Prosodic Interaction Between Speakers of American and British English

Jelena Krivokapic Linguistics Department

Yale University jelena.krivokapic@yale.edu

2pSC2

Overview

 Experimental study of speaker convergence between speakers of different dialects   Examining prosodic and segmental characteristics

  Synchronous Speech Paradigm (Cummins 2002, Cummins 2003)

Krivokapic, ASA Baltimore 2010 2

Background: Speaker convergence

  Speakers’ production converges in the course of a conversation (Pardo 2006)   Speakers’ productions of lexical items are more similar to their co-

speaker’s when produced during a conversation than when produced before or after the task.

  Speakers’ production changes depending on the language environment (Sancier & Fowler 1997)   A bilingual speaker’s VOT shifted in both of her languages

depending on the country she was staying in. The speaker’s Portuguese VOT shifted towards the VOT of English when in the US, and her English VOT production shifted towards Portuguese when in Brazil (Sancier & Fowler 1997).

  In a similar study examining Spanish speakers living in the US, convergence was found for VOT, but not for F2 in vowels (Tobin 2009).

Krivokapic, ASA Baltimore 2010 3

Convergence across dialects

 Ní Chiosáin (2007) examines interaction between two dialects of Irish, using the synchronous speech paradigm.   Investigated variables: lexical stress, vowel duration,

lenition   Only small effects of convergence found, mainly for

lexical stress

Krivokapic, ASA Baltimore 2010 4

Convergence as Gestural Drift

  Convergence can be explained by speakers’ inclination towards imitation (Sancier & Fowler 1997, Kuhl & Meltzoff 1996).

  Perception of articulatory gestures drives production, leading to automatic gestural attunement (Fowler, 1986, 1996, Fowler et al. 2003, Goldstein & Fowler 2003, Sancier & Fowler 1997)   Gestural drift: “perceptually guided changes in speech

production” (Sancier & Fowler 1997)

  Can form the basis for continuous language learning and accent change

Krivokapic, ASA Baltimore 2010 5

Synchronous speech paradigm (Cummins 2002, Zvonik & Cummins 2002, 2003)

  Minimizes individual, non-linguistic variation without inducing artificial temporal properties

  Dyads read a text simultaneously   seated facing each other and recorded on stereo channels

with head-mounted microphones

  Captures in a unique way speakers’ shared knowledge of linguistic timing (Cummins 2002)

  Reduces variability in F0 contour (Kim & Nam 2009)

Krivokapic, ASA Baltimore 2010 6

Outstanding research questions

 Nature of speaker convergence   What is the effect of interaction between speakers of

different dialects (British and American English)?   Examining whether convergence occurs across dialects

  How are prosodic characteristics affected?   Examining whether convergence occurs in

suprasegmental properties and whether it differs from convergence in phonemes

  Synchronous Speech Paradigm (Cummins 2002, Cummins 2003) as a means to investigate speaker interaction

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Acoustic experiment

  Part of a larger study

  Here: A short story containing 10 test words differing between the dialects in vowel quality and 4 words differing in stress placement   Test words from Wells 1982, Berg 1999, story

adapted from Honorof, McCullough & Somerville 2000.

  Subjects read 6 repetitions of the story, with 84 filler sentences between each repetition.

  Recordings on separate days for solo and synchronous condition   solo condition always first 8

Stimuli The nurse took a bath when she woke up. Then she put on a plain yellow dress and a fleece jacket, picked up her goose Nico, and headed north to work. She worked with her father in a company that produced cloth for cleaning crystal. But a strange thing happened when she walked out of the door: She saw a goat standing near the big garage where she kept her coffee and tools. That reminded her of a story where a dictator had a square hat and always talked about caffeine at press conferences. She was a young adult when she first heard the story, and her favorite meal was tuna with parsley.

