Spoken Utterances Research Articles

Intonation cues to English public discourse perception

The study considers the discourse functions of intonation and identifies a few problems and contradictions in the current theories of intonation functioning. Particular attention is paid to such issues as the multiple functions of nuclear tones, pitch declination in utterances and perceptual identification of spoken paragraphs. An attempt has been made to handle these problems in the context of English public speeches delivered in the format of TED talks. The purpose of the auditory analysis of discourse intonation in these talks is to check the perceptual reliability of intonation cues in processing spoken discourse and the possibility of using intonation as an on-line perception strategy. The methods applied in the research are descriptive, auditory and comparative, supported by a certain amount of quantitative data. The results obtained in the auditory analysis show that intonation cues work most effectively at the level of intonation groups and utterances but are not self-sufficient in paragraph identification. The leading function of nuclear tones in public discourse organization turns out to be the information structuring of utterances, which is occasionally interrupted by the attitudinal function. Pitch declination has been found to be one of the most important cues to the integrity and cohesion of utterances, with an average length of three-four intonation groups. Multiple declinations in spoken utterances are infrequent and are triggered by particular types of syntactic relations in elongated sentences. The study contributes to the linguistic description of discourse intonation, and its results can be beneficial for language teaching practice and automated speech synthesis.

Impoliteness Strategies of Dr. Phil in “Monster-In-Law Khalood”

This objective of this research is to identify and describe and explain the kinds of impoliteness strategies used in Dr. Phil talk show. The data used is the utterances of Philip Calvin McGraw in Dr. Phil talk show. then, the data is collected and identified will be analyzed using the theory of (Culpeper, 1996). The research method used is the descriptive qualitative research method. The techniques of collecting the data in this research will be conducted as the following. The researcher watched Dr. Phil talk show, the researcher takes note of the utterances that contain impoliteness strategies in Dr. Phil talk show, the researcher checked the accuracy of the script with the spoken utterances in Dr. Phil talk show, the researcher then accumulates all the data that contain impoliteness strategies that will be analyzed. The researcher will analyze the data based on the theory explored. The researcher will classify the data into five kinds of impoliteness strategies as proposed by (Culpeper, 1996). The researcher will identify the type of impoliteness strategy in each data and the response to the impoliteness strategy used. There were 9 utterances used as the data and the types of impoliteness strategies used was the positive politeness strategy and sarcasm or mock politeness strategy.

The role of context in transactional English: spoken utterances and public signs in the UAE

Transactional and interactional English communications tend to be on a continuum rather than a dichotomy, with some communications having characteristics of both, yet others tending more toward one type of communication or the other. In general, written communication tends to be more informative (transactional) than spoken communication, which tends to include more interactional communication. Using insights from geosemiotics and linguistic analysis, this study analyzed spoken English-as-a-lingua-franca (ELF) communication observed in Dubai/Sharjah and written communication in public signs in Al Ain, looking at how contextual influences play a role in facilitating hearer/reader understanding of the meaning being communicated. From identified ELF communications in Dubai/Sharjah and photographed public signs with English text in Al Ain in the UAE, 10 spoken and eight written instances of transactional English were selected to be analyzed in terms of patterns in the role of context in hearer/reader understanding of intended meaning. Comparing/contrasting contextualization of these spoken and written transactional English communications revealed the influence of the context on hearer/reader awareness of spatiotemporal aspects, background schemata (social/societal, cultural, economic, and religious aspects), prior communications, and ELF mutual accommodation of meaning in terms of understanding and interpreting intended meaning, as well as identifying aspects of contextualization common to both spoken and written transactional English.

How is your feedback perceived? An experimental study of anticipated and delayed conversational feedback.

This article presents a different experiment examining the impact of feedback timing on its perception. Dialog sequences, featuring a main speaker's utterance followed by a listener's feedback, were extracted from spontaneous conversations. The original feedback instances were manipulated to be produced earlier, up to 1.5 s in advance, or to be delayed, up to 2 s later. Participants evaluated the feedback acceptability and engagement level of the listener. The findings reveal that 76% of the time feedback remains acceptable regardless of the delay. However, engagement decreases after a 1-s delay while no consistent effect is observed for feedback anticipation.

