The acoustic influence of human voice on phonaesthetical perception of a foreign language

Jezik in glas sta glavni entiteti govorjenega jezika, ki sta med seboj prepleteni. V vsakdanjem življenju tej prepletenosti med glasom in jezikom ne posvečamo veliko pozornosti, saj smo navadno osredotočeni na pomen sporočila. Kljub temu lahko akustične lastnosti glasu vplivajo na fonestetično zaznavanje jezika. Ne glede na to, da je bila fonestetika opredeljena pred dvema desetletjema, ne temo fonestetičnega zaznavanja ni bilo veliko raziskav. Ta fenomen je bil raziskovan pretežno z vidikov sociolingvistike in psiholingvistike, akustična perspektiva pa je bila spregledana. V tej magistrski nalogi je bil naš cilj replicirati nedavne ugotovitve o fonestetičnem zaznavanju jezikov na drugačnem vzorcu udeležencev, poleg tega pa preučiti ta fenomen še z akustičnega vidika. Postavili smo hipoteze, da bodo jeziki iste jezikovne skupine kot materni jezik udeležencev prejeli nižje fonestetične ocene kot jeziki drugih jezikovnih skupin. Poleg tega ne bo razlik med spoloma v fonestetični zaznavi tujih jezikov. Naša zadnja hipoteza je bila, da bosta povprečna osnovna frekvenca in njen standardni odklon vplivala na fonestetično zaznavo. Raziskava je bila izvedena na 60 slovenskih udeležencih, ki so bili izenačeni po spolu. Kot dražljaji so bili uporabljeni zvočni posnetki basni “Severni veter in Sonce” v 16 različnih evropskih jeziki. Vsak jezik je bil predstavljen z dvema različnima ženskima glasovoma. Iz teh posnetkov smo pridobili akustične parametre (povprečna osnovna frekvenca, standardni odklon osnovne frekvence, gostota dogodkov, razmerje med harmoničnostjo in udarnostjo, neharmoničnost, središče spektra, energija frekvenčnega pasu 2–4 kHz). Za ocenjevanje fonestetičnih komponent (lepota, kultura, erotičnost, urejenost, mehkoba) tujih jezikov, poznanost jezikov in prijetnosti glasu smo uporabili 9-stopenjse Likertove lestvice. Naloga je bila vgrajena v spletno platformo, udeleženci pa so za izvajanje naloge potrebovali napravo z avdio izhodom. Dražljaji so bili predvajani v naključnem vrstnem redu. Pri vsakem dražljaju so udeleženci najprej dobili navodilo, naj se osredotočijo na jezik in podajo oceno zaznave lepote, kulture, erotičnosti, urejenosti in mehkobe v jeziku. Poleg tega so morali podati oceno poznanosti jezika. Sledilo je ponovno poslušanje istega dražljaja, kjer so se morali tokrat osredotočiti na glas in podati oceno prijetnosti glasu. Rezultati so pokazali, da se fonestetično zaznavanje jezikovnih skupin večinoma razlikuje. Slovanska jezikovna skupina je prejela nižje fonestetične ocene kot romanska jezikovna skupina in višje kot ugrofinska z baltsko, medtem ko razlike med ocenami posameznih fonestetičnih komponent za slovansko in germansko jezikovno skupino niso bile enotne. Razlike v zaznavi fonestetičnih komponent med posameznimi jeziki specifičnih jezikovnih skupin so bile še bolj razpršene. Poznanost jezika je imeli učinek na zaznavo lepote, kulture in urejenosti v jeziku. Na splošno so moški v jezikih zaznali več erotičnosti. Po razčlembi na jezikovne skupine in posamezne jezike so se razlike v zaznavanju erotičnosti pokazale pri ugrofinski z baltsko in slovanski jezikovni skupini, medtem ko so se pri posameznih jezikih razlike pokazale za francoščino, češčino, poljščino, ruščino in estonščino. Za akustične parametre z največjim vplivom na fonestetično zaznavanje so se pokazali razmerje med harmoničnostjo in udarnostjo, neharmoničnost in standardni odklon osnovne frekvence. razmerje med harmoničnostjo in udarnostjo je bil hkrati najbolj vpliven akustični parameter pri zaznavi prijetnosti glasu. Zdi se, da poleg societalnih in univerzalnih fonetičnih dejavnikov na fonestetično zaznavo tujega jezika vplivata tudi poznanost jezika in glas, s katerim je jezik predstavljen. Če primerjamo slednja, je glas tisti, ki ima večji učinek.The main entities of a spoken language are language and voice, which are entangled with each other. In our daily life, we do not give it much thought because we are normally more interested in the meaning of the message. Nonetheless, acoustic properties of the voice might influence our phonaesthetical perception of a language. Although phonaesthetics were defined two decades ago, there has not been a lot of research of phonaesthetical perception. This phenomenon has been mainly researched from the sociolinguistic and the psycholinguistic points of view, however, the acoustic perspective has been neglected. In this thesis, the aim was to replicate the recent findings for the phonaesthetical perception of languages on a different sample of participants and to examine this phenomenon through the lens of acoustics. The hypotheses were that languages of the same language family group as the participants’ mother tongue will be phonaesthetically evaluated lower than languages of other language family groups. Furthermore, there will be no differences between female and male participants in the phonaesthetical perception of foreign languages. Finally, the average fundamental frequency in voice and its standard deviation will affect phonaesthetical perception. This study was conducted on 60 Slovenian participants, equalized by gender. Audio recordings of the fable “The North Wind and the Sun” in 16 different European languages were used as stimuli, where each language was represented with two different female voices. These recordings were used for the extraction of acoustic parameters (average fundamental frequency, standard deviation of fundamental frequency, event density, harmonic-percussive ratio, inharmonicity, spectral centroid, 2–4 kHz frequency band energy). Likert scales (9-level) were used for the evaluation of phonaesthetical components (beauty, culture, eroticism, orderliness, softness) in a foreign language, self-perceived language familiarity, and voice pleasantness. The task was implemented into an online platform and participants had to use an audio output device. The stimuli were presented in random order, where for each stimulus, participants were first instructed to focus on the language and give their evaluation for perception of beauty, culture, eroticism, orderliness, and softness in that language. Furthermore, they had to evaluate their self-perceived familiarity with that language. Next, they listened to the same stimulus again and were instructed to focus on the voice, for which they had to evaluate how pleasant it sounded. The results showed that the phonaesthetical perception of specific language-family groups mostly differs from one language family group to another, where the Slavic language family group was evaluated lower than the Romance languagefamily group and higher than the Finno-Ugric & Baltic language family group for all phonaesthetical components, whereas the differences between the Slavic and the Germanic language family group were not uniform. Moreover, the differences in phonaesthetical perception between individual languages of specific language-family groups were even more scattered. Language familiarity had an effect on the perception of beauty, culture, and orderliness in a language. In general, a significant difference between female and male participants was found for the perception of eroticism in favor of men. Further segregations showed they differed in the perception of this phonaestetical component for Slavic and Finno-Ugric & Baltic language family groups and for French, Czech, Polish, Russian, and Estonian as individual languages. The acoustic parameters that influenced phonaesthetical perception the most were harmonic-percussive ratio, inharmonicity, and the standard deviation of the fundamental frequency. Furthermore, harmonic-percussive ratio was also the most influential acoustic parameter for the perception of voice pleasantness. It seems that alongside societal and universal phonetic factors, language familiarity and voice also have an effect on the phonaesthetical perception of a foreign language. However, voice seems to be a more influential factor in this regard