Between-speaker rhythmic variability is not dependent on language rhythm, as evidence from Persia reveals

Authors

  • Homa Asadi Alzahra University
  • Mandana Nourbakhsh Alzahra University
  • Lei He University of Tübingen
  • Elisa Pellegrino University of Zurich
  • Volker Dellwo University of Zurich

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.37110

Keywords:

speaker idiosyncrasies, speech rhythm, forensic phonetics

Abstract

Acoustic measures of speech rhythm based on the durational characteristics of consonantal and vocalic intervals (henceforth C- or V-intervals) as well as syllabic intensity reveal between-speaker variability. The evidence obtained so far is based on speakers of stressed-timed languages, which are assumed to have complex consonant clusters and a higher degree of vowel reduction. Speakers of stressed-timed languages might operate their articulatory organs in different ways due to the syllable complexity and vowel reduction. Complex consonant clusters are released differently, and vowel reduction tends to be produced more or less strongly depending on speakers. When a language lacks such features, it is possible that rhythmic variation between its speakers decreases. In the present study, we aimed at exploring between- and within-speaker rhythmic variability in Persian, an Indo-European language categorised as syllable-timed. Acoustic correlates of speech rhythm (%V, ?V[ln], ?C[ln], n-PVI-V) and articulation rate were obtained from two Persian corpora with different sources of within-speaker variability. In the first corpus, the source of within-speaker variability mainly comes from non-contemporaneous recording sessions, and in the second corpus, from different speech rates. Results revealed that there were significant differences between speakers in all investigated speech rhythm measures in Persian and %V best discriminated between speakers. This reveals that the lack of typical stress-time features does not affect between-speaker variability in speech rhythm.

Author Biographies

  • Homa Asadi, Alzahra University

    Homa Asadi is a PhD candidate of General Linguistics at Alzahra University. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Shahid Chamran University of Ahwaz and an MA in General Linguistics from Alzahra University, Iran. She has experience of teaching phonetics as a TA at Alzahra University. Her research interests primarily lie in the field of forensic phonetics, in particular exploring the speaker-specific acoustic parameters encoded in the speech of individuals speaking Persian and other languages and dialects spoken in Iran.

  • Mandana Nourbakhsh, Alzahra University

    Mandana Nourbakhsh has a PhD in General Linguistics from the University of Tehran, and she is currently an associate professor teaching phonetics, phonology and psycholinguistics at the Linguistics Department of Alzahra University, Iran. Her areas of research interest include laboratory phonetics and phonology as well as psycholinguistics and psychoacoustics. She has published numerous papers on issues related to her main areas of research interest.

  • Lei He, University of Tübingen

    Lei He (PhD, MSc, MA, BA) is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tübingen supported by an early postdoc mobility grant (P2ZHP1_178109) from the Swiss National Science Foundation. He received his doctoral degree at the University of Zurich, where he also worked as a postdoctoral researcher for one year. He is interested in between-speaker variability in speech production, in particular how articulatory factors affect the acoustic parameters that underpin the rhythmical differences between speakers. 

  • Elisa Pellegrino, University of Zurich

    Elisa Pellegrino has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Naples L'Orientale. She is currently working as postdoc in phonetics at the University of Zurich, where she also teaches Computational Processing of Speech Rhythm for Speaker and Language Classification. Her research interests range from accommodation in speech communication, production and perception of L2 speech rhythm, to age-related changes in speech and voice. 

  • Volker Dellwo, University of Zurich

    Volker Dellwo (MA, PhD) is Associate Professor of Phonetics and Speech Sciences in the Department of Computational Linguistics at University of Zurich (UZH) and works as an expert witness in forensic phonetics in the departmental Center of Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics. His research interests lie in a wide variety of phenomena related to speaker individuality and speaker recognition by humans and machines. He is an executive committee member of the International Association of Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics. 

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Published

2018-12-07

Issue

Vol. 25 No. 2 (2018)

Section

Articles

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© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

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How to Cite

Asadi, H., Nourbakhsh, M., He, L., Pellegrino, E., & Dellwo, V. (2018). Between-speaker rhythmic variability is not dependent on language rhythm, as evidence from Persia reveals. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 25(2), 151-174. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.37110