The Role of the Proxemic Factor in the Implementation of the Cooperative Strategy of Communication in the English Fairy Tale Discourse

The functional and communicative potential of proxemic components is investigated in this article on the basis of the English fairy tale discourse. The interaction of proxemic components and verbal communicative components is taken into consideration. The regularities of the influence of proxemic means on the fairy tale speakers’ achievement of communicative goals within the cooperative communicative strategy are established, and the discursive personality’s tactical toolkit for its implementation is identified. The modulation of distance between fairy tale speakers and the change of a fairy tale speaker’s posture in relation to his/her communicative partner are the most communicatively significant and effective proxemic means used in the process of communication. Insufficient diversity in the repertoire of proxemic components in comparison with other nonverbal components is their characteristic feature. As a result, proxemic components are frequently used in combination with kinesic and prosodic communicative components, accompanying the verbal components in the utterances of fairy tale speakers. In this way the strengthening of the semantic load of a fairy tale speaker’s utterance takes place. The proxemic components are also used by a fairy tale discursive personality for more effective implementation of various communicative tactics within the frames of the cooperative communicative strategy in the English fairy tale discourse.

Conversational facial signals combine into compositional meanings that change the interpretation of speaker intentions

Human language is extremely versatile, combining a limited set of signals in an unlimited number of ways. However, it is unknown whether conversational visual signals feed into the composite utterances with which speakers communicate their intentions. We assessed whether different combinations of visual signals lead to different intent interpretations of the same spoken utterance. Participants viewed a virtual avatar uttering spoken questions while producing single visual signals (i.e., head turn, head tilt, eyebrow raise) or combinations of these signals. After each video, participants classified the communicative intention behind the question. We found that composite utterances combining several visual signals conveyed different meaning compared to utterances accompanied by the single visual signals. However, responses to combinations of signals were more similar to the responses to related, rather than unrelated, individual signals, indicating a consistent influence of the individual visual signals on the whole. This study therefore provides first evidence for compositional, non-additive (i.e., Gestalt-like) perception of multimodal language.

Whose Uptake Matters? Sexual Refusal and the Ethics of Uptake

Abstract What role does audience uptake play in determining whether a speaker refuses or consents to sex? Proponents of constitution theories of uptake argue that which speech act a speaker performs is largely determined by their addressee's uptake. However, this appears to entail a troubling result: a speaker might be made to perform a speech act of consent against her will. In response, we develop a Social Constitution Theory of uptake. We argue that addressee uptake can constitute a speaker's utterance of ‘no’ as a speech act of consent under some conditions, but that this does not prevent us from judging that an addressee committed rape. Second, we claim that addressee uptake is not the only form of uptake that matters—the uptake of other members of the discursive community matters too, and can override the addressee's uptake, constituting the speaker's utterance as the speech act it was intended to be.

Moving Beyond the Plateau with Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Mediation

This paper examines the plateau effect and the role of Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) in enabling learners to move beyond the plateau. Specifically, the samples and empirical evidence for this study is provided by StudyIntonation, a top-down CAPT environment supporting visual display of phrasal intonation in the form of pitch graphs presented for both the model pitch of native speakers and attempts of learners. Utterances of model speakers are grouped by situational context, prosodic forms and mode of feedback. The system largely relies upon concepts of sociocultural theory, such as mediation through the zone of proximal development. With the help of an experimental group of high school students, we use mathematical models to pinpoint the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), allowing for delivery of tailored task classification based on syntax and discourse tags. Longitudinal pronunciation assessment supported by dynamic time warping and cross-recurrence quantification analysis is used to locate the ZPD, and provide personalized practice. Preliminary experiments for the current study demonstrate that this approach can help learners in overcoming the plateau effect experienced during the learning process. The reported new findings create further grounds for improving and targeting the CAPT system feedback to learners with respect to their individual achievements and differences in learning styles.

PERLOCUTIONARY ACT PERFORMED IN JOHN WICK MOVIE

This study discussed the perlocutionary act performed in the John Wick movie based on the theory of Qiang. The aim of the study is to determine the types of perlocutionary acts used in the movie through the main character’s utterances. The descriptive-qualitative method was applied to the research method. Techniques of data collection were carried out by searching, downloading, reading, watching, and coding the data. Techniques of data analysis were conducted by presenting, describing, interpreting, and drawing conclusions. The findings of the study show that perlocutionary acts really exist in the movie and are applied by the main character in order to influence others. There were 11 pieces of data found, which included four types of perlocutionary acts used by John Wick as the main character in the movie. Perlocutionary act serves as the effect of utterances from the speaker to the hearer, intentionally or unintentionally. Among the four types of perlocutionary acts, type 1 is the most dominant type because the speaker's utterance can be clearly understood by the hearer so that the expected effect of the utterances can be realized.
 Keywords: movie, perlocutionary act, pragmatic.

