Publication Date

1997

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Hall, Kelly Dailey

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Communicative Disorders

LCSH

Women--Language; Ethnic groups--Language; Voice; English language--Vowels

Abstract

This investigation compared vocal acoustic characteristics of African-American, Hispanic, and Caucasian women. Recordings were made during sustained phonation of the vowels /i/ and /a/. The samples were analyzed via the Voice Analysis Program of the Computerized Speech Laboratory, and measures for pitch, jitter, shimmer, and harmonics-to-noise ratio were obtained. Statistical comparisons showed no differences between the groups, suggesting that further exploration of normal acoustic characteristics across speakers of different ethnicities is warranted to determine if the same trends are found as the phonetic complexity of the samples increases.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references (pages [35]-38)

Extent

iv, 45 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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