Speaking Fundamental Frequency Patterns of Japanese Women

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to obtain information on the speaking fundamental frequency (SFF) mean levels, variability and patterns of Japanese females and contrast them with those of Caucasian speakers of American English. To this end, 56 young women – 32 Japanese and 24 Americans – read standard passages in either or both the Japanese and English languages. It was found that the Japanese exhibited higher fundamental frequencies than did the Americans for all speaking conditions, and this contrast was statistically significant. Additionally -and unlike the American speakers – most Japanese women exhibited bimodal SFF distribution patterns. It is judged that the observed differences in level and distribution result primarily from differences in the structure of the two languages.

A cross-dialect acoustic description of vowels: Brazilian and European Portuguese

“…The data of Adank et al (2004) reveal ratios of 1.497 for Northern Dutch and 1.730 for Southern Dutch; Most et al (2005) report a ratio of 1.518 for Hebrew. All these ratios are much smaller than the ratio found for Japanese (Yamazawa and Hollien, 1992), where the gender difference in F0 is apparently culturally influenced. Since Portuguese joins in with the majority of languages, it can be concluded that the cultural influence of gender on F0 in Portuguese is the same as that in this majority of languages, and may therefore well be zero, so that the effect is just physiologically determined.…”

Sex Differences in Frequency and Intensity in Reading and Voice Range Profiles for Taiwanese Adult Speakers

“…The tonal languages of Mandarin and Min, which are spoken by most people in Taiwan, were identified to have greater maximum range of speaking fundamental frequency and maximum range of speaking intensity when compared to the nontonal language of English [33] . This phenomenon was also found in the tonal language of Japanese, in which the variability of speaking fundamental frequency was greater for Japanese speakers than for American speakers [34] . These results provide evidence that different languages have different phonation frequencies and possible intensities, which suggests the need of a database of speaking frequency and intensity for tonal languages.…”

The pitch levels of female speech in two Chinese villages

“…Since readings of different words were compared, this procedure introduced possible confounds. As an exception, Yamazawa and Hollien (1992) tested two groups of female speakers-one speaking primarily Japanese and the other speaking primarily American English-with all subjects reading out passages in both Japanese and English. The authors found that the Japanese speakers exhibited higher F0s than did the English speakers, though the differences between the two groups were more pronounced for passages read out in the speakers' native languages.…”

“…However, taking male and female speech separately, a convincing absence of correlate has been obtained between overall pitch level and the speaker's body dimensions such as height, weight, size of larynx, and so on (Hollien and Jackson, 1973;Kunzel, 1989;Van Dommelen and Moxness, 1995;Collins, 2000;Gonzales, 2004;Lass and Brown, 1978;Majewski et al, 1972). In contrast, various studies have found that the pitch level of speech varies with the speaker's language (Hollien and Jackson, 1973;Majewski et al, 1972;Hanley et al, 1966;Yamazawa and Hollien, 1992), indicating that it is subject to a cultural influence (Dolson, 1994;Honorof and Whalen, 2005;Xue et al, 2002), though the precise nature of this influence has not received much consideration.…”

“…an octave, for both male and female speakers, and across a diversity of languages and dialects (Dolson, 1994;Hudson and Holbrook, 1982;Kunzel, 1989;Majewski et al, 1972;Xue et al, 2002;Yamazawa and Hollien, 1992;Hanley et al, 1966;Hollien and Jackson, 1973). A detailed account and appraisal of the proposed model can be found in Dolson (1994).…”