Recognition of Word Tones in Whispered Speech
Martin Kloster Jensen · WORD · 1958
The present paper deals with the question of whether, and how, phonemically distinctive tone is rendered in whispered speech.Since it is possible that there may be differences between languages in the manner and effectiveness of whispered tone rendition, the study deals with several "tone languages"-Norwegian, Swedish, Slovenian, and Mandarin-rather than with a single language.We will first summarize the history of the problem.The question whether voice pitch is heard in whispered Chinese was brought up by Olof Gjerdman in 1924.Gjerdman had asked a Chinese if two persons could understand each other when whispering in Chinese, and he took the affirmative answer to corroborate his theory that "a whispered language has as many distinct musical accents as the same language when voiced." 1 According to Pike, 2 it is possible that stress replaces pitch in whisper, thus enabling one to distinguish "tones."Pater Giet has maintained that the word tones are both expressed and perceived in whispered Chinese: "Auch beim Fliistern spricht und hort der Chinese die Tone".3 Eugen Dieth stated briefly that it is possible to indicate intonation in whisper to a certain extent ("einigermassen") 4, and -tried to account for this by postulating changes in the air pressure.He tried to invalidate a statement by Gutzmann, that "das Fliistergerausch ist in seiner Hohe an sicp nicht variabel" by referring to the fact that whispered Chinese is fully understandable.This, however, is no proof that pitch exists in whisper: context of course always helps one to understand, and the same may be true of M. K. J.'s recognition score: 53 %.f. Same procedure as in le, but this time M. K. J. whispered and A. S. listened.A.