Comparing listener preferences for text-level prosody in English and French

Abstract

Cross-language prosodic differences are well-known at the phrasal level and below, and a few studies have shown language-dependent differences in speakers’ prosody over a discourse or text [Fon (2002), Smith and Hogan (2003)]. For comparison with the patterns found in production, this study examines listeners’ preferences in text-level prosody. Previously-analyzed recordings of one speaker of American English reading aloud an English text, and one speaker of Parisian French reading a comparable French text, were used as a basis. The discourse organization of each text was analyzed by several native speakers who categorized each sentence-to-sentence transition as a Topic Shift, Continuation or Elaboration. The original recordings were manipulated in several ways to alter rate, sentence-final lengthening and pause duration, and the manipulated versions were presented to listeners. English listeners liked best those versions where values for rate and lengthening matched the speakers’ means for each separate type of topic transition. French listeners preferred the version where each prosodic variable kept the same mean value throughout. These results are supported by acoustic measurements which also point to a more salient role for rhythmic effects at the discourse level in English than in French. [Work supported by NSF grant BCS-9983106.]