Bilingual speaker identification: Chinese and English
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v22i1.18636Keywords:
speaker identification, voice memory, bilingual, Cantonese, EnglishAbstract
Very few studies have examined voice memory and speaker identification in bilingual contexts. This study investigated how well bilingual listeners could identify bilingual voices in different language conditions. 89 Cantonese-English and 89 Mandarin-English listeners participated in voice line-ups with Cantonese-English voices in the same-language and cross-language conditions. Results show that the overall identification accuracy was low. Cantonese-English listeners performed significantly better in the same-language than cross-language conditions, similar to previous findings based on monolingual subjects. However, there was no language effect for the Mandarin-English listeners, possibly due to their unfamiliarity with the languages concerned. Confidence ratings showed that all listeners were more confident in the same-language condition with their most familiar language, although the relationship between confident and accuracy was not reliable. The results suggest that some indexical information about speaker identity is language-dependent. Different articulatory settings may explain the better performance of Cantonese-English listeners in the same-language conditions.References
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Altenberg, E. P. and Ferrand, C. T. (2006) Fundamental frequency in monolingual English, bilingual English/Russian, and bilingual English/Cantonese young adult women. Journal of Voice 20: 89–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2005.01.005
Bradlow, A. R. (1995) A comparative acoustic study of English and Spanish vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97(3): 1916–1924. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.412064
Broeders, A. P. A. and van Amelsvoort, A. G. (1999) Lineup construction for forensic earwitness identification: a practical approach. Paper presented at the the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS), San Francisco.
Butcher, A. (1996) Getting the voice line-up right: analysis of a multiple auditory confrontation. Paper presented at the the 6th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (SST), Adelaide.
Deterding, D. (2006) The pronunciation of English by speakers from China. English World-Wide 27: 175–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eww.27.2.04det
Deterding, D., Wong, J. and Kirkpatrick, A. (2008) The pronunciation of Hong Kong English. English World-Wide 29: 148–175. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eww.29.2.03det
Disner, S. (1983) Vowel quality. The relation between universal and language-specific factors. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 58.
Foulkes, P. and Barron, A. (2000) Telephone speaker recognition amongst members of a close social network. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 7(2): 180–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2000.7.2.180
Goggin, J. P., Thompson, C. P., Strube, G. and Simental, L. R. (1991) The role of language familiarity in voice identification. Memory and Cognition 19(5): 448–458. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03199567
Goldstein, A. G., Knight, P., Bailis, K. and Conover, J. (1981) Recognition memory for accented and unaccented voices. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 17: 217–220. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03333718
Grosjean, F. (2013) Bilingualism: a short introduction. In F. Grosjean and P. Li (eds) The Psycholingusitics of Bilingualism 5–25. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hammersley, R. and Read, J. D. (1996) Voice identification by humans and computers. In S. L. Sporer, R. S. Malpass and G. Koehnken (eds) Psychological Issues in Eyewitness Identification 117–152. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Jacewicz, E. (1999). The base-of-articulation effect in a second language. Paper presented at the The 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Berkeley.
Jacewicz, E. (2002) The perception–production relationship in the acquisition of second language vowel contrasts. Journal of Language and Linguistics 1: 314–337.
Keating, P. and Guo, G. (2012). Comparison of speaking fundamental frequency in English and Mandarin. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 132: 1050–1060. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4730893
Köster, O. and Schiller, N. O. (1997) Different influences of the native language of a listener on speaker recognition. Forensic Linguistics 4(1): 18–28.
Köster, O., Schiller, N. O. and Künzel, H. (1995) The influence of native language background on speaker recognition. Paper presented at the the 13th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS), Stockholm.
Ng, M. L., Hsueh, G. and Leung, C. S. (2010) Voice pitch characteristics of Cantonese and English produced by Cantonese-English bilingual children. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 12(3): 230–236. http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/17549501003721080
Nolan, F. (2003) A recent voice parade. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 10: 277–291. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2003.10.2.277
Orchard, T. L. and Yarmey, A. D. (1995) The effects of whispers, voice-sample duration, and voice distinctiveness on criminal speaker identification. Applied Cognitive Psychology 9(3): 249–260. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.2350090306
Philippon, A. C., Cherryman, J., Bull, R. and Vrij, A. (2007) Earwitness identification performance: the effect of language, target, deliberate strategies and indirect measures. Applied Cognitive Psychology 21: 539–550. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.1296
Recasens, D. (2010) Differences in base of articulation for consonants among Catalan dialects. Phonetica 67(4): 201–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000322312
Rogers, H. (1998) Foreign accent in voice discrimination: a case study. Forensic Linguistics 5(2): 203–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.1998.5.2.203
Saslove, H. and Yarmey, A. D. (1980) Long-term auditory memory: speaker identification. Journal of Applied Psychology 65(1): 111–116. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.65.1.111
Schiller, N. O., Köster, O. and Duckworth, M. (1997) The effect of removing linguistic information upon identifying speakers of a foreign language. Forensic Linguistics 4(1): 1–17.
