Acoustic, Morphological, and Functional Aspects of `yeah/ja' in Dutch, English and German

We explore different forms and functions of one of the most common feedback expressions in Dutch, English, and German, namely `yeah/ja' which is known for its multi-functionality and ambiguous usage in dialog. For example, it can be used as a yes-answer, or as a pure continuer, or as a way to show agreement. In addition, `yeah/ja' can be used in its single form, but it can also be combined with other particles, forming multi-word expressions, especially in Dutch and German. We have found substantial differences on the morpho-lexical level between the three related languages which enhances the ambiguous character of `yeah/ja'. An explorative analysis of the prosodic features of `yeah/ja' has shown that mainly a higher intensity is used to signal speaker incipiency across the inspected languages

Listeners use intonational phrase boundaries to project turn ends in spoken interaction

In conversation, turn transitions between speakers often occur smoothly, usually within a time window of a few hundred milliseconds. It has been argued, on the basis of a button-press experiment [De Ruiter, J. P., Mitterer, H., & Enfield, N. J. (2006). Projecting the end of a speaker's turn: A cognitive cornerstone of conversation. Language, 82(3):515–535], that participants in conversation rely mainly on lexico-syntactic information when timing and producing their turns, and that they do not need to make use of intonational cues to achieve smooth transitions and avoid overlaps. In contrast to this view, but in line with previous observational studies, our results from a dialogue task and a button-press task involving questions and answers indicate that the identification of the end of intonational phrases is necessary for smooth turn-taking. In both tasks, participants never responded to questions (i.e., gave an answer or pressed a button to indicate a turn end) at turn-internal points of syntactic completion in the absence of an intonational phrase boundary. Moreover, in the button-press task, they often pressed the button at the same point of syntactic completion when the final word of an intonational phrase was cross-spliced at that location. Furthermore, truncated stimuli ending in a syntactic completion point but lacking an intonational phrase boundary led to significantly delayed button presses. In light of these results, we argue that earlier claims that intonation is not necessary for correct turn-end projection are misguided, and that research on turn-taking should continue to consider intonation as a source of turn-end cues along with other linguistic and communicative phenomena

An exploration of the rhythm of Malay

In recent years there has been a surge of interest in speech rhythm. However we still lack a clear understanding of the nature of rhythm and rhythmic differences across languages. Various metrics have been proposed as means for measuring rhythm on the phonetic level and making typological comparisons between languages (Ramus et al, 1999; Grabe & Low, 2002; Dellwo, 2006) but the debate is ongoing on the extent to which these metrics capture the rhythmic basis of speech (Arvaniti, 2009; Fletcher, in press). Furthermore, cross linguistic studies of rhythm have covered a relatively small number of languages and research on previously unclassified languages is necessary to fully develop the typology of rhythm. This study examines the rhythmic features of Malay, for which, to date, relatively little work has been carried out on aspects rhythm and timing. The material for the analysis comprised 10 sentences produced by 20 speakers of standard Malay (10 males and 10 females). The recordings were first analysed using rhythm metrics proposed by Ramus et. al (1999) and Grabe & Low (2002). These metrics (∆C, %V, rPVI, nPVI) are based on durational measurements of vocalic and consonantal intervals. The results indicated that Malay clustered with other so-called syllable-timed languages like French and Spanish on the basis of all metrics. However, underlying the overall findings for these metrics there was a large degree of variability in values across speakers and sentences, with some speakers having values in the range typical of stressed-timed languages like English. Further analysis has been carried out in light of Fletcher’s (in press) argument that measurements based on duration do not wholly reflect speech rhythm as there are many other factors that can influence values of consonantal and vocalic intervals, and Arvaniti’s (2009) suggestion that other features of speech should also be considered in description of rhythm to discover what contributes to listeners’ perception of regularity. Spectrographic analysis of the Malay recordings brought to light two parameters that displayed consistency and regularity for all speakers and sentences: the duration of individual vowels and the duration of intervals between intensity minima. This poster presents the results of these investigations and points to connections between the features which seem to be consistently regulated in the timing of Malay connected speech and aspects of Malay phonology. The results are discussed in light of current debate on the descriptions of rhythm

Diversified ways of approaching distinct instrumentation and arrangements for The Witcher 3 and their predominant influence in the Video Game

Through detailed analysis, I will identify and compare various cue’s taken from all zones in the game with regard to use of slavic instrumentation and vocals, orchestration/arrangements, with melodic and harmonic structure. Furthermore, certain methods of implementation, use of diegetic score and song scoring will be touched upon in correlation to the analysis in order to identify how a sense of immersion is created in the video game.https://remix.berklee.edu/graduate-studies-scoring/1059/thumbnail.jp

