Vowels and tones as acoustic cues in Chinese subregional dialect identification

Huangmei Liu; Jie Liang; Vincent van Heuven; W.J. Heeringa

doi:10.1016/j.specom.2020.06.006

Vowels and tones as acoustic cues in Chinese subregional dialect identification

Huangmei Liu (Corresponding author), Jie Liang, Vincent van Heuven, W.J. Heeringa

Fryske Akademy (FA)

Research output: Contribution to journal/periodical › Article › Scientific › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The aim of the present perceptual study is to weight tones and vowels as acoustic cues in Chinese subregional dialect identification, and to test the credibility of the subregional dialect classification that has been proposed in the literature. Our findings show that listeners are able to pinpoint speakers’ subregional dialect even when only given monosyllabic Chinese word stimuli, either natural or tone-transplanted. The results agree with the impressionistic claim that both vowels and tones contribute to perceptual subregional dialect identification. However, vowel quality differences make a greater contribution than the tone differences – which contradicts the order of importance predicted in the impressionistic literature. Strong interactions between vowels and tones are also found

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	59
Number of pages	69
Journal	Speech Communication
Volume	123
Issue number	2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2020.06.006
Publication status	Published - 2020

Keywords

Acoustic cue
Subregional dialect identification
Vowel
Tone
Cue weighting

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10.1016/j.specom.2020.06.006Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

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title = "Vowels and tones as acoustic cues in Chinese subregional dialect identification",

abstract = "The aim of the present perceptual study is to weight tones and vowels as acoustic cues in Chinese subregional dialect identification, and to test the credibility of the subregional dialect classification that has been proposed in the literature. Our findings show that listeners are able to pinpoint speakers{\textquoteright} subregional dialect even when only given monosyllabic Chinese word stimuli, either natural or tone-transplanted. The results agree with the impressionistic claim that both vowels and tones contribute to perceptual subregional dialect identification. However, vowel quality differences make a greater contribution than the tone differences – which contradicts the order of importance predicted in the impressionistic literature. Strong interactions between vowels and tones are also found",

keywords = "Acoustic cue, Subregional dialect identification, Vowel, Tone, Cue weighting",

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T1 - Vowels and tones as acoustic cues in Chinese subregional dialect identification

AU - Liu, Huangmei

AU - Liang, Jie

AU - van Heuven, Vincent

AU - Heeringa, W.J.

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - The aim of the present perceptual study is to weight tones and vowels as acoustic cues in Chinese subregional dialect identification, and to test the credibility of the subregional dialect classification that has been proposed in the literature. Our findings show that listeners are able to pinpoint speakers’ subregional dialect even when only given monosyllabic Chinese word stimuli, either natural or tone-transplanted. The results agree with the impressionistic claim that both vowels and tones contribute to perceptual subregional dialect identification. However, vowel quality differences make a greater contribution than the tone differences – which contradicts the order of importance predicted in the impressionistic literature. Strong interactions between vowels and tones are also found

AB - The aim of the present perceptual study is to weight tones and vowels as acoustic cues in Chinese subregional dialect identification, and to test the credibility of the subregional dialect classification that has been proposed in the literature. Our findings show that listeners are able to pinpoint speakers’ subregional dialect even when only given monosyllabic Chinese word stimuli, either natural or tone-transplanted. The results agree with the impressionistic claim that both vowels and tones contribute to perceptual subregional dialect identification. However, vowel quality differences make a greater contribution than the tone differences – which contradicts the order of importance predicted in the impressionistic literature. Strong interactions between vowels and tones are also found

KW - Acoustic cue

KW - Subregional dialect identification

KW - Vowel

KW - Tone

KW - Cue weighting

U2 - 10.1016/j.specom.2020.06.006

DO - 10.1016/j.specom.2020.06.006

M3 - Article

SN - 0167-6393

VL - 123

SP - 59

JO - Speech Communication

JF - Speech Communication

IS - 2020

ER -

Vowels and tones as acoustic cues in Chinese subregional dialect identification

Abstract

Keywords

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