Generative Adversarial Network with Convolutional Wavelet Packet Transforms for Automated Speaker Recognition and Classification

Speech is an effective mode of communication that always conveys abundant and pertinent information, such as the gender, accent, and other distinguishing characteristics of the speaker. These distinctive characteristics allow researchers to identify human voices using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, which are useful for forensic voice verification, security and surveillance, electronic voice eavesdropping, mobile banking, and mobile purchasing. Deep learning (DL) and other advances in hardware have piqued the interest of researchers studying automatic speaker identification (SI). In recent years, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have demonstrated exceptional ability in producing synthetic data and improving the performance of several machine learning tasks. The capacity of Convolutional Wavelet Packet Transform (CWPT) and Generative Adversarial Networks are combined in this paper to propose a novel way of enhancing the accuracy and robustness of Speaker Recognition and Classification systems. Audio signals are dissected using the Convolutional Wavelet Packet Transform into a multi-resolution, time-frequency representation that faithfully preserves local and global characteristics. The improved audio features better precisely describe speech traits and handle pitch, tone, and pronunciation variations that are frequent in speaker recognition tasks. Using GANs to create synthetic speech samples, our suggested method GAN-CWPT enriches the training data and broadens the dataset's diversity. The generator and discriminator components of the GAN architecture have been tweaked to produce realistic speech samples with attributes quite similar to genuine speaker utterances. The new dataset enhances the Speaker Recognition and Classification system's robustness and generalization, even in environments with little training data. We conduct extensive tests on standard speaker recognition datasets to determine how well our method works. The findings demonstrate that, compared to conventional methods, the GAN-CWPTs combination significantly improves speaker recognition, classification accuracy, and efficiency. Additionally, the suggested model GAN-CWPT exhibits stronger generalization on unknown speakers and excels even with loud and poor audio inputs.

The pragmatics of foreign accents: The social costs and benefits of being a non-native speaker.

Speaking with a foreign accent has often been thought to carry several disadvantages. Here, we probe a potential social advantage of non-native compared to native speakers using spoken utterances that either obey or violate the pragmatic principle of Informativeness. In Experiment 1, we show that listeners form different impressions of native and non-native speakers with identical pragmatic behavior: in a context in which omitting information could be deceptive, people rated underinformative speakers more negatively on trustworthiness and interpersonal appeal compared to informative speakers, but this tendency was mitigated for speakers with foreign accents. Furthermore, this mitigating effect was strongest for less proficient non-native speakers who were presumably not fully responsible for their linguistic choices. In Experiment 2, social lenience for non-native speakers emerged even in a non-deceptive context. Contrary to previous studies, there was no consistent global bias against non-native speakers in either experiment, despite their lower intelligibility. Thus the fact that non-native speakers have imperfect control of the linguistic signal affects pragmatic inferences and social evaluation in ways that can lead to surprising social benefits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Comprehension of indirect answers: Developmental trajectory for preschool- and early elementary school-aged children with typical development.

Indirect answers are a common type of non-literal language that do not provide an explicit "yes" or "no" to a question (e.g., "I have to work late" indirectly answered "Are you going to the party?" with a negative response). In the current study, weexamined the developmental trajectory of comprehension of indirect answers among 5- to 10-year-old children with typical development.Forty-eight children, 23 boys and 25 girls, between the ages of 5 years; 0 months and 10 years; 11 months (M= 8;2,SD= 19.77 months) completed an experimental task to judge whether a verbally presented indirect answer meant yes or no (Comprehension Task) and then explain their choice (Explanation Task). Responses were scored for accuracy and coded for error analysis.On the Comprehension Task, the 5- to 8-year-oldsperformed with approximately 85% accuracy, while the 9- and 10-year-olds achieved 95% accuracy. On the Explanation Task, the cross-sectional trajectory revealed three stages: the 5- and 6-year-olds adequately explained indirect answers 32%of the time, the 7- and 8-year-olds performed significantly higher at 55%, and the 9- and 10-year-olds made significant gains than the younger children at 66%. Error analysis revealed that when children fail to interpret speaker intentions appropriately, theyrepeat the speaker's utterance or provide an insufficient explanation80% of the time. Other responses, such as those irrelevant to the context, indicating "I don't know" or no response, or that were made-up interpretations each accounted for 2%-10% of total inadequate explanations.Studyfindings indicate discrepancies between task performances and offer two separate sets of baseline data for future comparisons that investigate comprehension or explanation of indirect answers by children with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and by those with varying cognitive and language profiles.