Pauses in Deceptive Speech

We use a corpus of spontaneous interview speech to investigate the relationship between the distributional and prosodic characteristics of silent and filled pauses and the intent of an interviewee to deceive an interviewer. Our data suggest that the use of pauses correlates more with truthful than with deceptive speech, and that prosodic features extracted from filled pauses themselves as well as features describing contextual prosodic information in the vicinity of filled pauses may facilitate the detection of deceit in speech

A Musical Look Behind the Curtains: A Musical and Production Analysis of CURTAINS by John Kander and Fred Ebb

This document is a musical analysis of the show Curtains by John Kander and Fred Ebb with a look at each major song’s structure through the following criteria: form, melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, orchestration, texture, and challenges a music director faces with in regards to vocal coaching and conducting. This production was staged at SIUC in the fall of 2014, and because of the many formats that this book underwent it would have been helpful to have musical research in order to make the path more clear

Foley music: an exploration of the relationships between sound design and 'music' in film

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Music Johannesburg 2016Recently, scholarly work in the field of film sound design has emphasised the crucial significance of sound in film. Writers such as Mark Underwood (2008), Larry Sider (2003) and Danijela Kulezic-Wilson (2008) have expressed the view that film sound design ought to be approached from a musical perspective substantiating this position through analytical discussions on the relatively musical use of sound design in scenes from films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) and Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000). Building upon the work of these and other scholars, this thesis investigates the varying ways in which music and foley sound design relate and interact within a film seeking to categorise with some specificity the various ways in which foley sound design can ascend beyond its ordinary remit and in so doing function in lieu of film music as well as in cooperation with it. I consider examples from, amongst others, The Godfather, parts one (1972) and two (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola and The Matrix (1999) by Ana and Lana Wachowski. In each chapter of part one of the thesis (which I call Take 1), I explore a particular aspect of the way in which foley makes known its capacity to function quasi-musically. Chapter one looks at Walter Murch’s concept of the metaphoric use of sound and how, through this technique, foley sound can be applied so as to fulfil roles more accustomed to film music in its stead. Chapter two details some of the ways in which film music and foley interact within a film. A crucial element of this discussion is the on going debate between scholars such as Michel Chion who disavow the existence of a soundtrack and others such as Rick Altman who contradict Chion on this matter. Chapter three looks at how otherworldly diegetic contexts help to encourage creativity in designing and applying foley sounds so as to further enhance its pre-discussed ability to act in film music’s stead while chapter four focuses on the voice as the soloist within the melee of sounds that constitute the film soundtrack. Part two (or Take 2) of the thesis consists of compositions written in response to some of the theories and concepts explored in the first part of the thesis including a ‘dramatic string quartet’ in which I attempt to realise in a musical composition some of the ideas discussed in all four of the chapters. I conclude the thesis by reflecting on the main insights uncovered throughout the thesis in addition to reflecting on the process of composing the pieces in relation to the relative success of the performances thereof.GR201

Function of intonation in task-oriented dialogue

This thesis addresses the question of how intonation functions in conversation. It examines the intonation and discourse function of single-word utterances in spontaneous and read-aloud task-oriented dialogue (HCRC Map Task Corpus containing Scottish English; see Anderson et al., 1991). To avoid some of the pitfalls of previous studies in which such comparisons of intonation and discourse structure tend to lack balance and focus more heavily on one analysis at the expense of the other, it employs independently developed analyses. They are the Conversational Games Analysis (as introduced in Kowtko, Isard and Doherty, 1992) and a simple target level representation of intonation. Correlations between categories of intonation and of discourse function in spontaneous dialogue suggest that intonation reflects the function of an utterance. Contrary to what one might expect from reading the literature, these categories are in some cases categories of exclusion rather than inclusion. Similar patterns result from the study of read-aloud dialogue. Discourse function and intonation categories show a measure of correlation. One difference that does appear between patterns across speech modes is that in many instances of discourse function intonation categories shift toward tunes ending low in the speaker's pitch range (e. g. a falling tune) for the read-aloud version. This result is in accord with other contemporary studies (e. g. Blaauw, 1995). The difference between spontaneous and read results suggests that read-aloud dialogue - even that based on scripts which include hesitations and false starts - is not a substitute for eliciting the same intonation strategies that are found in spontaneous dialogue