Leiden University Student Repository

Stankovic, Katarina (2021)

Lengthened Vowels and Filled Pauses: An Acoustic Analysis of Two Fluency Features Uttered by Dutch and English Second Language Learners

Master thesis | Linguistics (MA)

This thesis investigated whether the duration and standard deviations of F0, F1, F2 and F3 frequencies were similar in disfluency types (filled pauses and lengthened vowels) uttered by speakers of either sex (female and male). The analyses were done on second language Dutch and English speech materials that were collected for fluency evaluative purposes. The results of this study showed that intervals of vocalic articulation in filled pauses and lengthened vowels have a similar duration. The results for the standard deviation of F0-3 frequencies in Dutch disfluencies showed similarities for filled pauses and lengthened vowels uttered by females and males. Whereas the results from the English materials showed less uniformity for the effects of the disfluency types and sexes.

filled pauses

disfluency

Author

Stankovic, Katarina

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

English Language and Linguistics (Modern Languages)

Supervisors

Jong, N.H. de

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en