Voice Disguise Using a Foreign Accent: Phonetic and Linguistic Variation

Abstract

Voice disguise can potentially occur in every recording that is associated with an offence. One possible manner is the use of voice disguise by adopting a foreign accent. The aim of the presented study was to examine how well native German speakers could produce a foreign accent (French) and in particular to describe the accent’s main features. A further aim was to observe how consistently these features could be maintained over a long period of time. The results of auditory, acoustic and linguistic (non-phonetic) analyses were that speakers are able to use several forms of variations during voice disguise by using a foreign accent. The variations were mostly articulatory, but half of the speakers varied pitch as well. There was less variation in non-phonetic features as had been expected. The varied features partially matched with those which would be expected from French natives speaking German, but speakers were generally unable to perform consistently.