9 Adapted from Honorof, McCullough & Somerville 2000

Subjects

  8 speakers (4 dyads)   4 native speakers of American English   4 native speakers of British English

Length of stay in the US:   recently arrived: 3 months (subject C), 1 year (subject F)

  long time residents: 5 years (subject A), 19 years (subject H)

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Measurements

Segmental convergence: vowel quality

Prosodic convergence: stress placement, intonation contour

  IPA transcription for vowel quality and stress placement

 Vowel quality:   F1, F2 (for ‘bath’, ‘dress’, ‘cloth’, ‘goat’)   F3 to examine r-coloring

  F0: intonation contour comparisons 11

Statistical analysis

 Two-factor ANOVA on F1, F2, and F3 data, testing for each speaker separately the effects of 1  Speaking condition (solo and synchronous)

2  Test word

 Criterion for significant difference p < .05

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Results: Observations

 One dyad was excluded from the analysis   The speakers did not synchronize well enough, with

one subject speaking much faster than the other, and the other attempting to match the speed.

  For different dialects the synchronous speech task was difficult   especially for recently arrived speakers and during the

short story

  many errors, comments by the subjects   not typical for synchronous speech task

Krivokapic, ASA Baltimore 2010 13

Results: Vowel quality I

  Transcription showed no categorical changes in vowels

  F1 and F2:   3 subjects showed changes on F1 on some test words   5 subjects showed changes on F2 on some test words

  In all but one case, the change involves lowering of the formant.   In terms of convergence: inconsistent in direction, with

same subjects showing both converging and non-converging direction of change.

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Results: Vowel quality II

R-coloring

Two subjects showed an effect of condition and word (but no interaction), and one an effect of word and a trend of condition effect (all in the same direction)

British subjects

  One subject (F) showed F3 lowering and one (C) a trend to F3 lowering => convergence for recently arrived subjects

American subject

  Subject D showed F3 raising => convergence Krivokapic, ASA Baltimore 2010 15

Results: Stress

Solo condition: speakers produced expected stress patterns except for one British subject (A), who produced ‘garage’ with stress on the second syllable.

Synchronous condition:

British speakers

  Subject C: twice stress placement on ‘caffeine’ unclear

  Subject A: three times restart on ‘dictator’, once stress on first syllable

American speakers

  Subject D: once stress placement on ‘caffeine’ unclear, three times stress on first syllable 16

Time (s)30.6898 33.4547

0

500

Time (s)32.4749 35.248

0

500

Time (s)18.4012 21.1803

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Time (s)16.8779 19.4852

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Time (s)19.3601 22.0318

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Results: Intonation contour I Dyad AB (one sentence mid story)

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American solo (B)

American synchronous

British solo (A)

British synchronous

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

Time (s)31.1616 33.7502

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500

Time (s)32.9442 35.4308

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Time (s)87.5169 90.0073

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Time (s)15.853 18.3642

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Time (s)15.8908 18.229

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Time 0

0.2

0.4

0.6

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Time (s)30.5468 32.9827

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Time (s)16.6424 18.8347

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Time (s)17.8006 20.1288

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Time (s)15.66 17.91230

500

Time (s)15.2365 17.5167

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500

Time

0

0.2

0.4

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Time (s)30.6603 33.5096

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Time (s)32.4583 35.4151

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Time (s)18.3596 21.239

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Time (s)16.8605 19.5109

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Time (s)19.3411 22.1125

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Time (s)26.3357 28.6217

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Time (s)30.287 32.5933

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Time (s)15.2943 17.5765

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500

Time (s)16.1474 18.2666

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Time (s)14.6726 16.8209

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Time (s)15.9933 18.5413

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Time Time (s)16.2593 18.6469

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Time (s)16.1251 18.406

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Time (s)15.3339 17.4403

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500

Time (s)15.067 17.5512

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500

Time (s)15.067 17.5512

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Time (s)17.3727 19.7441

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Time (s)19.7265 22.0872

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0.2

0.4

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1500

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Time

Time (s)51.9916 54.4612

0

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Time (s)17.4509 19.8005

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500

Time (s)30.2112 32.7716

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500

Time (s)14.7529 17.0592

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Time (s)15.5555 17.8582

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Time (s)15.4077 17.8154

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0.2

0.4

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1500

400

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0 Time (s)