Setter, J., Wong, C. S. P. and Chan, B. H. S. (2010) Hong Kong English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Sewell, A. and Chan, J. (2010) Patterns of variation in the consonantal phonology of Hong Kong English. English World-Wide 31(2): 138–161. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eww.31.2.02sew
Sjöström, M., Eriksson, E. J., Zetterholm, E. and Sullivan, K. P. H. (2008) A bidialectal experiment on voice identification. Lund Working Papers in Linguistics 53: 145–158.
Sørensen, M. H. (2012) Voice line-ups: speakers’ F0 values influence the reliability of voice recognitions. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 19(2): 145–158. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v19i2.145
Stockmal, V., Moates, D. R. and Bond, Z. S. (2000) Same talker, different language. Applied Psycholinguistics 21: 383–393. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716400003052
Sullivan, K. P. H. and Schlichting, F. (2000) Speaker discrimination in a foreign language: first language environment, second language learners. Forensic Linguistics 7(1): 95–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2000.7.1.95
Thompson, C. P. (1987) A language effect in voice identification. Applied Cognitive Psychology 1: 121–131. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.2350010205
Torreira, F. and Ernestus, M. (2011) Realization of voiceless stops and vowels in conversational French and Spanish. Laboratory Phonology 2(2): 331–353. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/labphon.2011.012
Wester, M. (2012) Talker discrimination across languages. Speech Communication 54: 781–790. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2012.01.006
Winters, S. J., Levi, S. V. and Pisoni, D. B. (2008) Identification and discrimination of bilingual talkers across languages. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123(6): 4524–4538. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.2913046
Xue, A., Hagstrom, F. and Hao, G. (2002) Speaking fundamental frequency characteristics of bilingual Chinese-English speakers: a functional system approach. Asia Pacific Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing 7: 55–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/136132802805576544
Yarmey, A. D. (1995) Earwitness speaker identification. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 1(4): 792–816. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1076-8971.1.4.792
Yarmey, A. D. (2001) Earwitness descriptions and speaker identification. Forensic Linguistics 8(1): 113–122. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2001.8.1.113
Yarmey, A. D. (2004) Common-sense beliefs, recognition and the identification of familiar and unfamiliar speakers from verbal and non-linguistic vocalizations. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 11(2): 267–277. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2004.11.2.267
Yarmey, A. D. (2007) The psychology of speaker identification and earwitness memory. In R. C. L. Lindsay, D. F. Ross, J. Don Read and M. P. Toglia (eds) The Handbook of Eyewitness Psychology Vol. 2 Memory for People 101–136. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Yarmey, A. D., Yarmey, A. L., Yarmey, M., J. and Parliament, L. (2001) Common sense beliefs and the identification of familiar voices. Applied Cognitive Psychology 15: 283–299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.702
Altenberg, E. P. and Ferrand, C. T. (2006) Fundamental frequency in monolingual English, bilingual English/Russian, and bilingual English/Cantonese young adult women. Journal of Voice 20: 89–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2005.01.005
Bradlow, A. R. (1995) A comparative acoustic study of English and Spanish vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97(3): 1916–1924. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.412064
Broeders, A. P. A. and van Amelsvoort, A. G. (1999) Lineup construction for forensic earwitness identification: a practical approach. Paper presented at the the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS), San Francisco.
Butcher, A. (1996) Getting the voice line-up right: analysis of a multiple auditory confrontation. Paper presented at the the 6th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (SST), Adelaide.
Deterding, D. (2006) The pronunciation of English by speakers from China. English World-Wide 27: 175–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eww.27.2.04det
Deterding, D., Wong, J. and Kirkpatrick, A. (2008) The pronunciation of Hong Kong English. English World-Wide 29: 148–175. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eww.29.2.03det
Disner, S. (1983) Vowel quality. The relation between universal and language-specific factors. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 58.
Foulkes, P. and Barron, A. (2000) Telephone speaker recognition amongst members of a close social network. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 7(2): 180–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2000.7.2.180
Goggin, J. P., Thompson, C. P., Strube, G. and Simental, L. R. (1991) The role of language familiarity in voice identification. Memory and Cognition 19(5): 448–458. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03199567
Goldstein, A. G., Knight, P., Bailis, K. and Conover, J. (1981) Recognition memory for accented and unaccented voices. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 17: 217–220. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03333718
Grosjean, F. (2013) Bilingualism: a short introduction. In F. Grosjean and P. Li (eds) The Psycholingusitics of Bilingualism 5–25. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hammersley, R. and Read, J. D. (1996) Voice identification by humans and computers. In S. L. Sporer, R. S. Malpass and G. Koehnken (eds) Psychological Issues in Eyewitness Identification 117–152. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Jacewicz, E. (1999). The base-of-articulation effect in a second language. Paper presented at the The 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Berkeley.
