Assessment of Vietnamese tone using electric voice before and after training

After undergoingtotal laryngectomy, patients could speakby various methods: electric voice, tracheoesophageal voice or esophageal voice. The use of electric voice has shown high success rate,butpatients still experience difficulties in expressing the tones in the Vietnamese.

ASSESSMENT OF VIETNAMESE TONE USING ELECTRIC VOICE

BEFORE AND AFTER TRAINING

Pham Thi Bich Dao; Pham Tran Anh

Department of Otorhinolaryngology - Hanoi Medical University

After undergoingtotal laryngectomy, patients could speakby various methods: electric voice, tracheoe-sophageal voice or etracheoe-sophageal voice The use of electric voice has shown high success rate,butpatients still experience difficulties in expressing the tones in the Vietnamese Thus, they usually requireadditional practice to express the accent Thisstudy was conducted with 30 patients using electric voice method for 12 monthsto practice Vietnamese tonal language The results indicated thatgiven a regular conversation communicate by a particular patient using electric voice, a regular person cancatch 57.2% of the conversa-tion content, 56.2% of the words and 27.2% of the words' tone An analysis of the components of the 27.2 % audible tones yields the following statistics: “Ngang” tone and “Huyền” tone account for 89.1%, “Sắc” tone 34.5%, 18.9% “Hỏi” tone, “Nặng” tone 56.4%, “Ngã” tone 21.7% On graph tones have similar structures in normal tones with legendary “Ngang”, “Huyền”.After electronic voice training: vocal placement in the hollow electric bass blockers combined with the pronunciation accent tone when used electric voice 72.1% under-stand conversation, each sound 69.2%, 58.9% out of each tone, “ngang- level” tone, “Huyền- hanging” tone 90.6%, 67.5% “Sắc - sharp” tone, 65.6 % “Hỏi - asking” tone, 74.4% “Nặng - heavy” tone, “Ngã- tum-bling” tone 57.9% On graph tones have similar structures in normal tones with “Ngang” and “Huyền”, “Nặng” tone and “Ngã” tone.

Keywords: Electric voice, whiff, tone, electronic voice training.

Corresponding author: Pham Thi Bich Dao, Department of

Otorhinolaryngology - Hanoi Medical University

E-mail: daoent@yahoo.com

Received: 20 October 2016

Accepted: 10 December 2016

I BACKGROUND

Electric voice is one of the methods used

for the total laryngectomy patients to speak

post-surgery [1] However, the monotonicity of

electric voice means patients cannot

pronounce the more nuanced tones of the

Vietnamese language To be able to

pronounce the tones correctly, the patients

need deliberate practice [2] Accents mainly

show the “Ngang” tone, and the suspension

should hear monotonously as machine [3]

Patients use electric machine as new larynx

so they need to practice the accent tone

electric voice Electric larynx vibrating parts,

mechanical emitted Placement of electric larynx into the throat or mouth area is to make the vibration of these parts helps create

sound Electric larynx is two types: i) type in

the neck vibration (vibration Patients first set

of electric larynx in the neck to the sound) and

ii) type in your mouth (sucking mouth larynx

generated electricity into sound) [4] Many practitioners use cases electric larynx as motivation for the collective voice of the esophagus - after [5] Electric vibrating vocal muscles in the neck, which creates airflow from moving in the resonance of the throat dropping about, bumping into the anatomy create the sound to say [6] Electric voice can use to communicate immediately after surgery [7] Using electric voice is relatively easy However, the sound emitted from electric voice often monotonous, is not clear, just

communicate in small groups, not the

sentiments expressed when communicating

[8] When using electric larynx, total

laryngectomy patients can not change the

basic sound frequency (F0) and change the

type of sound to create the pronunciation

tones Ngang, Huyền, Sắc, Hỏi, Ngã

Vietnamese tone [9] To overcome this

weakness, we recommended users to find the

optimal placement makes in order to have the

best sound guidance and training to create a

Vietnamese tone when using electric voice

and subsequently how to pronunce

Vietnamese tone [10] The target of this study

was to assess pronunciation of voice tone

electric larynx after practice

II SUBJECTS AND METHODS

1 Subjects

30 people spoke with electric voice

2 Methods

Cross - horizontal representation, interven-tion, following, before and after compares Use computer programs to analyze sound -PRAAT

Perform analysis sets the tone before and after being set according to the instructions Analyze advantages of each placement ma-chine on the neck in order to find the best lo-cation

Recording of the test to analyze the tone of the object of study mentioned above (with dedicated microphone, Sony VAIO laptop) Audience subjects tried to low pronounce: U,

Ù, Ú, Ụ, Ủ, Ũ

Research ethic: Research subjects were informed goals and voluntarily agree to partici-pate in research All personal information were kept confidential

III RESULTS

1 The ability to pronounce the tone of the electro larynx before training electric larynx position

Chart 1 The level of language used in different electric larynx position

The results indicated that there were significant differences of under chin, maddent neck and jugular notch in conversation and sound understanding of the patients While no difference has been shown between under chin and maddent neck in tone understanding, there was big gap of jugular notch between tone and conversation as well as sound understanding

2 The ability to understand communication by electric voice

Chart 2 The ability to understand when communicating at a normal distance

Understanding the entire content when the patients communicated at a normal distance was 57.2% The rates of understanding each sound and tone were 56.2 %, 27.2 %, respectively

