Looking at the clip above, did you spot any prominent non-verbal actions that might characterize ValleySpeak? A number of academic papers have examined the pronunciation aspects of so-called ValSpeak from California, few however, have focused on one of its characteristic features known as ‘Jaw Setting’ – in this case slack jaw, open mouth (see Fig. […]
Tag: speech
Whistled languages – like ‘local cellular phones’ (study)
“Whistled languages are a valuable heritage of human culture.” – explained a 2004 paper : ‘Bioacoustics of human whistled languages: an alternative approach to the cognitive processes of language’ (in : An. Acad. Bras. Ciênc. vol.76 no.2, June 2004). It was authored by Dr. Julien Meyer of the Laboratoire de Dynamique du Langage (DDL)-CNRS, Institut […]
Interrupting people : the pros and cons
What might you gain (or lose) by interrupting someone? The question has been experimentally examined by Professor Sally Dew Farley, of the Psychology department at the University of Baltimore, US. Experimental subjects who had been asked to discuss an article were systematically interrupted by confederates – revealing the following : • The Upside for […]
Speaking whilst breathing-in (not restricted to ventriloquists)
Humans mostly tend to ‘breathe out’ whilst speaking (or making other vocalisations). Mostly but not exclusively. So-called Ingressive Speech is quite prevalent worldwide – and not just amongst ventriloquists. Take for example, a Scottish male saying “Aye aye I ken” (“Yes, yes I know”). [.wav audio file here] http://www.ida.liu.se/~robek28/audio/ingressive-Eklund_JIPA_2008_Fig_7b_ingr-aye_egr-aye-i-ken_male.wav Robert Eklund, who is Associate Professor […]