The effects of tones on speaking frequency and intensity ranges in Mandarin and Min dialects

Abstract

The differences of speaking frequency and intensity in different tonal dialects has not been widely investigated. The purposes of this study were (1) to compare the speaking frequency and speaking intensity ranges of Mandarin and Min and (2) to compare the speaking frequency and intensity ranges of Mandarin and Min to those of American English. The subjects were 80 normal Taiwanese adults divided into two dialect groups, Mandarin and Min. The speaking F0, the highest speaking F0, the lowest speaking F0, the maximum range of speaking F0, and the intensity counterpart were obtained from reading in their native dialects. Statistical analysis revealed that Min speakers had a significantly greater maximum range of speaking intensity and a smaller lowest speaking intensity than Mandarin speakers, which indicated tonal effects by speakers of the Min dialect. Moreover, Mandarin and Min speakers had a greater maximum range of speaking F0 and maximum range of speaking intensity than American English speakers. The data may provide an assessment tool for Mandarin speakers and Min speakers.

Voice Range Profiles for Tonal Dialect of Min

“…The range of fundamental frequency and intensity used in speaking Min mainly depends upon the high-low tone combination [3,7,18,19] . Chen [20] proposed that the speaking frequency and speaking intensity ranges for Min speakers were greater than those in other studies for American English speakers [20] . Everyday conversation of Min dialect may provide a greater chance of vocal training on frequency and intensity which may result in greater physiological frequency and physiological intensity ranges for Min speakers than for nontonal language speakers.…”

Cross-language differences in fundamental frequency range: A comparison of English and German

“…An example of the former would be studies looking at the scaling of tones in the phonetic realization of intonation, where a central issue is how to capture tonal invariance in the face of variation in pitch range (e.g., Dilley and Brown, 2007;Hirschberg and Ward, 1992;Liberman and Pierrehumbert, 1984). Examples of the latter include clinical studies investigating the extent to which various clinical populations have atypical prosody (e.g., Diehl, Watson, Bennetto, Mcdonough, and Gunlogson, 2009;Hubbard and Trauner, 2007), studies of the vocal correlates of affect (e.g., Banse and Scherer, 1996;Ladd, Silverman, Tolkmitt, Bergmann, and Scherer, 1985;Sobin and Alpert, 1999), and studies of various speaker-oriented factors such as the effects of age, gender, height and weight, ethnicity, and regional accent on f0 (Chen, 2005;Deutsch, Le, Shen, and Henthorn, 2009;Hollien, Hollien, and de Jong, 1997;Nishio and Niimi, 2008;Van Bezooijen, 1995;Van Dommelen and Moxness, 1995).…”

Sex Differences in Frequency and Intensity in Reading and Voice Range Profiles for Taiwanese Adult Speakers

“…The maximum range of speaking intensity for Taiwanese females and males was 25.3-26.7 dB greater than non-tonal language English speakers of their comparative genders [19] . The difference in maximum range of speaking intensity between Taiwanese and Americans may also be due to the tonal effects of Mandarin [33] . In voice range profiles, the lowest frequency and the highest frequency for females were significantly greater than for males, which was mainly due to vocal fold length and stiffness difference in the two genders [2,3,6] .…”

“…A comparison of the maximum range of speaking fundamental frequency of this study and studies of other languages and races for adult females and males ( table 3 ) demonstrated that the maximum range of speaking fundamental frequency in reading for Taiwanese females and males was 4.8-10.3 semitone greater than non-tonal language American and Swedish speakers of their comparative genders [10,11,17,19] . The difference in maximum range of speaking fundamental frequency between Taiwanese and other languages can be explained by the tonal effects of Mandarin [33] , in which the frequency range of the four basic tones in words and sentences was reported to be 154-258% wider than that of English [46] and possibly Swedish.…”

“…The tonal languages of Mandarin and Min, which are spoken by most people in Taiwan, were identified to have greater maximum range of speaking fundamental frequency and maximum range of speaking intensity when compared to the nontonal language of English [33] . This phenomenon was also found in the tonal language of Japanese, in which the variability of speaking fundamental frequency was greater for Japanese speakers than for American speakers [34] .…”