|
Abstract
|
This study was set out to conduct an acoustic analysis of intonation patterns and how they correlate with “speech style” and “gender” in children's spontaneous speech and storytelling style. For this purpose, 20 normal Persian-speaking children aged 4-5 years (10 boys and 10 girls) were recorded in two speech styles. In doing so, 60 interrogative sentences uttered by the children in the two styles were selected randomly for acoustic analysis. The analysis was performed using PRAAT version 6.1.38 based on "Rise/Fall/Connection Model (RFC)" (Taylor, 1995 & 2009). Three acoustic parameters of “pitch,” “duration,” and “intensity” were considered. In order to check dependability of the data and correlation between “intonation pattern,” "speech style,” and “gender,” the data were statistically analyzed through t-test. The statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS version 21. Our results showed that “speech style” influenced the intonation pattern in speech of girls and boys. Besides, values of the three acoustic parameters in children's storytelling was significantly different from those in their spontaneous speech (p < 0.05). However, the speakers’ intonation pattern was not influenced by their gender. Moreover, it was found that the mean score of pitch amplitude, duration, intensity, vowel stretching, and number of pauses was significantly higher for girls than for boys. However, the overall speech tempo was significantly faster for boys. The study concluded that girls were better storytellers than boys from phonetic point of view.
|