Jacewicz, E. (2002) The perception–production relationship in the acquisition of second language vowel contrasts. Journal of Language and Linguistics 1: 314–337.
Keating, P. and Guo, G. (2012). Comparison of speaking fundamental frequency in English and Mandarin. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 132: 1050–1060. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4730893
Köster, O. and Schiller, N. O. (1997) Different influences of the native language of a listener on speaker recognition. Forensic Linguistics 4(1): 18–28.
Köster, O., Schiller, N. O. and Künzel, H. (1995) The influence of native language background on speaker recognition. Paper presented at the the 13th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS), Stockholm.
Ng, M. L., Hsueh, G. and Leung, C. S. (2010) Voice pitch characteristics of Cantonese and English produced by Cantonese-English bilingual children. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 12(3): 230–236. http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/17549501003721080
Nolan, F. (2003) A recent voice parade. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 10: 277–291. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2003.10.2.277
Orchard, T. L. and Yarmey, A. D. (1995) The effects of whispers, voice-sample duration, and voice distinctiveness on criminal speaker identification. Applied Cognitive Psychology 9(3): 249–260. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.2350090306
Philippon, A. C., Cherryman, J., Bull, R. and Vrij, A. (2007) Earwitness identification performance: the effect of language, target, deliberate strategies and indirect measures. Applied Cognitive Psychology 21: 539–550. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.1296
Recasens, D. (2010) Differences in base of articulation for consonants among Catalan dialects. Phonetica 67(4): 201–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000322312
Rogers, H. (1998) Foreign accent in voice discrimination: a case study. Forensic Linguistics 5(2): 203–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.1998.5.2.203
Saslove, H. and Yarmey, A. D. (1980) Long-term auditory memory: speaker identification. Journal of Applied Psychology 65(1): 111–116. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.65.1.111
Schiller, N. O., Köster, O. and Duckworth, M. (1997) The effect of removing linguistic information upon identifying speakers of a foreign language. Forensic Linguistics 4(1): 1–17.
Setter, J., Wong, C. S. P. and Chan, B. H. S. (2010) Hong Kong English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Sewell, A. and Chan, J. (2010) Patterns of variation in the consonantal phonology of Hong Kong English. English World-Wide 31(2): 138–161. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eww.31.2.02sew
Sjöström, M., Eriksson, E. J., Zetterholm, E. and Sullivan, K. P. H. (2008) A bidialectal experiment on voice identification. Lund Working Papers in Linguistics 53: 145–158.
Sørensen, M. H. (2012) Voice line-ups: speakers’ F0 values influence the reliability of voice recognitions. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 19(2): 145–158. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v19i2.145
Stockmal, V., Moates, D. R. and Bond, Z. S. (2000) Same talker, different language. Applied Psycholinguistics 21: 383–393. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716400003052
Sullivan, K. P. H. and Schlichting, F. (2000) Speaker discrimination in a foreign language: first language environment, second language learners. Forensic Linguistics 7(1): 95–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2000.7.1.95
Thompson, C. P. (1987) A language effect in voice identification. Applied Cognitive Psychology 1: 121–131. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.2350010205
Torreira, F. and Ernestus, M. (2011) Realization of voiceless stops and vowels in conversational French and Spanish. Laboratory Phonology 2(2): 331–353. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/labphon.2011.012
Wester, M. (2012) Talker discrimination across languages. Speech Communication 54: 781–790. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2012.01.006
Winters, S. J., Levi, S. V. and Pisoni, D. B. (2008) Identification and discrimination of bilingual talkers across languages. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123(6): 4524–4538. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.2913046
Xue, A., Hagstrom, F. and Hao, G. (2002) Speaking fundamental frequency characteristics of bilingual Chinese-English speakers: a functional system approach. Asia Pacific Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing 7: 55–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/136132802805576544
Yarmey, A. D. (1995) Earwitness speaker identification. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 1(4): 792–816. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1076-8971.1.4.792
Yarmey, A. D. (2001) Earwitness descriptions and speaker identification. Forensic Linguistics 8(1): 113–122. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2001.8.1.113
Yarmey, A. D. (2004) Common-sense beliefs, recognition and the identification of familiar and unfamiliar speakers from verbal and non-linguistic vocalizations. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 11(2): 267–277. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2004.11.2.267
Yarmey, A. D. (2007) The psychology of speaker identification and earwitness memory. In R. C. L. Lindsay, D. F. Ross, J. Don Read and M. P. Toglia (eds) The Handbook of Eyewitness Psychology Vol. 2 Memory for People 101–136. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Yarmey, A. D., Yarmey, A. L., Yarmey, M., J. and Parliament, L. (2001) Common sense beliefs and the identification of familiar voices. Applied Cognitive Psychology 15: 283–299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.702
Published
2015-07-08
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Mok, P. P., Xu, R. B., & Zuo, D. (2015). Bilingual speaker identification: Chinese and English. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 22(1), 57-78. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v22i1.18636
