A comparison of vocal parameters in adult bilingual Hebrew-English speakers

Abstract

Purpose: There has been growing research on the effects of language on voice characteristics; however, few studies have examined the impact of language on vocal features within bilinguals. This study aimed to compare vocal parameters among bilingual Hebrew/English speaking individuals when speaking in Hebrew versus English. Methods: Forty bilingual participants (17 males and 23 females) between the ages of 23-60 years were asked to spontaneously speak about a neutral topic. Voice samples were digitalized into a tablet for perceptual and acoustic analyses of selected parameters. Results: Results show that there are changes in resonance, glottal attack, fundamental frequency variation and speech rate when adult bilingual speakers talk in Hebrew as compared to English. Conclusion: These findings provide evidence that language plays a role in affecting vocal characteristics of bilingual individuals when they speak different languages.

Vocal Characteristics across English-Northern Sotho Bilingual Speakers: A Comparative Study

“…Ample research supports the connection between internal factors, such as age, gender, anatomy, emotional state, ethnicity, and voice [2][3][4]. However, a small number of studies have explored the relationship between voice and external factors, such as language and speech tasks, when striving to understand voice in its entirety [4][5][6].…”

“…English has been the most studied language in crosslinguistic research, owing to its global dominance in education and business [9,10]. Bilingual speakers' vocal characteristics have been explored across English and other languages including: Japanese, Hebrew, Welsh, Mandarin, Korean, Cantonese, Arabian, Finnish, and Russian [4,5,[11][12][13][14]. Fundamental frequency (f 0 ) has been the most widely considered parameter in crosslinguistic voice studies and is a salient feature of talker identity [9,14].…”

“…Fewer studies have recognized speech tasks as a confounding factor [4][5][6][7]. The structured nature of reading may cause speakers to hyperarticulate and present with higher f 0 measurements [4,17,18].…”

“…The structured nature of reading may cause speakers to hyperarticulate and present with higher f 0 measurements [4,17,18]. Spontaneous speech tasks, however, reflect the speaker's true vocal nature in conversation [5,19]. Bilingual speakers may employ language-specific laryngeal configurations that induce f 0 variations in spontaneous speech [7].…”

“…Bilingual speakers may employ language-specific laryngeal configurations that induce f 0 variations in spontaneous speech [7]. Cross-linguistic f 0 variations in spontaneous speech suggest that the language spoken, rather than task-type, contributes to language-based vocal differences [5,7,11].…”