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The tempo of speech in theatrical Czech during two periods separated by several decades
Bartošová, Petra ; Palková, Zdenka (advisor) ; Skarnitzl, Radek (referee)
The diploma thesis deals with the issue of speech rate. The theoretical part briefly describes the investigation of speech tempo. It defines the types of tempo examined in this study (articulation rate and modified speaking rate) and factors that influence the tempo of speech. The practical part of the thesis aims to ascertain whether speech rate on the stage has increased and whether it is influenced by the type of text (monologue, dialogue, monological dialogue). The material consists of four theatre productions (Lakomec from 1972 and 2004 and Naši furianti from 1979 and 2006). Therefore we do not investigate gradual changes within the given periods, but instead compare two pairs of productions of the same dramatic text, realized with a time interval of approximately 30 years. A linear mixed-effects model was used as the main method for statistical evaluation of results gathered by measuring the speech rate. The results show that neither articulation rate nor modified speaking rate changed significantly in the observed productions. Differences with some statistical significance were obtained for comparison of tempo in texts of differing type, specifically in texts of different line lengths. The results relate especially to articulation rate, lesser to modified speaking rate.
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Pathophysiological mechanisms of the pallidal deep brain stimulation in dystonic syndromes
Fečíková, Anna ; Jech, Robert (advisor) ; Nevrlý, Martin (referee) ; Škorvánek, Matej (referee)
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the globus pallidus internus (GPi) is an effective symptomatic treatment for pharmacoresistant dystonic syndromes. The relationship between grey matter volume and intracortical inhibition of the primary motor cortex (MI) in regard to the effectiveness and the state (ON/OFF) of GPi DBS was analysed in the first study. The grey matter of chronically treated patients showed hypertrophy of the supplementary motor area and cerebellar vermis whereas this difference was more significant in patients with a better clinical outcome. The grey matter of the cerebellar hemispheres of the patients showed positive correlation with the improvement of an intracortical inhibition which was generally less effective in patients regardless of the GPi DBS state. Moreover, we showed the same level of SICI in the good responders as in the healthy controls, while in non-responders was the SICI decreased. In the second study, by using paired associative stimulation (PAS) we studied the influence of primary somatosensory cortex (SI) on the MI excitability in dystonia in regards to the effectiveness of GPi DBS. SI PAS decreased the MI excitability in the GPi DBS ON state while switching the stimulation off decreased an inhibitory effect of SI on MI excitability. Non-responders showed a...
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Temporal characteristics in the speech of guides in repeated texts
Hanušová, Kateřina ; Palková, Zdena (advisor) ; Veroňková, Jitka (referee)
The guide's speech is a very specific type of discourse. It is a semi-planned monologue performed, with minimal deviations from the pattern, several times in succcession. These qualities therefore allow for a study of each speaker's articulatory rate. This paper analyzes the articulatory and speech rate, pauses, as well as the distinction of prosodic units, using four guides' speeches (utterances?). Each of the speeches was studied in two iterations. This paper presents a detailed description of the observed qualities for each speaker and a comprehensive summary comparison of the guides' speech patterns.
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Temporal characteristics of tone units in the speech of professional speakers
Hrachová, Jana ; Veroňková, Jitka (advisor) ; Palková, Zdena (referee)
This thesis deals with temporal characteristics of tone units in read speeches of professional speakers. The main goal of the research is to follow variability of the articulation rate (AR) within tone units. Thus, the domain where we investigate AR is the tone unit and we also deal with the general articulation rate. Read narrations in Czech in wildlife documentaries represented the studied material. To verify the statistical significance, we used the linear mixed effects model and the ANOVA test. The results of the measurement of the general average articulation rate within the narrations showed that the values of one speaker were significantly different from those of the other speakers. Interpersonal variability was also proved by the ANOVA tests and intrapersonal variability was also evidenced. The average AR values with regard to linear segmentation proved to be relatively uniform. Statistical verifications did not prove any statistical significance either. In our analyses of tone units, we investigated whether AR was influenced by the size of tone units in prosodic words, further by the position of the prosodic word in the tone unit, and what were the directions of AR changes inside the unit. Statistical tests were used to verify the significance of the impact of the tone unit size as well as...
