A cross-linguistic study of between-speaker variability in intensity dynamics in L1 and L2 spontaneous speech

Dynamic aspects of the amplitude envelope appear to reflect speaker-specific information. Intensity dynamics characterized as the temporal displacement of acoustic energy associated to articulatory mouth opening (positive) and closing (negative) gestures was able to explain between-speaker variability in read productions of native speakers of Zürich German. This study examines positive and negative intensity dynamics in spontaneous speech produced by Dutch speakers using their native language and English. Acoustic analysis of informal monologues was performed to examine between-speaker variability. Negative dynamics explained a larger quantity of inter-speaker variability, strengthening the idea of a lesser prosodic control over the mouth closing movement. Furthermore, there was a significant effect of language on intensity dynamics. These findings suggest that speaker-specific information may still be embedded in these time-bound measures despite the language in use

Creaky voice in L2 English and L1 Dutch

While creaky voice is a well-known stylistic-prosodic feature of American English, its use in other languages is under-researched. In Dutch, it has been claimed to be rare and idiosyncratic. Meanwhile, in L2 acquisition studies, creak has been shown to exhibit L1-L2 transfer. We investigate the prevalence of creaky voice and its development over time in young female speakers of L1 Dutch and L2 English, who had previously been shown to converge on L1/L2 segmental features longitudinally. Automatic detection of f0 established individual distributions of creaky and modal phonation. Linear mixed-effects models of relative creak prevalence showed that effects of language (L1 vs L2) and style (read vs spontaneous speech) were limited. Rather, speakers showed similarly high levels of creak in their two languages, and stability over time. The results suggest creak is idiosyncratic, rather than gradually acquired or converged on, but also that it is far from rare in Dutch

An international {English} speech corpus for longitudinal study of accent development

Item does not contain fulltextInterspeech 2011, 27 augustus 201