Backchannels Responses as Conversational Strategies in the Interaction of Indonesian Speakers in Interview Setting

In interpersonal communication, the listeners' role is as necessary as the speaker's. Backchannel is considered a universal behavior; it often occurs in the conversation to send a signal from the listener without claiming the floor. Linguists have identified backchannel responses in many languages and cultural differences regarding the backchannel's type, frequency, and placement. This study investigates the use of backchannel in Indonesian conversation by native speakers in interview settings. This mixed-method study combines a quantitative and qualitative study that examines the function and frequency of ten dyadic Indonesian native speakers in an interview setting. The sampling subject participant is 20 Indonesian native speakers with each gender; we selected ten people whose first language is the Indonesian language Each interview session took 20 to 30 minutes, totalling 4 hours, and 20 minutes of dialogue for the whole corpus. Based on the study findings, Indonesian native speakers often use nodding (each gender has the same frequency of around 42%) as a non-verbal backchannel. The current analysis suggests that nodding and facial expressions such as smiles, and laughter consider one of the listener responses in Indonesian conversation. Indonesian speakers' verbal backchannel does occur, but nodding occurs most frequently as a sign of the backchannel. The non-verbal behavior of nodding gives listening signals without bothering the speaker's utterance. The current study adds to our understanding of the listener's role in Indonesian conversation. These results contribute to intercultural understanding in the era of globalization.

Impact of Communication Filters on the Speeches of Female Yoruba and Igbo Speakers

Differences in the ways that men and women use language have long been of interest in the study of discourse and sociolinguistics. Despite extensive theorizing, actual empirical investigations have yet to converge on a coherent picture of gender differences in language. The male/female sex biological categories are assumed to have a bearing on the masculine/feminine gender social categories. This categorization is assumed to affect almost every aspect of human living, including the use of language by the different genders. This work is a study of works and assumptions on sex-conditioned language or genderlect, with special attention on the characteristics of female speech. This aspect identified the observed linguistic filtering devices in female speech in an attempt to establish them as stereotypes. The study further attempted a survey of filtered female speech and established pragmatic bases for the models. A clear attempt was made to identify and classify the semantic constraints inherent in the connotative properties of the utterances of some female speakers of the English, Igbo and Yoruba languages while also attempting a possible literal and contextual interpretation of the utterances and the possible 'misunderstandings' that may arise from the 'filtered' utterances. Oral discussions and unobtrusive observations were conducted to get data related to the manifestation of genderlect in female speech. The findings affirmed the thesis of differences in gender speech styles.

BTS Speech: A Study of Deictic Usage

The title of this research is “BTS Speech: A Study of Deictic Usage in Deictic Expression”. In this research, the writer focuses on how the speaker uses deictic usage pronouns in speech. The speech BTS delivered at the famous UNICEF campaign in February 2018. The speech was about BTS going to tell young people around the world to love themselves with the #LoveYourself campaign. This study aims to identify and classify the types of analyzing the usage of deictic pronouns in BTS Speech. The data studied according to Levinson's (1983) understanding of the theory there are 2 types of deixis, namely: deictic usage and non-deictic usage. Deictic usage is divided into two, namely: Gestural usage and symbolic usage. The most common use of deixis pronouns is symbolic usage. Deixis can be interpreted as a pointer or pointing. The results of the study will show which utterances use deictic usage pronouns. The research will be presented with a qualitative descriptive research method. This research is expected that readers or students can understand the speaker's utterances by paying attention to the use of the pronoun deixis.

