Prosody and Humor
Acoustic-perceptual correlates of sarcasm in speech
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Acoustic-perceptual correlates of sarcasm in speech There is a body of literature that links sarcasm to characteristic shifts in several acoustic parameters of spoken language. Various investigators have furnished evi- dence that speakers convey sarcasm through manipulations of fundamental fre- quency (F0), amplitude, speech rate, voice quality, and/or nasal resonance (e.g., Anolli et al. 2002; Rockwell 2000a, 2005, 2007; Schaffer 1982). However, the spe- cific patterns associated with sarcastic utterances, such as whether speakers tend to raise (Anolli et al. 2002; Attardo, Eisterhold, Hay, and Poggi 2003) or lower (Rockwell 2000a; Schaffer 1982) their voice pitch/mean F0 to mark this attitude, are not always reported consistently. In addition, the available literature that is based on sarcastic expressions produced in English, French, Italian, and Japanese reveals both similarities and differences in the use of prosody among languages (Adachi 1996; Anolli et al. 2002; Laval and Bert-Erboul 2005; Rockwell 2000a). The most frequent points of commonality in sarcasm expression across languages involve speaker manipulation of F0/pitch and speech rate, whereas a more incon- sistent pattern has been reported for other acoustic parameters, such as changes in voice quality (see Haiman 1998, for an overview). Recently, we reported two complementary studies that describe the acous- tic features associated with sarcastic utterances in English and in Cantonese, and which directly compare these features between the two languages (Cheang and Pell 2008, 2009). In each of our two language conditions, a comparable set of ut- terances (e.g., “She is a healthy lady”) was elicited from six native speakers of each language to convey four distinct attitudes: sarcasm, sincerity, positive/humorous irony, and neutrality. A number of acoustic measures were then taken from each recorded utterance (e.g., F0 mean and range, amplitude mean and range, speech rate, harmonics to noise ratio) for cross-linguistic comparison (Cheang and Pell 2009). In general, our data show that there are reliable, text-independent acous- tic changes associated with the vocal expression of sarcasm in both English and Recognizing sarcasm without language 17 Cantonese. For English, sarcastic utterances exhibited a significantly lower F0 mean, restricted F0 variability, heightened levels of noise (i.e., reduced harmonics to noise ratio), and distinct resonance patterns from the other attitudes (Cheang and Pell 2008). For Cantonese, sarcasm was again acoustically distinct from the other attitudes but signalled with a significantly higher mean F0, restricted F0 variability, and restricted amplitude variability (Cheang and Pell 2009). Together, these studies support the argument that sarcasm in both English and Cantonese is marked by specific, albeit not identical, patterns of prosodic cues (Cheang and Pell 2008, 2009). The observation that acoustic profiles associated with sarcasm were not identical in English and Cantonese is perhaps not surprising, given that previous acoustic evaluations of sarcasm expressed in Japanese and French (among other languages) also report acoustic differences in this speech context (e.g., Adachi 1996; Laval and Bert-Eboul 2005). Upon further examination of our data, mean F0 emerged as an acoustic pa- rameter of particular importance for differentiating sarcasm from sincerity, hu- morous irony, and neutrality in the two languages, although this acoustic cue was employed differently by English versus Cantonese speakers: sarcasm in English displayed a lower F0 relative to the comparison attitudes, whereas sarcasm in Cantonese exhibited the highest F0 mean (Cheang and Pell 2009). Thus, global settings of mean F0 appear to be critical for highlighting the sarcastic intent of an utterance to listeners. Another key finding was that for both languages, the prosodic features associated with sarcastic expressions differentiated most clear- ly from those of sincere expressions; when the mean F0 of sarcastic expressions was lowered, the mean F0 of sincere expressions was raised and vice versa for the two languages (Cheang and Pell 2008, 2009). Finally, it is noteworthy that cer- tain acoustic cues were exploited in the same manner by speakers of English and Cantonese to convey sarcasm: speakers of both languages tended to restrict F0 variation within sarcastic utterances and to express sarcasm at a slower rate than the other attitudes. Thus, there are notable similarities in how speakers of English and Cantonese communicate sarcasm (i.e., through reduced F0 variation, reduced speech rate), as well as pronounced cross-language differences in how certain, potentially critical parameters are employed in this context (i.e., concerning the directionality of changes in mean F0). It is recognized that many acoustic differences observed in speech do not have a direct or proportional influence on the perception of intended meanings, includ- ing sarcasm (Rockwell 2007). As such, it is unclear how different conventions for marking sarcasm through prosody observed between languages (e.g., Cheang and Pell 2008, 2009) would affect the recognition of speaker intentions if presented in a cross-linguistic setting. It has even been suggested that verbal cues in sarcas- tic speech could transcend language boundaries (Haiman 1990) with a potential 18 Henry S. Cheang and Marc D. Pell impact on sarcasm perception between languages. The question of whether sarcas- tic intentions can be accurately detected by listeners exposed to a foreign language has not been tested to date (although cf. Bryant and Barrett 2007 for a related study which tested recognition of other speaker intentions in a cross-linguistic setting). It would be worthwhile to characterize the relationship between acoustic and perceptual measures of sarcasm in natural speech communication. As well, such research is of direct functional relevance to individuals in multi-cultural so- cieties who increasingly interact with people from different linguistic backgrounds and must learn to recognize negative intentions in the absence of native language experience. tải về 1.21 Mb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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