Maniwa Kazumi, Jongman Allard, Wade Travis
Department of Linguistics, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66044, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2009 Jun;125(6):3962-73. doi: 10.1121/1.2990715.
Speakers can adopt a speaking style that allows them to be understood more easily in difficult communication situations, but few studies have examined the acoustic properties of clearly produced consonants in detail. This study attempts to characterize the adaptations in the clear production of American English fricatives in a carefully controlled range of communication situations. Ten female and ten male talkers produced fricatives in vowel-fricative-vowel contexts in both a conversational and a clear style that was elicited by means of simulated recognition errors in feedback received from an interactive computer program. Acoustic measurements were taken for spectral, amplitudinal, and temporal properties known to influence fricative recognition. Results illustrate that (1) there were consistent overall style effects, several of which (consonant duration, spectral peak frequency, and spectral moments) were consistent with previous findings and a few (notably consonant-to-vowel intensity ratio) of which were not; (2) specific acoustic modifications in clear productions of fricatives were influenced by the nature of the recognition errors that prompted the productions and were consistent with efforts to emphasize potentially misperceived contrasts both within the English fricative inventory and based on feedback from the simulated listener; and (3) talkers differed widely in the types and magnitude of all modifications.
说话者可以采用一种能让他们在困难的交流情境中更易被理解的说话风格，但很少有研究详细考察清晰发出的辅音的声学特性。本研究试图在一系列精心控制的交流情境中，刻画美式英语擦音清晰发音时的适应性特征。十名女性和十名男性说话者在元音 - 擦音 - 元音语境中，以对话风格和通过交互式计算机程序反馈中的模拟识别错误引出的清晰风格发出擦音。对已知会影响擦音识别的频谱、幅度和时间特性进行了声学测量。结果表明：（1）存在一致的总体风格效应，其中一些效应（辅音时长、频谱峰值频率和频谱矩）与先前的研究结果一致，而有一些效应（特别是辅音与元音强度比）则不一致；（2）擦音清晰发音中的特定声学调整受促使发音的识别错误性质的影响，并且与在英语擦音音素范围内以及基于模拟听众反馈强调可能被误认的对比的努力相一致；（3）说话者在所有调整的类型和程度上差异很大。
