ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2014
ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2014

A preliminary study on the prosody of broadcast news in Hong Kong Cantonese

Peggy P.K. Mok, Holly S.H. Fung, Jingwen Li

Broadcast news is a distinctive register. Previous studies only provided some general descriptions of the prosodic features in broadcast news but with few concrete data. Most of them were also on English news. This study investigated the prosodic features of Cantonese TV broadcast news using acoustic data. Speech using the same materials from two groups was compared: eight Hong Kong professional TV news anchors, and a control group consisting of eight university students. The results show clear differences between the two groups in terms of speech rate, pitch range and variability of syllable duration (speech rhythm). It was found that the news anchors spoke significantly faster than the control group, also with an enlarged pitch range. They also produced more variability in syllable duration. There is clearly more prosodic variation in the news register than ordinary speech. Finally, we provide some possible reasons for these features, as well as directions for future studies.