52.0231 54.43590

500

Time (s)17.4509 19.8005

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Time (s)30.1885 32.7698

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Time (s)14.8255 17.1004

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Time (s)15.5659 17.8548

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Time (s)15.5303 17.8063

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Results: Intonation contour II Dyad CD (one sentence mid story)

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American solo (D)

American synchronous

British solo (C)

British synchronous

Time (s)14.705 18.6203

0

500

Time (s)17.2023 19.7739

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500

Time (s)18.2978 20.8897

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Time (s)20.4196 23.0736

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Time (s)22.6834 25.3601

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Time (s)14.705 18.6203

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0.4

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1500

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14.5147 18.6380

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Time (s)22.5087 25.3383

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Time (s)20.2668 23.0828

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Time (s)18.1716 20.8611

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Time (s)17.1325 19.7299

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Time (s)18.2641 20.9017

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Time (s)21.5178 24.334

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Time (s)20.0607 22.7106

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Time (s)18.8607 21.4178

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Time (s)22.2443 25.0453

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Time (s)20.2971 22.8482

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Time (s)26.6112 29.2063

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Results: Intonation contour III Dyad FG (one sentence mid story)

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American solo (G)

American synchronous

British solo (F)

British synchronous

Time (s)22.3666 24.8764

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500

Time (s)20.5939 22.902

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500

Time (s)17.5518 19.9165

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Time (s)15.9109 18.1992

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Time (s)15.9122 18.3213

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Time (s)17.4181 19.7782

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Summary & Conclusions   Interaction leads to convergence for both segmental and

prosodic properties, although only for some subjects.   Subjects C, F (recently arrived British subjects) and D (American)

show convergence for vowel quality   F3 (r-coloring), but not F1 and F2, shows effects of interaction

  Subjects A, C (British), and D (American) show convergence for stress

  Intonational contours show indication of reduced variability

  British subjects converged more than American subjects. Most affected were the subjects who had recently arrived from Britain.

  Synchronous speech can be used for examining convergence, but it is a difficult task for speakers of different dialects and therefore might interfere with the process of convergence.

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Phonetics, 14, 3-28  Fowler, C. A. 1996. Listeners do hear sounds not tongues, J. Acoustical Society of America, 99, 1730-1741.  Fowler, C. A., Brown, J. M., Sabadini, L., & J. Weihing. 2003. Rapid access to speech gestures in perception: Evidence

from choice and simple response time tasks. Journal of Memory & Language, 49, 396-413.  Goldstein, L. M., & C. Fowler. 2003. Articulatory phonology: a phonology for public language use. In Phonetics and

Phonology in Language Comprehension and Production: Differences and Similarities, (Eds.) Antje S. Meyer &Niels O. Schiller.  Honorof, D., McCullough, J. & B. Somerville. 2000. Available at: http://web.ku.edu/~idea/readings/comma.htm  Kim, M. & H. Nam 2009. Pitch accommodation in synchronous speech, J. Acoustical Society of America, 125:4, 2575.  Kuhl, P. & A. Meltzoff. 1996. Infant vocalization in response to speech: vocal imitation and developmental change,

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 100, 2425-2438.  Ní Chiosáin, M. 2007. Effects of synchronous speech task on length and prosody in interdialecal nonprestige varieties''.

Language variation and change, 19, 51-62.  Pardo, J. 2006. On phonetic convergence during conversational interaction. J. Acoustical Society of America, 119, 2382-2393  Sancier, M. L. & C. A. Fowler. 1997. “Gestural drift in a bilingual speaker of Brazilian Portuguese and English,” Journal of

Phonetics, 25, 421–436.  Tobin, S. 2009. Gestural drift in Spanish-English speakers. J. Acoustical Society of America, 125:4, 2757.  Wells, J. C. 1982. Accents of English. New York: CUP.  Zvonik, E., & F. Cummins (2002). Pause duration and variability in read texts. In: Proceedings of the 2002 International

Conference on Spoken Language Processing. Denver, Colorado, pp. 1109-1112.  Zvonik, E., & F. Cummins (2003). The effect of surrounding phrase lengths on pause duration. In: Proceedings of

EUROSPEECH 2003. Geneva, Switzerland, pp. 777-780.

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