossing native and non-native talkers’ prosody and segments. For the stimuli of the foreign accent ratings, we transplanted gender-matched native speakers’ prosody onto non-native talkers’segments and vice versa, utilizing the TD-PSOLA algorithm. Eight English native listeners participated in judging foreign accent and comprehensibility of the transplanted stimuli. Results showed that the synthesized stimuli were perceived as stronger foreign accent regardless of speakers’ proficiency when English speakers’ prosody was crossed with Chinese speakers’ segments. This suggests that segments contribute more than prosody to native listeners’ evaluation of foreign accent. When transplanted with English speakers’ segments, Chinese speakers’ prosody showed a difference in duration rather than pitch between high and low proficiency such that stronger foreign accent was detected when low proficient Chinese speakers’duration was crossed with English speakers’ segments. This indicated that prosody, more specifically duration, plays a role though the prosodic role is not overall as significant as segments. According to the post acoustic analysis, the temporal features contributing to making the duration parameter prominent as opposed to pitch were found out to be speaking rate,pause duration and pause frequency. Finally, foreign accent and comprehensibility showed no significant correlation such that native listeners had no difficulty listening to highly foreign accented speech.

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate the contribution of prosody to the foreign accent in Chinese speakers’ English production by examining the synthesized speech of crossing native and non-native talkers’ prosody and segments. For the stimuli of the foreign accent ratings, we transplanted gender-matched native speakers’ prosody onto non-native talkers’segments and vice versa, utilizing the TD-PSOLA algorithm. Eight English native listeners participated in judging foreign accent and comprehensibility of the transplanted stimuli. Results showed that the synthesized stimuli were perceived as stronger foreign accent regardless of speakers’ proficiency when English speakers’ prosody was crossed with Chinese speakers’ segments. This suggests that segments contribute more than prosody to native listeners’ evaluation of foreign accent. When transplanted with English speakers’ segments, Chinese speakers’ prosody showed a difference in duration rather than pitch between high and low proficiency such that stronger foreign accent was detected when low proficient Chinese speakers’duration was crossed with English speakers’ segments. This indicated that prosody, more specifically duration, plays a role though the prosodic role is not overall as significant as segments. According to the post acoustic analysis, the temporal features contributing to making the duration parameter prominent as opposed to pitch were found out to be speaking rate,pause duration and pause frequency. Finally, foreign accent and comprehensibility showed no significant correlation such that native listeners had no difficulty listening to highly foreign accented speech.

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관련 논문AI추천

The perception of foreign accent in prosody-transplanted speech이주경한국음운론학회 · 음성음운형태론연구2015 · 제21권 제2호Optimal prosody for different proficiency Chinese talkers of English: Pitch and speech rateJoo-Kyeong Lee한국현대언어학회 · 언어연구2016 · 제33권 제3호The Role of Prosody in the Perception of Foreign Accent and Comprehensibility: Prosody-Corrected-L2 Speech vs. Prosody-Distorted-L1 Speech이주경한국언어학회 · 언어2014 · 제39권 제1호The relative contributions of segments and prosody to L1 identification in transplanted L2 speech딩샹, 이주경한국음운론학회 · 음성음운형태론연구2020 · 제26권 제3호The effects of non-native listeners’ L1 background and L2 proficiency on the perception of foreign accent for pitch-manipulated native and Chinese accented English speech이주경, Xiaojiao Xue한국현대언어학회 · 언어연구2014 · 제31권 제2호The Effects of Non-native Listeners’ L1 Backgrounds and L2 Proficiency on the Evaluation of Foreign Accent이주경, Xiaojiao Xue한국언어학회 · 언어2013 · 제38권 제4호

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