Speech Melody Properties in English, Czech and Czech English: Reference and Interference

Volín, Jan; Poesová, Kristýna; Weingartová, Lenka

doi:10.1515/rela-2015-0018

Cited by 20 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…While the segmental determiners and prosodic correlates of lexical stress and the related phenomena of phrasing and rhythm have been intensively analyzed for Czech in the last decades (Janota, 1967;Janota and Palková, 1974;Dankovičová, 2001;Volín, 2008a;Volín and Weingartová, 2012), only little is known about the use of intonation and emphasis patterns in Czech. In fact, research on the prosody of emphatic expressions in Czech hardly exists (but see e.g., Jančák, 1957).…”

Section: State Of the Art In Czech Prosody Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Prosody of the Czech Discourse Marker ‘Jasně': An Analysis of Forms and Functions

2017

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Words like yeah, okay and (al)right are fairly unspecific in their lexical semantics, and not least for this reason there is a general tendency for them to occur with highly varied and expressive prosodic patterns across languages. Here we examine in depth the prosodic forms that express eight pragmatic functions of the Czech discourse marker jasně, including resignation, reassurance, surprise, indifference or impatience. Using a collection of 172 tokens from a corpus of scripted dialogues by 30 native speakers, we performed acoustic analyses, applied classification algorithms and solicited judgments from native listeners in a perceptual experiment. There appeared to be multi-parametric differences between jasně realizations in terms of their F0, timing and intensity patterns, which gave rise to generally consistent form-function mappings. For example, resignation seems to be realized with a falling intonation contour, relatively slow tempo, long wordinitial consonant and a short word-final vowel. Although the most significant prosodic parameters used for clustering analysis involved segment durations, all pragmatic functions were expressed by patterns of multiple features.

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Section: State Of the Art In Czech Prosody Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Prosody of the Czech Discourse Marker ‘Jasně': An Analysis of Forms and Functions

2017

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“…As shown in Figure 12, our speakers' pitch range, as evidenced by the 80-percentile range, was confirmed to be quite narrow; the only exception is speaker S10, whose intonation indeed strikes listeners as remarkably lively. Volín et al (2015) reported their Czech English speakers' 80-percentile range around 4 semitones (ST), and we can see that the median value of most of the speakers in this study moves around the same value, with three speakers' median even below 3 ST.…”

Section: Melodic Patterningmentioning

confidence: 50%

“…While the pitch range of native British speakers was similar to that of the British newsreaders, it was by over 1 semitone narrower in the L2 speakers of English than in the L1 Czech newsreaders. The results of the study by Volín et al (2015) therefore do not support a straightforward transfer hypothesis, according to which one would predict values intermediate between (or identical to) those of Czech and English. With the pitch range in English as an L2 of Czech speakers even narrower than in L1 Czech, the authors suggest that there must be other factors at play, such as anxiety of the L2 speakers.…”

Section: Intonation In Czech Englishmentioning

confidence: 56%

“…In addition, the melody of speech appears to be more important for expressing pragmatic meanings in English (Wichmann, 2005). That may be the reason for the much wider pitch range in English than in Czech, as confirmed by Volín, Poesová and Weingartová (2015). The authors of the study compared Czech and British radio broadcasters and found that pitch range (specifically, the 80-percentile range) was 2 semitones narrower in L1 Czech than in L1 English for both male and female newsreaders.…”

Section: Intonation In Czech Englishmentioning

confidence: 87%

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Phonetic aspects of strongly-accented Czech speakers of English

Skarnitzl¹,

Rumlová²

2019

Auc Philologica

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This paper contributes to the study of Czech-accented English by examining multiple pronunciation features, both segmental and prosodic, typically associated with or previously studied in Czech English. We analyzed ten female speakers who had been evaluated as having a strong accent in their English, using auditory and acoustic approaches. In the segmental domain, most of the analyzed speakers used Czech equivalents of the English open vowels /ae ɒ/ and tended to pronounce a velar plosive after a velar nasal. In the domain of connected speech, linking was very rare in our speakers, and their pitch range tended to be very flat. The results underscore the fact that the label "strong Czech accent" may, in different speakers, refer to different constellations of pronunciation features.

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“…For example, see the reference values that are reported in Andreeva et al (2014), Pépiot (2014), and Volín et al (2015). Moreover, the sweet spots are limited at both ends.…”

Section: How Prosodic Features Are Correlated With Speaker Charismamentioning

confidence: 79%

Computer-assisted prosody training: Improving public speakers' vocal charisma with the Web-Pitcher

Niebuhr¹

2021

RAbralin

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Computer-assisted prosody training (CAPT) has so far mainly been used to teach foreign languages, although prosody is still hardly taken into account in language leraning. Conversely, prosody receives a lot of attention in studies and activities related to public-speaker training. But, despite that, CAPT tools are practically unknown in this type of training. The present paper addresses this gap and introduces the “Web Pitcher”, a new browser-based version of the feedback and evaluation software “Pitcher” that was developed in 2018 for the prosody-oriented training of charisma – a key characteristic of successful public speakers, which is defined as signaling competence, self-confidence and passion. In an online experiment with 60 test users it is investigated here whether and to what extent the Web Pitcher positively influences the prosodic charisma triggers of its users, and which feedback modes in which order lead to the greatest learning success. An acoustic analysis of before- vs. after-training speeches given by the 60 test users shows that the Web Pitcher improves six key prosodic charisma triggers of its learners by an average of 53 % after one hour of training – and thus performs at eye level with its offline precursor, the Pitcher. With the correct combination of its two feedback modes, the Web Pitcher even outperforms its offline precursor in terms of user improvement. The results are discussed with a view to further R&D steps and the integration of the Web Pitcher in real coaching activities. In this context, the paper also contains a link through which researchers can register and use the Web Pitcher for their own scientific purposes, also beyond questions of public-speaker or charisma training.

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Speech Melody Properties in English, Czech and Czech English: Reference and Interference

Cited by 20 publications

References 13 publications

The Prosody of the Czech Discourse Marker ‘Jasně': An Analysis of Forms and Functions

The Prosody of the Czech Discourse Marker ‘Jasně': An Analysis of Forms and Functions

Phonetic aspects of strongly-accented Czech speakers of English

Computer-assisted prosody training: Improving public speakers' vocal charisma with the Web-Pitcher

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