The chest and abdomen breathing in reading literature in Mandarin

Abstract

The current paper studies the chest and abdomen breathing characteristics in reading Chinese literature in Mandarin. The speech and breathing signals were recorded from four announcers in reading 90 passages of different styles, including modern-style poem, ci, news, and essays. The breathing parameters extracted were breathing reset amplitude, duration, slope, and area respectively for the inhalation and exhalation phases. Results show that the breathing strategy applied in speech is different from that in natural breathing. Different chest and abdomen breathing patterns emerge in reading prose of different styles. In reading poems and ci a systematic breathing resets is found. In reading news and essays three levels of breathing reset are distinguished, which appear respectively at the paragraph-initial, main clause-initial, and subordinate clause-initial positions. The chest and abdomen breathing are coordinated in all reading activities, but each has its distinct functions. The current research is of significant importance to the research in prosody and speech production, and will lay a basis for the articulatory modeling of breathing in speech production.