Perceptual-Auditory Evaluation of the Aggressive Speech Behavior: Gender Aspect (on the Basis of Russian and Spanish Languages)

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to identify prosodic features of perceived images of a “male aggressor” (10 Russian samples, 10 Spanish samples) and a “female aggressor” (10 Russian samples, 10 Spanish samples) reconstructed by Russian male (n = 13) and female (n = 42) listeners in the course of the perceptual-auditory experiment. All listeners reported that the speech of all Russian and Spanish subjects (informants) was perceived as if they were externalizing an offensive type of aggression during the aggression escalation period. It is characterized by strong negative emotions, differing in male and female subjects’ (informants’) groups. Qualitative analysis of the prevailing speech prosodic tendencies revealed that in the studied conditions, female listeners estimated the male subjects’ (informants’) voice intensity in the aggressor image as stronger in comparison with the female subjects’ (informants’) voice intensity. Male listeners found female voice pitch in the aggressor image higher than the male aggressor voice pitch. Male and female listeners perceived the Spanish subjects’ (informants’) speech tempo as faster than the Russian subjects’ (informants’) speech tempo. Female listeners considered the perceptual-auditory aggressor images to have clear speech rhythm, while male listeners perceived speech rhythm of the aggressor image as irregular (with no gender difference of a speaker). The obtained results are compared with the previous findings on the material of British and American English.