ACOUSTICPHONETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF LENGTHENING IN STUTTERING AND NONSTUTTERING SPEECH

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ACOUSTICPHONETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF LENGTHENING IN STUTTERING AND NONSTUTTERING SPEECH

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Title: ACOUSTICPHONETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF LENGTHENING IN STUTTERING AND NONSTUTTERING SPEECH

1
ACOUSTIC-PHONETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF LENGTHENING
IN STUTTERING AND NON-STUTTERING SPEECH

Bóna, Judit PhD
assistant lecturer
Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Phonetics
H-1088 Budapest, Múzeum krt. 4/A, Hungary
bona_judit_at_freemail.hu

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to define the
criteria when lengthening as a disfluency would
be considered as non-typical. Spontaneous speech
of Hungarian adult stutterers was acoustically
analysed and compared to that of control
speakers. Our hypothesis is that there are
differences concerning the durations and
occurrences of lengthened speech sounds between
stutterers and non-stutterers.
2

HYPOTHESIS
Our hypothesis is that there are differences
concerning the speech sound durations and
occurrences of lengthening in the stutterers and
non-stutterers speech.
SUBJECTS, METHOD, MATERIAL
3 stutterers (1 serious, 2 mild ones ages
between 21 and 32) and 3 non-stutterers (ages
between 21 and 23). 1 female, 2 males in each
group.
5-minute spontaneous speech of all subjects was
recorded
Data 173 cases of lengthenings and 380 typically
pronounced speech sounds
Analysis Praat 5.0 and SPSS 13.0

INTRODUCTION
One of the most characteristic symptoms of
stuttering is the fitful lengthening of the
initial speech sounds of the words. The
occurrence and the phonetic properties of
lengthening seem to be speaker-dependent.
However, the lengthening is a phenomenon that can
be found frequently in non-stuttering speech as
well.
In Hungarian spontaneous speech lengthening can
be spotted mostly with vowels frequently on
definite articles (a and az). The perception of
lengthening depends on various factors including
actual duration of the speech sound.
However, there is little information about the
acoustic-phonetic properties of lengthening in
spontaneous speech of stutterers.

3
Ratio of durations of lengthened sounds compared
to normal ones () Lengthened duration values
divided by average values of duration.
Duration of lengthened speech sounds
st stutterers nst non-stutterers f
females m males
4
THE LENGHTENINGS OF THE SERIOUS STUTTERERS
F (1,115) 12,785 p 0.001
60 of lengthened sounds were accompanied by
turbulent noise (the more serious the stuttering
the more frequently appeared).
5
OCCURRENCES

Normal subjects
Frequency 1 to 1.2 lengthenings per 100 words

Stutterers
Frequency 4.5 to 42 lengthenings per 100 words

55 of the lengthened sounds occurred on the
first sound of the word.
6
CONCLUSIONS

The absolute duration of lengthening is longer
with serious stutterers than with those of mild
stutterers and non-stutterers. Lengthening is (i)
frequently longer than 1 sec and (ii) accompanied
by turbulent noise with serious stutterers.
The consonants are more frequently lengthened
than the vowels by the stutterers. The control
speakers show the tendency to lengthen the
vowels.
There is no difference in the durations of
lengthenings between mild stutterers and the
control speakers.
There are differences, however, in the phenomenon
of lengthenings between mild stutterers and
non-stutterers concerning
their frequency,
the type of the lengthened sounds, and
the word categories where they occur.
The form of occurrence of lengthening seems to be
definitive in early identification of stuttering.