• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 2014

This study aims to discuss pitch slope on Korean intonation curve in spontaneous speech data. For this study, 656 utterances were taken in the spoken corpus and used 'close-copy stylization'. And then the physical feature of pitch movements was extracted for the study. The pitch slope was calculated on the basis of time and pitch range in each utterance. As a result, the average and distribution of pitch slope is similar between men and women in the range of the pitch movement except for essential differences. The slope of pitch movement confirms that there are no differences between men and women. Pitch slope on a scale of -10 to 10 is 90% of the entire pitch slope; pitch slope that moves by time scale without curve is 33.1%; pitch slope that moves half of the pitch bandwidth during the average time for pitch movement is 23.4%; pitch slope that moves 100% of pitch bandwidth during a half of the average time for pitch movement is 10.4%. Those results imply the possibility of standardization methods of Korean intonation by pitch slope.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.63-71
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• 2003

This study aims to experiment on learning French intonation, based on the visualization of melody, which was employed in the early sixties to reeducate those with communication disorders. The visualization of melody in this paper, however, was used to the foreign language learning and produced successful results in many ways, especially in learning foreign intonation. In this paper, we used the PitchWorks to visualize some French intonation samples and experiment on learning intonation based on the bitmap picture projected on a screen. The students could see the melody curve while listening to the sentences. We could observe great achievement on the part of the students in learning intonations, as verified by the result of this experiment. The students were much more motivated in learning and showed greater improvement in recognizing intonation contour than just learning by hearing. But lack of animation in the bitmap file could make the experiment nothing but a boring pattern practices. It would be better if we can use a sound analyser, as like for instance a PitchWorks, which is designed to analyse the pitch, since the students can actually see their own fluctuating intonation visualized on the screen.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.79-90
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• 2014

An intonation curve stylization was used for an acoustical analysis of English speech. For the analysis, acoustical feature values were extracted from 1,848 utterances produced with normal and fast speech rate by 28 (12 women and 16 men) native speakers of English. Men are found to speak faster than women at normal speech rate but no difference is found between genders at fast speech rate. Analysis of pitch point features has it that fast speech has greater Pt (pitch point movement time), Pr (pitch point pitch range), and Pd (pitch point distance) but smaller Ps (pitch point slope) than normal speech. Men show greater Pt, Pr, and Pd than women. Analysis of sentence level features reveals that fast speech has smaller Sr (sentence level pitch range), Sd (sentence duration), and Max (maximum pitch) but greater Ss (sentence slope) than normal speech. Women show greater Sr, Ss, Sp (pitch difference between the first pitch point and the last), Sd, MaxNr (normalized Max), and MinNr (normalized Min) than men. As speech rate increases, women speak with greater Ss and Sr than men.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.131-138
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• 2014

A close-copy stylization of intonation curve was used for an acoustical analysis of emotional speech. For the analysis, 408 utterances of five emotions (happiness, anger, fear, neutral and sadness) were processed to extract acoustical feature values. The results show that certain pitch point features (pitch point movement time and pitch point distance within a sentence) and sentence level features (pitch range of a final pitch point, pitch range of a sentence and pitch slope of a sentence) are affected by emotions. Pitch point movement time, pitch point distance within a sentence and pitch slope of a sentence show no significant difference between male and female participants. The emotions with high arousal (happiness and anger) are consistently distinguished from the emotion with low arousal (sadness) in terms of these acoustical features. Emotions with higher arousal show steeper pitch slope of a sentence. They have steeper pitch slope at the end of a sentence. They also show wider pitch range of a sentence. The acoustical analysis in this study implies the possibility that the measurement of these acoustical features can be used to cluster and identify emotions of speech.