ISCA Archive ICSLP 1992
ISCA Archive ICSLP 1992

Changing speech styles: strategies in read speech and casual and careful spontaneous speech

Maxine Eskenazi

This paper examines segmental and suprasegmental elements which contribute to an impression of one speaking style as opposed to another. A corpus containing three styles of speech, casual, careful and read, for the same linguistic content was gathered. Examination of global and individual results reveals that: 1) spontaneous styles of speech cannot be considered to be linear modifications of read speech (careful speech is not necessarily faster than read speech, but slower than casual speech, for example), but probably closer to separate types of modifications of casual speech; and 2) the same perceived style is achieved by different speakers in different ways.