Reduplikasi Bahasa Dawan: Kajian Morfologis Distribusi

This article is intended to investigate the reduplication processes of bahasa Dawan spoken by Dawan people in NTT Province by using the morphological distribution theory proposed by Framton in 2004. To complete the study, a qualitative research method had been chosen based on the consideration that the data were in the form of words. Those data were taken from the utterances spoken in Dawan’s traditional ceremony as the main data source. Besides, Tata Bahasa Dawan book played a role as the secondary data source. The data were collected by observation and studying the document. In observation, the researchers observed and recorded the utterances by using an android, however the document study was done by reading documents about Bahasa Dawan. The study result reveals that in bahasa Dawab there are three processes in reduplication, namely 1) full reduplication without affixation process, 2) full reduplication with affixation process, and 3) partial reduplication.

Speech Intelligibility and Speech Naturalness while Speaking with and without Medical Mask

Introduction: The COVID-19 situation has led to an increase use of medical mask for protection. Facial and respiratory PPE covering the mouth and nose have been reported to diminish Speech Intelligibility. Altering the volume, rate and volume and rate together may contribute to influencing the speech intelligibility and speech naturalness rating. Therefore, identifying the appropriate method to speak with medical mask can help train people to communicate with mask. This study aimed to (1) analyse effects of wearing masks on speech intelligibility, naturalness and comprehensibility, and (2) document an altered style of speaking to improve speech intelligibility, naturalness and comprehensibility while wearing masks. Method: Cross-over study design was used. Spoken utterances from 14 naïve speakers were recorded with and without medical mask, and speech in typical style, increased volume (loudness), reduced rate, and mixed method (combination of increased loudness and reduced rate) with medical mask was recorded from 12 professional speakers. Two expert listeners rated the naïve speakers, and two naïve listeners rated professional speakers using standard rating scales of speech intelligibility and naturalness. Percentage of correct identification of utterance was calculated as a measure of comprehensibility. Wilcoxon signed rank test and Friedman test were used to report significant differences among conditions and parameters analysed. Results: Speech intelligibility, naturalness and comprehensibility was poorer while speaking with medical mask than without them. Speaking in mixed method (combination of increased loudness and reduced rate), while using medical masks was the most appropriate style of speech in order to be intelligible, natural and comprehensible, followed by increased loudness style, typical style and reduced rate style. Conclusion: People should be alerted that wearing mask leads to reduction in speech intelligibility, comprehensibility and naturalness. These can be improved by modifying the style of speaking.

ADAPT-TTS: HIGH-QUALITY ZERO-SHOT MULTI-SPEAKER TEXT-TO-SPEECH ADAPTIVE-BASED FOR VIETNAMESE

Current adaptive-based speech synthesis techniques are based on two main streams: 1. Fine-tuning the model using small amounts of adaptive data, and 2. Conditionally training the entire model through a speaker embedding of the target speaker. However, both of these methods require adaptive data to appear during training, which makes the training cost to generate new voices quite expensively. In addition, the traditional TTS model uses a simple loss function to reproduce the acoustic features. However, this optimization is based on incorrect distribution assumptions leading to noisy composite audio results. We introduce the Adapt-TTS model that allows high-quality audio synthesis from a small adaptive sample without training to solve these problems. Key recommendations: 1. The Extracting Mel-vector (EMV) architecture allows for a better representation of speaker characteristics and speech style; 2. An improved zero-shot model with a denoising diffusion model (Mel-spectrogram denoiser) component allows for new voice synthesis without training with better quality (less noise). The evaluation results have proven the model's effectiveness when only needing a single utterance (1-3 seconds) of the reference speaker, the synthesis system gave high-quality synthesis results and achieved high similarity.

Maxim of Politeness Found in the Characters’ Conversation in Turning Red Movie

The aims of this research is to analyze the types of politeness maxims produced by the characters in Tuning Red Movie. The data in this research focuses on the utterances obtained from the conversations between the characters. This research used qualitative descriptive method to analyze the types of politeness maxim. The stages of data collection started from downloading the movie from the internet and then watching it repeatedly to understand the contents of the film. Next, take notes on every utterance spoken by the characters that can be used as data to clarify the types of politeness maxims. The last, categorize these utterances into six types of politeness based on Leech (1983) theory. The results of this research indicate that there are six types of politeness maxims used in this movie. First type is tact maxim, second type is generosity maxim, third is Approbation maxim, fourth is modesty maxim, fifth is agreement maxim and last type is symphaty maxim. It can be concluded that the movie contains all types of politeness maxim with their respective purpose.

The Pragmatics of Fiction: Literature, Stage and Screen Discourse

The Pragmatics of Fiction: Literature, Stage and Screen Discourse