Characterizing the change from casual to careful style in spontaneous speech.
Maxine Eskénazi, Amy Isard · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1991
An examination has been carried out to determine which elements speakers use when changing style from casual to careful speech in a dialog situation. If automatic characterization of what an individual chooses to use to be more clearly understood can be achieved, benefits for speech synthesizers would include clearer and more natural speech. The present study uses data collected in a ‘‘spontaneous’’ situation, where 12 subjects each had two scenarios to act out with a ‘‘Wizard’’ partner guiding the course of the dialog. At two crucial points, the Wizard pretended not to be able to hear the subject, saying ‘‘comment?’’ (‘‘what?’’). The subject’s exchanges just before and after the Wizard’s interjection were compared. Acoustic (voicing and formants, for example), phonological (number of segments and reduction phenomena), and prosodic (especially intensity and duration) elements have been examined. Results show which of these are modified when the change of style occurs. The study underlines the fact that the choice of elements is not the same for all speakers; individuals and groups of individuals use different strategies to arrive at their own versions of careful speech.