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The tempo of speech in theatrical Czech during two periods separated by several decades
Bartošová, Petra ; Palková, Zdenka (advisor) ; Skarnitzl, Radek (referee)
The diploma thesis deals with the issue of speech rate. The theoretical part briefly describes the investigation of speech tempo. It defines the types of tempo examined in this study (articulation rate and modified speaking rate) and factors that influence the tempo of speech. The practical part of the thesis aims to ascertain whether speech rate on the stage has increased and whether it is influenced by the type of text (monologue, dialogue, monological dialogue). The material consists of four theatre productions (Lakomec from 1972 and 2004 and Naši furianti from 1979 and 2006). Therefore we do not investigate gradual changes within the given periods, but instead compare two pairs of productions of the same dramatic text, realized with a time interval of approximately 30 years. A linear mixed-effects model was used as the main method for statistical evaluation of results gathered by measuring the speech rate. The results show that neither articulation rate nor modified speaking rate changed significantly in the observed productions. Differences with some statistical significance were obtained for comparison of tempo in texts of differing type, specifically in texts of different line lengths. The results relate especially to articulation rate, lesser to modified speaking rate.
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Speech rate and realization of pauses in consecutive interpreting into Czech in comparison with original Czech speeches
Rubovičová, Carmen ; Veroňková, Jitka (advisor) ; Bořil, Tomáš (referee)
This diploma thesis examines speech rate in three different speech styles - in reading, prepared semi-spontaneous monologue and consecutive interpreting from English into Czech. In the first part of the thesis we summarize previous research, define several types of speech rate, pauses and all three speech styles. In the second part, dedicated to empirical research, we first describe the material and speakers, and then we continue with information about recording and processing of the recordings, mainly the two ways of segmentation into inter-pause units. The results are summarized in three sub-chapters; one looks at speaking rate, the next deals with articulation rate and the last one is dedicated to pauses. The last subchapter in the Results chapter compares our findings with both Czech and foreign research into the topic. Altogether we analysed recordings of four female speakers (two students and two prefessional interpreters) in three speech styles. In each of the styles we calculated speaking rate of the whole text, speaking rate of four linear parts (introduction, main part 1, main part 2 and conclusion) and articulation rate of one chosen unit from each linear part. Our results suggest that the highest speaking rate and articulation rate are in reading; semi-spontaneous speech is somewhat...
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Speaker identity indicators in the domain of the temporal modulation of the speech signal
Weingartová, Lenka ; Volín, Jan (advisor) ; Machač, Pavel (referee)
AbstractAbstractAbstractAbstract This diploma thesis aims to contribute to the field of speaker recognition in the domain of temporal changes in the speech signal. After a brief introduction into forensic phonetics, it gives an outline of approaches and factors which help or hinder successful recognition. The focus is then shifted to the temporal structure of speech and approaches to its analysis currently in use. The practical section of this thesis consists of an experiment designed to assess the contribution of certain temporal measures to speaker recognition. The variables used here are %V (the proportion of vocalic intervals within a sentence), ΔV and ΔC (the standard deviation of the duration of vocalic/consonantal intervals within a sentence), VarcoV and VarcoC (the previous variables normalised for average interval duration) and the Pairwise Variability Indices, both vocalic and consonantal, raw and normalised. Beside these, another variable is used to capture the local articulation rate and especially final deceleration in the utterances - LAR (the inverse of the distance between successive midpoints of the vocalic intervals). Whereas the first mentioned variables are not very successful in distinguishing the speakers, LAR seems very well suited for capturing speaker idiosyncrasies, although...
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Plosives in Czech: temporal characteristics and variability in realization
Šimek, Jaroslav ; Machač, Pavel (advisor) ; Zíková, Magdalena (referee)
The aim of this diploma thesis is to closely investigate and describe selected phonetic properties of Czech oral plosives [p t ť k b d ď g] in normal speech. The re- search focuses mostly on temporal characteristics in various contexts; moreover, we deal with the possible manners of plosive articulation in Czech, including non-canonical realizations. Another important part of the present study is a comparison with earlier studies. In the domain of temporal characteristics we examine the influence of various contexts on phone duration. The contexts include: phonetic context, speaker gender, the position of the plosive in the stress unit or articulation rate. We also examine a possible connection between the duration of the plosive and its realization. In the part that deals with the manner of articulation we focus on the individual phonetic properties, for which we investigate especially the conditions and degree of their stability. Furthermore we describe the specific plosive articulations in certain pho- netic contexts and some alternative realizations of certain plosives. The speech material used is mostly spontaneous. All the speakers are non- professionals from various TV broadcasts. Keywords: plosives, duration, phone segmentation, phonetic properties, pho- netic context, gender, articulation...
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