Effect of speech rhythm manipulations on speakers' credibility

This thesis aims to determine whether irregular rhythm of speech in English native speakers has an effect on how trustworthy they sound to listeners. Next, it aimed to determine whether university students of the English language evaluate the trustworthiness of speakers with irregular rhythm differently than non-English students. The thesis is divided into theoretical and practical parts. The theoretical part describes general observations about rhythm of speech, ways of evaluating one's personality, and certain speech characteristics which contribute to sounding less trustworthy. The practical part describes the methodology that was used to answer the research questions. For this purpose, an experiment where the natural rhythm of English speakers underwent artificial manipulation was conducted. These manipulated recordings were then combined with unchanged recordings from the same speakers. The level of trustworthiness of all the speakers in both manipulated and unchanged recordings was then evaluated in an online perception test by English students and non-English students. The collected data prove that speakers whose rhythm was manipulated are seen as less credible than those whose rhythm remained unchanged. When it comes to the difference between English students and non-English students, it..