Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden University, Reuvensplaats 3-4, 2311 BE Leiden, The Netherlands.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2020 Dec;148(6):3612. doi: 10.1121/10.0002871.
It has been claimed that filled pauses are transferred from the first (L1) into the second language (L2), suggesting that they are not directly learned by L2 speakers. This would make them usable for cross-linguistic forensic speaker comparisons. However, under the alternative hypothesis that vowels in the L2 are learnable, L2 speakers adapt their pronunciation. This study investigated whether individuals remain consistent in their filled pause realization across languages, by comparing filled pauses (uh, um) in L1 Dutch and L2 English by 58 females. Next to the effect of language, effects of the filled pauses' position in the utterance were considered, as these are expected to affect acoustics and also relate to fluency. Mixed-effects models showed that, whereas duration and fundamental frequency remained similar across languages, vowel realization was language-dependent. Speakers used um relatively more often in English than Dutch, whereas previous research described speakers to be consistent in their um:uh ratio across languages. Results furthermore showed that filled-pause acoustics in the L1 and L2 depend on the position in the utterance. Because filled pause realization is partially adapted to the L2, their use as a feature for cross-linguistic forensic speaker comparisons may be restricted.
有人声称填充停顿是从第一语言（L1）转移到第二语言（L2）的，这表明它们不是由第二语言说话者直接学习的。这使得它们可用于跨语言的法医说话人比较。然而，在替代假设下，即 L2 中的元音是可学习的，那么 L2 说话者会调整他们的发音。本研究通过比较 58 名女性的母语荷兰语和第二语言英语中的填充停顿（uh，um），来调查个体是否会在跨语言之间保持填充停顿实现的一致性。除了语言的影响外，还考虑了填充停顿在话语中的位置的影响，因为这些位置预计会影响声学，并且与流利度有关。混合效应模型表明，尽管在两种语言中，持续时间和基频保持相似，但元音实现是依赖于语言的。说话者在英语中比在荷兰语中更频繁地使用 um，而之前的研究描述了说话者在跨语言之间保持 um:uh 比例的一致性。研究结果还表明，母语和第二语言中的填充停顿的声学取决于话语中的位置。由于填充停顿的实现部分适应了第二语言，因此将其用作跨语言法医说话人比较的特征可能会受到限制。
