Suprasegmental characteristics of speech produced during simultaneous communication by inexperienced signers.
This study investigated suprasegmental variables of syllable stress and intonation contours in contextual speech produced during simultaneous communication (SC) by inexperienced signers. Ten hearing inexperienced sign language users were recorded under SC and speech-alone (SA) conditions speaking a set of sentences containing stressed versus unstressed versions of the same syllables and a set of sentences containing interrogative versus declarative versions of the same words. Results indicated longer sentence durations for SC than SA for all speech materials. Vowel duration and fundamental frequency differences between stressed and unstressed syllables as well as intonation contour differences between declarative and interrogative sentences were essentially the same in both SC and SA conditions. The conclusion that prosodic rules were not violated by inexperienced signers in SC is consistent with previous research indicating that temporal alterations produced during SC do not involve degradation of other temporal or spectral characteristics of English speech.
Whitehead
Robert L
RL
National Technical Institute for the Deaf at RIT, New York, NY, USA. rwwncr@rit.edu
Metz
Dale E
DE
Girardi
Erin
E
Irwin
Jacqueline
J
Krigsman
Amanda
A
Swanson
Christina
C
MacKenzie
Douglas
D
Schiavetti
Nicholas
N
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D012813:Sign Language; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013997:Time Factors