title: Acoustic markers of sarcasm in Cantonese and English.
abstract: The goal of this study was to identify acoustic parameters associated with the expression of sarcasm by Cantonese speakers, and to compare the observed features to similar data on English [Cheang, H. S. and Pell, M. D. (2008). Speech Commun. 50, 366-381]. Six native Cantonese speakers produced utterances to express sarcasm, humorous irony, sincerity, and neutrality. Each utterance was analyzed to determine the mean fundamental frequency (F0), F0-range, mean amplitude, amplitude-range, speech rate, and harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) (to probe voice quality changes). Results showed that sarcastic utterances in Cantonese were produced with an elevated mean F0, and reductions in amplitude- and F0-range, which differentiated them most from sincere utterances. Sarcasm was also spoken with a slower speech rate and a higher HNR (i.e., less vocal noise) than the other attitudes in certain linguistic contexts. Direct Cantonese-English comparisons revealed one major distinction in the acoustic pattern for communicating sarcasm across the two languages: Cantonese speakers raised mean F0 to mark sarcasm, whereas English speakers lowered mean F0 in this context. These findings emphasize that prosody is instrumental for marking non-literal intentions in speech such as sarcasm in Cantonese as well as in other languages. However, the specific acoustic conventions for communicating sarcasm seem to vary among languages.
authors.affiliation: School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University, 1266 Pine Avenue West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. henry.cheang@mail.mcgill.ca
authors.forename: Henry S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Cheang
authors.forename: Marc D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Pell
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D013060:Speech; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult