Luận văn a comparative study on how hesitation and reservedness is expressed via prosodic means in english and the equivalent expressions in vietnamese

Chapter 2: HESITATION AND RESERVEDNESS EXPRESSED VIA PROSODIC FEATURES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 2.2.2.4 Loudness or intensity 2.3 Comparison: prosodic cues for hesitation and reservedn

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, ITANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POS'T- GRADUATE STUDIES

trong Tiếng Việt)

M.A Minor Program Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

HANOI - 2010

FACULTY OF POS'T- GRADUATE STUDIES

trong Tiếng Việt)

M.A Minor Program Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Nguyén Hương Giang, M.A

HANOI - 2010

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION

1 Rationale of the study

2 Aims of the study

3 Scope of the study

4, Methods of the study

5, Design of the study

1.3.2.1 Pitch Cor [Imdarnonlaf froquency)

1.3.2.2 Loudness (or intensity)

10

10

11

12

Chapter 2: HESITATION AND RESERVEDNESS EXPRESSED VIA

PROSODIC FEATURES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

2.2.2.4 Loudness (or intensity)

2.3 Comparison: prosodic cues for hesitation and reservedness in linglish

Chapter 3: IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE

SPEAKING

3.1 Hesitation phenomena in English Language Teaching classroom (FLT)

3.2 Using filled pauses to gain processing time

3.3 Implicalions for improving siutonis’ speaking fluency

3.4 Summary

Chapter 4: SOME KEY FINDINGS

4.1 Hesitation and rescrvedness in English and Victnamesc specch

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1; Praat Editor showing waveform, spectrogram and TextGrid

Figwe 2: Mustzalion of pitch contour of “No” on Praal Screen

Figure 3: Pitch contour of the sentence “Um u no, I don’t think so I can’t

Table 2: Speaking rate (syllablas/second) before and after each pause

Table 3; Summary of prosodic features which contribute to the expression of

hesitation

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

4 Rationale of the study

For many people, learning English is uneasy and mastering it is more difficult, Some people underestimate that a learner only needs to have a treasury of vocabulary ar good Imowledge of grammar, he can speak English Mucnlly Tt is a concerning problem in teaching and learning a foreign language at schools, universities and centers because it causes leamers to waste much more time and effort while the achievements are not up to their expcetations At English lessons, there cxist many situations in which teachers ask students to answer the questions or read a text aloud, the students feel embarrassed and shy even they orly response in whisper or murmur Il is not because they da nol have any vocabidary in their mind or they do not know how to arrange words in a correct pramunar But the fact that students are aftaid of pronouncing words wrongly or making mistakes

‘These phenomena directly or indirectly hinder the effectiveness and motivation of leaming

a forcign language

It is common knowledge that among phonctic aspects, prosody is considered a erucial factor which helps leamers master a communicative skill People usually talk much about intonation, stress or zhythm in language while prosody is rarely mentioned, However, in Linguistics, intonation, stress and thythm maiuly refer lo prosadic components

The Bille “a comparative study of how hesitation and reservedness is expressed via prosodic features and its equivalents in Vieinamese” was chosen for my M.A thesis

‘because of some following reasons First of all, prosody is a new area and not many studies

of students have been conducted on the basis of this theory because it is difficult and challcnging Meanwhile, prosody plays an important role in the comprchension of spoken language, it helps human in recognition of spoken words, in resolving global and local ambiguities and in processing discourse structure Therefore, il will be worth conducting a study on this area, Secondly, in the world of English language teaching (ELT), however, the communicative value of hesitation in speech has been largely ignored ‘The prevailing

I do hope that my work can give more insight info the similarities and differences of hesitation via prosodic means bslween two languages in which English is a slresselimed

language and Vietnamese is a tonal language

2 Aims of the study

The main aims of this study arc:

- ‘To explore prosodic features in English which express hesitation and

teservedrass,

- Ta provide a brief account of similarities and differences between hesitation and

reservedness expressed via prosodic features in English and Viemamese,

-'To give some proposals for further study and suggestions for improving speaking

skill

To fully achieve the stated aims, the study should answer the following basic questions:

- What are the prosodic features used to express hesitation and reservedness in English spontancous speceh?

- What are the similarities and differences in the expression of hesitation and

reservedness by prosody in English and Vietnamese?

- What tips are utilized to improve speaking fluency?

3 Scope of the stuty

Many fields relating to hesitation phenomena and prosodic features need to be

explored However, dus to the limitzd time and available facilities, this thesis only focuses

on the following aspects:

+ Tlesilation and reservediness in spontaneous speech,

- Typieal types of hesitation and reservedness in English and their equivalences in Vietnamese including silent pauses, filled pauses, repetitions, syllable lengthening

+ Only prosodic features of pitch, length, fondness and tompo are explored in he expression of hesitation and reservedness

- Only British English is chosen for the standard sound and the Norther dialect m

Victnan s utilized as the standard sound in this

4 Methods of the sturdy

In order to explore the differonecs and similaritics in cxpressing hesitation and reservednass via prosodic features, comparative study (CS) is utilized as the key method of the study Tere, Engtish is employed as the instrumental language Besides, systerizztion and generalization fiom previous studies are also integrated as reference for this thesis

To amlyve exactly the expression of hesitation and rescrvedness via prosody, cornpuler software such as PRAAT is applied despite the fact that transcribing prosodic features is really challenging and costly for a M.A student The information sources for analysis come from interviews at different situations recorded from Vietnamese channels such as VI'VI and textbooks such as TOEFL, NEW HEADWAY Other sources are also utilized in this study

A survey is also conducted to find ont how students express their hssitance and how they adapi to hesitation stralogics lo gain speaking fucney Then, the daia are collected,

analyzed and synthesized

5 Design of the study

This study is completed ơn the ba

of three separating parts: introduction, development and conclusion,

Part A is “INTRODUCTION” which gives the readers an overview of the reasons for

choosing the topic, the aims, the scope, the methods applied and the design of the study,

Part B entitled “DEVELOPMENT” which plays the most crucial role in the whole

study TL is considered as the backbone of the study This part consists of three main chapters, Chapter 1 shows the theoretical background of hesitation, rescrvediness and prosody, Chapter 2 explores the similarities and differences of hesitation and reservedness

Parl © is “CONCTASION” in which the author will give the readers some concluding:

remarks as well as suggestions for further study

PART B; DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In order to create the basis for analyzing and synthesizing the data in the main part of the study, it is necessary for the author to have a comprehensive understanding of theoretical background In this part, the author will help the readers understand more aboul the history of hesitation phenomena research which is also the basis for the author to conduct the study Besides, the nature of hesitation and reservedness in spontaneous speech

is revealed with the provision of definitions and types Prosody is another core point which the study focuses on so the author tries to clarify its concepts and features as well Here, prosody is simultaneously clarified in both English and Vietnamese language This enables the author to have a good approach in analyzing the similarities and differences of both Janguages in the later chapter

1.1 Literature review

‘The existence of hesitation and reservedness phenomena is a universal charactezistic of spontaneous speech in any language Hence, this phenomenon has really attracted the aticntion of many rescarchsrs all aver the world wha inspire to find oul what fcatures contribute to the impressian of hesitant speech

Much contemporary research on hesitation phenomena in specch was derived from the

work of Goldman-Kisler (1968: 48), who argues that the analysis of speech pauses

provides an extemal window upon the internal constructive processes of speech selection

and organization Following Goldman- Eisler, a fair amount of work has been done on hesitations in spontaneous dialogues and monologues For example, Beattie (1979: 61-78) suggesis thal hesilation phenomena can be useful in studying various psycholinguistic

processes

In this study, I am interested in cxploring prosodic features to express hesitations and reservednass; therefore, the studies of Eklund (2004) and Lovgren & Van Doorn (2005) provide a usefal background when they have shown that panses and retardations are among the acoustic corrclates of hesitations Moreover, it is worth mentioning the studies of Rolf Carlson, Kjell Gustaison, and Eva Strangert (2006:1) when they prove that the total

‘The resulis of mentioned-above English studies will be extremely valuable for the present study, However, in Vietnamese language there have not yet been any works about the expressions of hesitation via prosod:

for reference Only some studies related to

‘Vicinatngse tones are considered such as Tiéng Viet may vdn dé Ngit am - Ngữ phap - Net

nnglấa by Cao Xuân Hạo (1998) and Ngữ âm Tiếng Piêt by Đoàn Thiên Thuật (2003) On the basis of available materials, this study will give one more insight into hesitation

expressed by prosodic means in both English and Viemamese

1.2 Hesitation and reservedness

1.2.1 Definition of hesitation

The term “hesitation” is defined fiom many different perspectives Pirat of all from the

perspective of psychology the Oxford Advanced Leamer’s Dictionary 5" Rdition

(1995:559) gives a clear concept: “Hesitation ix the status of being slaw to speak or act

because one feels uncertain or unwilling, to PAUSE in doubt or being worried about or

shy of doing something” Frown the similar point of view, th: Macrillan Dictionary for Advanced Learners 2" Edition (2002), a popular online dictionary for English leamers, also explains that hesitation is a pause before doing something, or a feeling that you should not do it, especially because you are nervous, cmubarrassed, or worried Synonyms or xelated words for this meaning of hesitation can be found in words such as “unceitainty, doubt, reservation, question, reserve”

With regard to hesitation in spontaneous speech, a lot of definitions are given by linguisls but it is uneasy lo have a common definition Firstly, Fox Tree and Clark

(1997-152) defined hesitation as a phenomenon which occurs wlien “the speaker doey not inmediately find an adequate option for language production and ix compelled to

temporarily delay the output to solve his or her difficulties’ Later, Rolf Carlson, Kjell

Gustafson, and Fva Strangert in another study gave similar concept about hesitation

(2006: 21 24): “hesitation is the phenomenon when you are uncertain to what to say or

you have problems in lexical access ar in the structuring of utterances oy in searching

Seedback from a listener”.

Obviously Hox ‘Ite and Clark and Rolf Carlson gave out the same explanations when

be understood similarly as hesitation when both of them refer to doubt of doing something

or uncertainty to give an utterance Liowever, in the light of linguistics, the term

“yoservednass” is seldom mentioned because it is considered @ synonytn Lo hesilation

1.2.3 Types of hesilation and reservedness in spontaneous xpeech

Tn spontancous speech, whan being hesilanl, tho speaker can usc various ways lo convey his message, For example, while studying verbal planning in childten’s speech, Urian MacWhinney & Larry Osser (1977: 980) discovered 9 types of hesitation appearing

in speoch which can be recognized by the hearcis They consist of silent pause, filled pause, drawls, initial segment phonological repetitions, word- included phonological zepetitions, word repetitions, sentence incompletion, false starts and phonological corrections Actually, these nine types of hesitation can be grouped into five: silent pause, filled pause, drawls, repetitions and falsc starts Similarly, Hicke (1981: 157-158) offered one possible classification of hesitation phenomena including silent pauses, filled pauses,

pauses are indicative of the strength of association belwesn sequential linguistic elements” Silence has its own communicative value It is possible that the speaker deliberately put pauses into his speech to make the listener’s job easier, or to aid them to segment speech or

to give thơm firme to parse the spocch, We have pauses al, the ond of syntactical boundaric

‘Dreathing pauses and hesitation pauses, In order to differentiate among these types of pauses, we can look at the below example in @ conversation taken from the sindy of Davidson in which silence is inserted into

A; Well did you want me to just pick you- gct into Robinson’s so you could buy a Little pair of slippers?

Gilence) A; Imean or can I got you something?

(based on Davidson, 1984: 104)

Obviously, the silence follows the proposal or request which Ihe speaker offers lo the hearer, However, the appearance of silence implies that the speaker understands their hearer to be reluctant, not hearing, or for some other reason slow to respond Hence, the

speaker’s silence is an intentional signal or it is a hesitation pause

at is the distinguishing fillers, The examples of (1) and (2) illustrate the most prevalent forms of filled pauses in English and Vietnamese,

(QA: Tomorrow will you ge lo the cinema with me?

Bo To ah am busy

@) A: Em cén dmg đây làm gì nữa?

Ð: Em nghĩ ừm là chimg la cd (hẾ giúp anh tá

It can be seen that hy in English and Aim/ in Vietnamese are not uttered randomly by the speakers, In both different situations, the speakers tend to produce more /ub/ and Aimn/

before answers because they feet hesitant Below i:

the summary of fitted pauses easily

found in English and the equivalences in Vietnamese

Table 1: Summary of yacalived fillers in English and the equivalences in Vietnamese

(Umm Téi khéng chắc lắm.)

(Ứm Tôi không biết ding na thd nao cả)

phrase is repeated, e.g: "to-to-to-tamorrow"

Repetitions in spontaneous speech in most cases involve a first instance of the repeated word (RE), a possible silent pausc (SIL), a second instance of the repeated word (R2), and continuation of the utterance An example is given below

(a) Lmúght (RL) might (R2) have to go to the cla- class

(b} I might (81) (SIL) might (22) have to go to the cla- class

In Vietnamese, repetition offen occurs in dialogues as a way of expressing the speaker's altitude, Like English lamguage, Vietnamese people can make use of repeating « word; c@: “Tôi đõi tôi xin lỗi sm, Có lẽ không cần nữa “(Erom the short story Con

bẻ về Gã lang thang: 15 by Chiêu Hoàng)

1.1.3.4 Syilable lengthening

Apart from hesitation markers like filled pauses, syllable lengthening is quite common

in spontaneous speech The speaker can fengihen the syllables or words, e.g: Engtish spoukers oflon Tengthen the words “and” and Swo:ll” in thair ultorance as in the foltowing example; “Yesterday he came a.nd asked about your book” Moreover, the most common instance of lengthening occurs when the particle “the” is pronounced as “thee” in and the ending vowel sound is drawn oul pas! its usually enunciated duration

Tn Visinamese language, syllable lengihening is quite popular in daily conversations as

in the below example:

‘Teacher: ‘Tai sao em không lâm bài tập?

Sluđent: Eam xin lỗi thấy nhưng rik

The student is quite embarrassed when the teachar asks him the reason why he has not ñnishsd homework In order to avoid giving a complete answer to the teacher, the student lengthens the words “em” and “ma” in the same ullcrance,

1.3 Prosody

1.3.1 Definition of prosody

Prosody is an important component of language and speech so it is necessary for the

xcaders to catch possible definitions and concepts of this term from different views In

Linguistics, prosody can be defined as the features that do not determine what people are saying, but rather how they are saying it We can use the term “prosody” broadly, meaning

“a tima series of speech-related information that is not predictahle from a reasonable

window (i.e word-sized or sentenoe-sized) applied to the phoneme sequence” (Cutler, A, Dahan, D., van Donselaar, 1997: 141-201) Clearly prosody is a parallel channel for

communivation, varying some information thal, camol be sitmply deduced from the lexical

channel, With this understanding, hand gestures, eyebrow and face motions, can be

of view (perception), or as an acoustic manifestation (measurement)

1.3.2.1 Pitch (or Fundamental Frequency)

Pitch is an important component to establish intonation of utterances, especially for

English It is defined as the frequency of vibration of vocal cords and the relative height of

speech sounds as perceived by a listener Pitch represents the fimdamental frequency (0)

of ils signal which is calculated as the number of repetitions, or cycles, of tts waveform per

second, and given in Herta (7:.) Pitch varies over an entire phrase or sentence, which is

amanifested by different pitch curves In English, three main levels: fall, rise and level can

combing to formulate palierns of pitch including fall, rise, [fall- rise, rise — fall, level Hach pattern of pitch carries its own function, e.g: fail (the impression of completeness and finality), rise (a certain degree of doubt’ uncertainty), rise fall (strong feeling of approval

or certainty), fail — rise (limited agreement or response with reservations or hesitation),

1evel (a feđing of saying something routine, uninicrasting or haring) For cxampte:

- Today we learn English phonetics y (With falling tone, the speaker wants to give a

statement)

- ‘Today we learn English phonetics “(With rising tone, the speaker puts a question to the hearer)

Different from English language, Vietnamese is a tonal language in which there exist six tones (Ngo Nhu Binh, 2001: 12-14), ‘Tones have distinctive pitch contours: gang has

an almost level contour (¢.g: ma), Sốc has high rising comaur (¢.g: 4), Ng@ also has an overall rising pattem, but interrupted by a glottalization in the middle (e.g: mi); Huyén has

a falling tone (e.g: ma), Nang has a drop tone interrupted by a glottalisation (e.g: ma) and

Fai is gradually falling then rising in the fasl third back fo the original Laval (vg: mi) A change of pitch in Vietnamese can make words change their meaning but it can not change the meaning of the whole utterance like that in English For example: "DAy 14 mét nha tho Jon" (Gut is 4 famous pool) versus "Pay 1a mdt nha thờ lớn" (thai is a big church) fr the first example a level tone is indicated for the underlined word, whereas in the second example, the underlined word has the falling tone.)

13.2.2 Loudness (or intensity)

According to Peter Roach, most people seem to feel that stressed syllables are louder

than unstressed: in other words, loudness is a component of prominence (1983:72-73) Ifin

heard as stressed syllable Nevertheless, only with changing the loudness of one syllable,

‘the speaker will encounter some difficulties and the perceptual effect of stress is not strong

ical syllables, onc is uttered with the intens

Loudness is a perceptual response to the physical property of intensity

Unlike English language, Victhameso is » syltable-timed language in whivk the thythm appears to be fairly even, with each syllable giving the impression of having about the same duration and force as any other, therefore, Vietnamese try to stress syllables by increasing only the volume Loudness in Victram appears in the whole word if the volume changes

23.2.3 Tempo

Every speaker knaws how lo speak af different rates, and this linguistic usc of speaking rate is fiequently called tempo, In the study of speech rate, it is usual to measure either syllables per second or phonemes per second Most speakers seem to produce speech at a

zate of five or six syllables per second, or ten to twelve phonemes per second.

13

Many studies have shown that the speech rate of stress- timed languages (e.g Linglish) is generally lower han that of sy{lable-timed languages (c.g Vietnamese) owing to the fret that

‘the syllable -timed languages tend to have a relatively simmple syllable structure

Eg ba (Dư father nda

me /me/ mother /mAdé/

13.2.4 Length (or duration)

‘The amount of time that a sound lasts for is a very important feature of that sound In the study of speech, it is usual to use the term “length” for the listener's impression of how long a sounds lasts for, and duration for the physical, objectively measurable time For example, Ï amight listen to a recording of the following syllables and judge that the first two contained short vowels while the vowels in the second two are long: / bit bet bit bat /, that isa judgmenl of length Butif T use a taboratory instrament tom

that the vowels last for 100, 110, 170 and 180 milliseconds respectively, ] have made a Toeasurement of duration

we those recordings and find

Chapter 2: HESITATION AND RESERVEDNESS VIA PROSODIC FEATURES IN

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

In this main part of the study, what 1 would want to do is to apply the comparative study approach in analyzing English and Viemamese samples The analysis is to uncover what prosodic fealures contribute lo the expression of hesitation and rescrvcdness in English and

‘Vietnamese spontaneous speech, Here, English is used as an instrumental language Prosodic features including pitch, duration, loudness and tempo are tested on PRAAT software to determine whether they have any influcnce on hesitant speech On the basis of data collection and analysis, the author draws out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese prosodic features in showitys hesitation and reservedness

2.1 Procedures

2.1.1 Collecting samples of spontaneous speech

In this study, the following data are ufilized:

© In English; three job interviews are extracted from online TOEFL tests Each individual short sequence lasts for about 5-7 minutes The applicant in the first interview is male; two applicants in the other interviews are female Each applicant is in a different mood (overconfident, shy and technical) Howe

r, the sludy only focuses on the prosodic cucs for hesitation, therefore, psychological factors are omitted

« In Victnamesc: three interviews arc recorded from the program “Gỗ cửa ngày mới” on

VTVI (a national television channel) Each intrview lasts for 4- 5 minutes and famons people are inviled for the imferview lo talk about their career and life The inlerviewees who appear in the first and the last interview are male The other interview is female

Most sclected samptcs in both English and Victnamese are al the sconaio of interviews, The reason is because the nature of an interview 1s that one asks and the other answers Therefore, the speakers are not always equally confident about or committed to what they arc saying, When asked a question, for instance, they can be certain or rather doubtful about the correctness of their answer, and they may be unable to respond at all, even though in some cases it might feel as if the answer lies on the tip of the tongue ‘These charactorislics are appropriate for analyzing hesitation phenomena in spantaneous spocch

2.1.2 Methods

Afier careful listening, the author analyzed the records in both English and Vietnamese

by using automatic speech digitalization technique PRAAT, a programme especially

developed and designed for speech analysis computer by P Boersma and D.Weenink at the

Phonetic Sciences Department of the University of Amsterdam was applied Duration,

fundamental frequency, loudness and tempo were analyzed, whereby the average FO was

measured (expressed in Hz), and its duration (in milliseconds) Read more about PRAAT

software program at http://praat.org

In order to mark hesitation phenomena in each extract, the transcriptions were also

used The following conventions of transcription were defined during the analysis All

texts are written in small letters “: ” indicates lengthening of syllable {.) refers to silent

pause, “* *” refers to a inserted filled pause, “{number}” marks a pause with a duration

of milliseconds (e.g: {102} means a pause with a duration of 102 milliseconds), “//”

indicates a tone unit boundary marker

2.1.3 Methodological difficulties

A total of 19 minutes 29 second in English speech and 13 minutes 32 second in Vietnamese speech was collected from six subjects However, many issues arose during recording that are worth mentioning here Firstly, the processing of audio and video data

required very powerful computer resources while the author finds it really unfamiliar

Even, this is the first time the author has the chance to access to phonetics analysis by

computer software Besides, transcribing and analyzing audio and video data is extremely

time- consuming Especially, the author had to calculate the speaking rate Another

difficulty is that purely automatized speech processing is error-sensitive because it requires the subjectivity Finally, the subjects were downloaded again from the available resources

but not directly recorded; therefore, the quality of sound was not good and some errors

during playing the records could happen

2.2 Data analysis

2.2.1 Prosodic feature analysis of hesitation and reservedness in the English samples

In order to characterize the speech at the prosodic level, prosodic values such as duration, FO slopes, speaking tempo and loudness were measured by Praat version 5.1.3.7.

carefully to each corpus These sentences were digitized and then transcribed in Praat using

TextGrids Figure | illustrates the sentence which was entered into Praat using Textgrid for

analysis In this figure, blue line, grayish image, red speckles and yellow or green line show pitch contour, spectrum, formant and pulses respectively We can get the values of fundamental frequency in Hz, duration in seconds and speaking tempo in syllable/second,

Besides, pauses are represented as blank lines (see Praat screen on Figure 1)

An important feature to take into account when modeling pitch in hesitation

phenomena is FO slope For example, syllables at the end of a sentence are mainly

pronounced with a descending pitch slope, but an interrogative sentence ends with a rising

pitch Therefore, it is reasonable to investigate whether there is a standard pitch slope for

hesitations or whether, on the other hand, it depends on other aspects, such as semantics or

syntax

17

We will check pitch contour in a typical example extracted from different samples

Firstly, we begin with the second sample in which the applicant appears to be unconfident

just at the beginning of the interview Look at the following dialogue:

(1) PP: Welcome Now I know you live locally, so I trust you didn’t have to travel too far

Candidate: No

(Interview 2, line 1-4) The candidate responds to the question by an answer “no” which consists of a fall pitch

from rather high to low and then rise to about the middle of the voice In this context, the

candidate is quite nervous to begin answering the question given by the interviewer So,

she is reluctant to agree what the interviewer says or in other words, she responds with reservation On Praat screen, this is represented in a fall- rise pitch contour (see black curve in figure 2)

Figure 2: Illustration of pitch contour of “No” on Praat screen

In another example, hesitation is expressed more clearly when filled pauses and pauses appear at the same time Consider the following extract:

(2) PP: Finally, are there any questions you'd like to ask us?

[She thinks for a while]

C: Um u no, I don’t think so I can’t think of anything

(Interview 2, line 78-80)

Figure 3: Pitch contour of the sentence “Um

I don’t think so I can’t think of anything”

On Praat screen, the answer “no” also is represented in a fall- rise pitch contour,

Obviously, the use of the fall- rise tune in this case shows reservation on the part of the speaker when it is preceded by filled pauses “um” and “u” and long silent pauses Also, we can use fundamental frequency (F0) to demonstrate the change of pitch contour FO slope

is manipulated in Hz and it ranges from 75-500 Hz, The word “no” /now/ is a single

syllable which has an onset The F0 value of onset (FO start value) and the F0 value of the syllable- ending (FO end value) are measured in Hz From automatic analysis using Praat

TextGrid, we get FO start value at 228.1 Hz, then decreasing to 181.3 Hz and rising again

at F0 end value (200.1 Hz) This means that pitch descends and then rises again

In conclusion, when the speaker wants to implicate a limited agreement or respond

with reservations, he can use a fall-tise pitch to convey his intention

2.2.1.2 Duration

Duration is the most important cue to the impression of hesitation Firstly, we pay

attention to the duration of the pauses and determine how it changes on the part of hesitant

speech As far as duration is concemed, the first parameter we test is the length of pauses which is measured in millisecond (ms) Length is scaled automatically using the Praat

version 5.1.3.7 duration tier manipulation standard settings Consider the following

examples in which pauses are represented in milliseconds between brackets:

19

(3) Yeah, no problem.{120} 1 left loads of time ‘cos you know what the trains are like nowadays {240} And T wasn’t really sure where tho Hepplewarth sile was, bul er (333) the direetions you *er* sent me were crystal clear.// (Interview 1, line 6 11)

(3/ Um (5005} w (1831} no {1221} 1 don’t think so {2099} // 1 can’t think of anylhing./! (Taterview 2, line 80)

(5) // (2332) no, sorry (598} that’s the molecular ion (2710} The base peak is {2881} the most intense peak {1086} // All the other peaks are relative to this (927}// I can’t teiove T got thom mixed up if (Interview 3, line 29-30)

In example 3, there are very short silent pauses (120 ms, 240 ms) which appear when the applicant has apparently figured ont what he wants to convey (subsequent delivery is fairly Qucnt}, but is just trying to slop for breathing Tn other words, those pans

play the demaxeative role between different syntactic components The pause after the filler /er/ seems to last longer (333 ms) when the applicant is trying to find next words However, the duration increase in this case is not significant In contrast, there are significant pauses of amore than one sccond in cxample 4 producing the delay device of ‘no immediately forthcoming talk” Even, the pause after the “um” lasts within five seconds and occurs when the speaker is struggling with her hesitant, response Similarly, in example 3 the applicant is finding it difficult to express her idea so she is trying to delay the time for each next act, Minimum duration of pauses in example 5 is 598 ms, which is longer than the maximum duration in example 3 (1265 ms), Tn terms of silent pauses, it can be conchudled

sion of hositanec:

that the longer the pause is, the more certain thờ imipr 3

We continue to (est in terms of filled pauses and syllable lengthening whether the duration has any change In the examples (3), (4) and (5), there exist three filled pauses

“er”, “um” and “u” and one syllable fengthening “no” The average duration of filled

pauses is 510 ms and the average duration of syllable lengthening is 600 ms Whereas, other nommat words in the same utterance only get average duration of 100 ms or less It means that there is the total duration increase of filled pauses and syllable lengthening m

case of hesilation

2.2.1.3 Speaking tempo

Speaking tempo (or speaking tale) has also besn used to demonstrale iis influenice on hesitant specch, Phonotic spoaking rate is usually expressed in a syflabls- por- second svale

or average syllable curation We will test the expression of hesitation phenomena by caleulating spcuking ralc before and after a panse Normully, a long silent pause or a filled pause shows that the speaker is being hesitant to utter his speech We do not measure the tempo at pause points Instead, the tempo before and after a pause is tested to determine whether speaking tale changes when hesitation occurs Three most typical examples are extracted fiom different samples in wluch the pauses are demonstrated to reflect hesitation

in the speech

(© Tithink, *onn* (it was probably problem-solving *Frm#{}! Team the course,

the apparatus we used, *erm* (.} ° weren't really explained within the course (Lulerview

1, line 81-83)

(7) Sony, ycah, Tenm# (} “®TI wøs £_}? thái

you think it will {.} And that {.) you don’t always get the results yơu want./ Anterview 2, line 31-34)

(8) ‘ino, sorry (.}? that’s the molecular ion {}© The base peak is (}°? the most

iuifense peak{.} “All the other peaks are relative to this {.}"° 1 can’t believe I got them

mixed up./! (Interview 3, line 29-30)

arch always takes a lol longor than

From the above examples, we can lave the total of 12 pauses (qranses are represented in period between brackets) Pauses are marked by ordinal number to identify the order of each pause From the automatic analysis of Praat software, we get the speaking rate before and afler a pause as shown in the below table

21

‘Table 2: Speaking rate (syllables/second) before and after each pause

If we sel pT as average syllable duration before pause anil p2 as average syllable duration after pause, we get pl<p2 (pl 0.908, p2 0.950) The rate of speech of the speaker is slower before the pause than after it ‘his means that the speaker has a lower rate of speech

while looking for hor words or ideas, U sand has @ quicker Tale of sp

she has found her words,

2.2.1.4 Loudness (ar intensify)

Hesilalion phenomena ars manipulated most olzarly in the English corpora through filled pauses, Some people perceive them as non-linguistic signals (pauses filled with sound) and other perceive them as linguistic signals — words of nglish Yo be neutral and

yal retain a bil of some views, we call ther fillers ine the th Fillers are eluraclerived by

“um”, “erm”, “er”, “em”, “uh” in the given samples Below are some examples in which

the fillers ocour quite frequently

(9) T think, *snn* it was probably problem-solving *Enn* T mean the course, the

apparatus we used, *crm* weren't really explained within the course./! (interview J, line

81-82)

(10) *Um* *u* no T đơn think so Tcaw'1think of anything (interview 2, line 80)

Fillers in the above sentances ar2 represented in unstressed syllables Although the

speakers try to lengthen them with longer duration but they are heard much quieter and softer These fillers appear as reduced vowels or as schwas If we listen carefully to (he

sentences in the records, we will see these fillers pronounced with lower intensity in

comparison with other syllables in the same utterance

2.2.1.5 Summary

In the English corpus, silent pauses and filled pauses are the most powerful signals for hesitation than other factors Repetitions and final lengthening also play a quite important role in marking hesitation in lhe uifcrances; however, thơit appemrameo is noi significant in

the given English samples We have shown what is specific in terms of prosody to

comiribule to the perception of hesitant spcoch on surface level The results support th: conclusion that the change of pitch contour, duration and speaking tempo are the valid cues for hesitation hese cues are summarized in the following table:

