Pitch variation between L1 and L2 : a cross-cultural/Gender Comparison - Japanese and English
Date
1995
Authors
Muta, Yoshinobu
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Abstract
Eady (1982) stated that it seems intuitively evident that speakers of different languages utilize a different rate of laryngeal vibration when speaking in their own languages. Continuing discussions in the literature often point out that speakers of certain languages generally employ a higher pitch level than speakers of other languages. It has been reported that the pitch levels that Japanese women use, especially when speaking Japanese, are extremely high compared to female native-English speakers (Muta, 1994, Yamazawa & Hollien, 1992, Ohara, 1992). Although these researchers have attempted to explain the pitch differences found between specific language speakers or among specific nationalities, they have not yet clearly explained the reasons why these variations exist. It still appears to be an open question for further investigation. In the present study, Japanese and English passages read by bilingual Japanese and Canadian subjects were examined acoustically. Both children's stories and news articles were Mean speaking fundamental frequencies (SFF) of Japanese and Canadian subjects were obtained in both Japanese- speaking and English-speaking conditions. Minimum and maximum FO, pitch range, and reading speed were also investigated.
The aims of this research were to compare (1) SFF variation (over time), and (2) Reading Speed (over time) between languages, and across tasks and sexes. It was found that generally SFFs of both Japanese and Canadian female subjects were higher when reading the Japanese texts than when reading the English texts. Similarly, most male subjects utilized a higher pitch for reading the Japanese news article than for reading the English news article. However, no significant tendency was found for the male subjects when reading the children's story.
The author suggests that a combination of linguistic and sociolinguistic factors brought about the acoustic variation observed in this research. That is, when reading Japanese, the overall pitch levels utilized by both Japanese males and females rose because of the linguistic nature of Japanese, a pitch accent language, compared with English, an intonation language. However, sociolinguistic factors such as social role or expectation that Japanese men and women hold in their society have a substantial influence on the pitch employed. In other words, the extremely high pitch might eventually be utilized by the Japanese women because the sociolinguistic factors overlap with linguistic factors, whereas, the social expectations imposed on the Japanese males, particularly in the work place, cause them to lower their pitch levels to below those expected based on the linguistic structure of Japanese. The author further predicts that the present SFF characteristics of Japanese females and males may be changing gradually because the traditional social position of men and women is changing.