Variability in articulation and timing in connected speech of different style

Abstract

In this study, variation in speech utterances of the same speakers in different communication situations was examined. A corpus of seven dialogues was recorded each in four different types, produced by fourteen speakers. From the corpus, utterances by two speakers were selected for a listening experiment in order to find out to what extent listeners are able to identify spontaneous and read utterances. Variability in speech was analysed with regard to the speakers and to the different dialogue types. The global structure of speech production was observed for timing processes: speech rate, articulation rate and pauses were measured. Speech production was analysed as deletions, substitutions and insertions of sounds. The results revealed that  variation is strongly speaker-dependent. However, casual speech tends to be less carefully articulated than read speech. The two speakers selected for the listening experiment showed contrasting articulatory patterns with corresponding classifications by the listeners. The results illustrate that speaking styles have to be regarded as productions of different communication situations with each one showing its own speaker-dependent articulatory pattern.