Korean speakers hyperarticulate vowels in polite speech*

Oh, Eunhae; Winter, Bodo; Idemaru, Kaori

doi:10.13064/ksss.2021.13.3.015

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…In Korean, speakers seem to prefer a low, monotonous and quiet voice when politeness is required (Winter and Grawunder, 2012). In addition, Korean speakers, especially female speakers, hyperarticulate vowels when speaking politely (Oh et al, 2021).…”

Section: Background Multimodal Politenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is It Polite to Hiss?: Nonverbal Sound Objects as Markers of (Im)politeness in Korean

2022

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This paper explores the politeness-related functions of an ingressive hissing-like sound that occurs frequently in Korean and which is typically transcribed as ssup. This nonverbal sound is produced by drawing air alongside the tongue or between the teeth and may appear either before the production of a turn, or during turn production. Previous studies have shown that Korean speakers produce more frequent hisses when addressing status superiors. This suggests a politeness-related function, particularly given the importance of marking social distance toward elders and superiors in Korean culture. In the current paper, we explore the pragmatic functions of these hisses in three distinct datasets (oral discourse completion task, dyad recordings, drama interactions). Our analysis shows that hisses perform four types of social actions: displaying delicacy, activity shift, word search, and conveying skepticism. Hisses occur at interactional or relational trouble spots to delay the progression of talk, while allowing the speaker to initiate or maintain their turn. They co-occur with other verbal and multimodal markers of hesitation. We thus see the underlying core meaning of hisses as being related to difficulty, uncertainty and hesitation, and the conveyance of reluctance to perform the problematic talk. The increased frequency of hisses and multimodal hesitation in interactions with status superiors shows us that speakers are trying to show more care and effort when interacting in situations where social distance exists. These results contribute toward our understanding of politeness as a multimodal and holistic phenomenon that is expressed across multiple verbal and nonverbal dimensions.

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Section: Background Multimodal Politenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is It Polite to Hiss?: Nonverbal Sound Objects as Markers of (Im)politeness in Korean

2022

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“…It is possible that customer service employees increase speech production effort when speaking to customers; some of the phonetic characteristics of polite speech are similar to those of clear speech, a speech register that is adopted to facilitate the listener’s speech comprehension in adverse conditions (e.g., in noisy environments; for a review, see [ 31 ]). Specifically, Korean speakers slowed down their speaking rate in a formal speech register [ 13 ], and they were also shown to hyperarticulate vowels in polite speech (i.e., when speaking to a professor compared to speaking to a friend; [ 32 ]). However, the link between personality judgements and vowel hyperarticulation has not been previously investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Speakers may adopt a specific speaking style as a customer service employee to convey more positive traits that are appropriate for the social context (e.g., professional or kind), which needs to be examined not only using global, prosodic properties of speech (e.g., f0), but also using segmental (e.g., vowels) and voice quality features. It is possible that customer service employees increase speech production effort when speaking to customers; some of the phonetic characteristics of polite speech are similar to those of clear speech, a speech register that is adopted to facilitate the listener's speech comprehension in adverse conditions (e.g., in noisy environments; for a review, see [31]). Specifically, Korean speakers slowed down their speaking rate in a formal speech register [13], and they were also shown to hyperarticulate vowels in polite speech (i.e., when speaking to a professor compared to speaking to a friend; [32]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic correlates of perceived personality from Korean utterances in a formal communicative setting

Song,

Kim,

Park

2023

PLoS ONE

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The aim of the present study was to find acoustic correlates of perceived personality from the speech produced in a formal communicative setting–that of Korean customer service employees in particular. This work extended previous research on voice personality impressions to a different sociocultural and linguistic context in which speakers are expected to speak politely in a formal register. To use naturally produced speech rather than read speech, we devised a new method that successfully elicited spontaneous speech from speakers who were role-playing as customer service employees, while controlling for the words and sentence structures they used. We then examined a wide range of acoustic properties in the utterances, including voice quality and global acoustic and segmental properties using Principal Component Analysis. Subjects of the personality rating task listened to the utterances and rated perceived personality in terms of the Big-Five personality traits. While replicating some previous findings, we discovered several acoustic variables that exclusively accounted for the personality judgments of female speakers; a more modal voice quality increased perceived conscientiousness and neuroticism, and less dispersed formants reflecting a larger body size increased the perceived levels of extraversion and openness. These biases in personality perception likely reflect gender and occupation-related stereotypes that exist in South Korea. Our findings can also serve as a basis for developing and evaluating synthetic speech for Voice Assistant applications in future studies.

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Prosodic features of polite speech

Brown,

Oh,

Idemaru

2024

PRAG

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This paper uses interactional data to investigate the acoustic characteristics of polite or deferential speech in Korean. We asked fourteen Korean speakers to perform two tasks with two different interlocutors: a status superior and a friend. Consistent with previous studies of non-interactional data, deferential speech has lower pitch and shimmer, and quieter final syllables. However, divergent from previous studies, deferential speech featured higher jitter (in some locations), higher shimmer and higher H1-H2 (on one task). Through analysis of different locations in prosodic structure, we found that females used more pitch variation on final syllables in deferential speech. We argue that these mixed results show the importance of context in signalling vocal politeness, and also complexities of using interactional data. The findings advance the study of multimodal politeness beyond the analysis of experimental data.

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Korean speakers hyperarticulate vowels in polite speech*

Cited by 3 publications

References 39 publications

Is It Polite to Hiss?: Nonverbal Sound Objects as Markers of (Im)politeness in Korean

Is It Polite to Hiss?: Nonverbal Sound Objects as Markers of (Im)politeness in Korean

Acoustic correlates of perceived personality from Korean utterances in a formal communicative setting

Prosodic features of polite speech

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