Duration Duration increase ot the pause is longer

Speaking lempo Speaking tale is dower before than aller the

pause Intensity Lower intensity of filled pauses

2.2.2 Prosodic feature analysis of hesitation and reservednes in the Vietnamese samples

We apply the sane methods as in the English samples to analyving and syulhesiving hesitation phenomena in the Vietnamese corpus We have analyzed the presence of four

types of hesitation including silent pauses, filled pauses, repetitions and final lengthening

in thie different samples All of the samples are spontaneous speach in which the participants involve into the interviews The corpus here was a selection of sentences from

Vietnamese samples under Praat using ‘Textgrid 24 sentences were selected from three

different speakers (two male and one (ernalk) to contain as much hesilations as possible: 34 silent pauses, 9 filled pauses and 5 repetitions Phonetic segmentation was performed automatically and corrected manually The prosodic features were analyzed to test their effect on hesitant speech

2.2.2.1 Itch contour

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In the selected Vietnamese corpus, hesitation points fall on the individual words; thus,

pitch is also an inherent part of the individual words Hesitation point is a flat contour if it

exists on a word with “ngang” tone However, pitch contour will change at hesitation point

if that word carries “huyén” tone (falling tone), Look at the following example:

(11) Em đang là thợ cắt tóc ở dưới tỉnh Hỏi trước em (M) em có tham gia câu lạc bộ

người mẫu, nhưng mà (E)

In the context of asking for a help, the speaker is hesitant to give out her intention to the

listener Her hesitation is expressed by pausing at the words “em” and “nhtmg ma” Pitch contour will be tested at points in which a hesitation is placed either in the middle part (M)

or at the ending (E) of the utterance We get a flat contour at the point M and a falling

contour at the point E because they are associated with individual syllables “em” and

“ma”

Whether the hypothesis is true for every case that pitch is associated with individual

syllables regardless of hesitation points This is verified in another example:

(12) Khỏ nhất của em d6 1a im (M) chon màu bởi vì khi còn nhỏ em vẫn chưa biết hết

mọi màu nên cảm nhận mảu rất là khó (E)

Similarly, we will test pitch contour at two hesitation positions M and E At the point M, pitch is a falling contour because it appears after a falling tone “1a”, at the point E, pitch is

a rising contour as it appears after a rising tone “kh6” These points are very clearly

illustrated on Praat screen in which pitch contour is represented by black dot lines (see

It can be easily seen that two hesitation poinfs M and L have different pitch contours:

Tn conclusion, pitch contour docs nol convey purposes of the speaker im the sare Vietnamese utterance In this ease, a question is raised which prosodic factors contribute to the expression of hesitation in Vietnamese speech At hesitation points, there exist the pauses followed and preceded by filled pauses or repetitions A hypothesis is given out that

the duration and volume of these filled pauses and repetitions changes

2.2.2.2 Duration

Normally, Vietnamese spoukers may have difficully in producing the fongsr words of stress-timed languages like English because each syllable of Vietnamese utterance will receive equal weight Is this true for the case in which hesitation points exist? In example

11 and 12, The words “om” “nhưng mà”, “ừm”, “khó” cxist before hesitation points, which are followed by pauses From automatically extracted Praat software, the average duration of these words is 310 ms; meanwhile the average duration of other normal words

is 305 ms, The difference belween the average duration of the words before hesitation points and that of other words is not significant although there is an increase in total duration Besides, it is very difficult for the author fo extract the average duration of each

Vicinamase syllabls because the speaker maintains modcrale speaking specd between words Look at another example:

(13) PV: Chi o6 thay sự đổi khác không khi mà chỉ nhập vai?

HX: Tôi nghĩ là có ' Bởi vì lát cả những vai điễn trước đây cửa tôi cũng có những vai

xmà dễu là có gia đình rồi và có con thế nhưng ma thục sự nó ” nó nó không đời

thường như vai điễn “Nhà có nhiều của số”

1fesitation points zre marked by orổïnal nmmber 1, 2, 3 AI these poinds, the preceding words receive the average duration of 318 ms, 317 ms and 320 ms respectively Other normal words get the average duration of 315 ms Obviously, syllables in Vietnamese ufterance receive relatively equal weight regardless of (heir occurrence before hesitation

points,