3 The ability to pronounce the accent tone when using electric voice

Chart 3 The ability to pronounce the tone of the Electro larynx before and after training

The results indicates that: “Ngang” tone, “Huyền” tone showed no difference after and before training The “Sắc” tone, “Hỏi” tone, and “Ngã” tone showed significantly differences between after and before training

4 The ability to pronounce tone of voice before and after training electric larynx

Chart 4 F0 Chart Electro larynx before and after training

If no training, electric larynx of the patients could not be changed the basic sound frequency (F0) and change the type of sound to create the pronunciation Vietnamese tones The pitch con-tour of each tone between lowest (28.6 St.) and the highest (29.4 St.) in just 0.8 st not enough for the audience to recognize the distinction of tone In addition, the type of electronic voice to create vocal sound was not reflected in the “Hỏi”, “Ngã” tone

After using U vowel for training tone: Huyền, Ngang tone chartsimilar larynx pronounced

“Ngã” tone completely different pitch, different from but not far from the starting point and the line shape similar expressions

IV DISCUSSION

If self-assembled, the quality of the

speaker's electric voice is usually the same

However, hard power laryngeal voice tone

represents Vietnamese, mostly succeed in

horizontal bar and suspension Therefore, the

identification of the listener language

difficulties, mainly to guess in context, does

not express emotions discourse Vietnamese

language when communicating [8] Thus,

when using fluently electric voice, people often

pronounce using esophagus voice because

this is the most natural method of training [2]

From practical principles of electric voice,

to produce the sound Therefore, we found that if the vibrations coming from the throat tube structure, the sound of creation will be same mechanism of esophageal voice and can perform pronounced tone Thereby, we make bookings electric larynx in different posi-tions: under chin, middle of the neck, Jugular notch find the best electric larynx in hollow depression with: understanding content 57.2%, syllables: 56.2%, 27.2% tone

Stems from the fact, we trained electric voice pronunciation by natural bass tones, sounds best matches of the larynx vibrating electric power, to be able to control steam flow

age vibration frequencies and different

ampli-tudes to generate tones in Vietnamese [9] In

Vietnamese, the tone is the change in

eleva-tion and radio while generating pronounce

syllables, bring distinctive value means [2]

In height, together with distinguished bars

and vocal lines, lines - also known as rhythm

or melody line, which were determined by the

oscillation frequency changes of the vocal

cords pronounce syllables [11] Contours can

be represented as curved lines, or graphs of

frequency function, change as a function of

time About contours distinction of tone: equal

linetone (Ngang tone) other lines tone down

(Huyền tone) lines up different tones (Sac

tone) other tone-bending lines (down to - up)

(Hỏi, Ngã tone) Extreme vocal range is either

low or high, in which the tone is shown On the

negative distinction of high-pitched tone

(Ngang, Huyền, Ngã tone) Other low vocal

tones (Huyền, Nặng, Hỏi tone) In terms of

creating a distinction audio tone create audio

with the normal mode (Ngang, Huyền, Sắc

tone) other than the tone has turned

generat-ing larynx bar (Hỏi, Ngã tone) and tone with

audio switches generating bar subjects (Nặng

tone)

Described the change as pronounced tone

set by former patient’s bass: U, Ù, Ú, Ủ, Ụ, Ũ

- “Ngang” tone: yes contours flat, slightly

downward; usually vocals

- “Huyền” tone: pronounced with lines

going down; usually vocals

- “Hỏi” tone: pronounced with bending

lines, the average comes, then comes down to

lower altitudes, occur chemical larynx, then

changed upward, the lower end of the starting

point

- “Sắc” tone: pronounced with lines going up; normal voice

- “Ngã” tone: pronounced with bending lines, starting slightly higher, going down, going on cultural phenomena larynx, and then change the upward, ending at the highest elevations [12]

- “Nặng” tone: pronounced and slightly downward; ending phenomenon glottis rules [13]

The pronunciation tones: sounds emanat-ing from the larynx of vocal power looms, so the best sound for electric voice pronounced negative "U" [14]

Way flow control stick slightly to create the following:

- “Nặng” tone This is a very short bar, just

a short blast, should be set first The bar is formed when the blast went through the pro-nunciation abrupt stop, causing sticky mucus layer is vibrating rod stop creating negative

- “Ngang” tone: the pronounced vibration from start to finish with a regular frequency, so

we have to object to pronounce prolonged vowel "u" with frequencies unchanged until the end of the moisture reserves

- “Huyền” tone: when the vibration fre-quency pronounced decrease towards the end, this time the apprentice audio pronuncia-tion "magical" time release slightly stronger and slightly decreasing the pressure flow

- “Sắc” tone: pronounce the vibration with increasing frequency of late, forming negative

"identity"

- “Hỏi” tone: pronounced decrease in the middle region then increased at the end, the student pushed a bit slowly and cumulative

force of the diaphragm to push air out negative

at the end of " ask "

- “Ngã” tone: The instructions on how to set

controls so that the jet blast going through the

throat cavity, then stop, then push the jet

gradually go out with increasing frequency of

late [15]

V CONCLUSION

In summary, our results indicated

that-placement of electric larynx was Jugular notch

and set the tone with deep vowel U was

nec-essary for electric voice training

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to all patients who

volun-teered to joint this study The authors would

like to thank members of Editorial board for

editing manuscript and critical comments We

declare no conflicts of interest

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