Prosodic cues of sarcastic speech in French: slower, higher, wider

International audienceVerbal irony is characterized by the use of specific acoustic modulations, especially global prosodic cues as well as vowel hyperarticulation. Little is known concerning the expression of sarcastic speech in French. Here we report on global prosodic features of sarcastic speech in a corpus of declarative French utterances. Our data show that sarcastic productions are characterized by utterance lengthening, by increased f0 modulations and a global raising of the pitch level and range. The results are discussed in the light of results on the acoustic features of ironic speech in languages other than French