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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Prosodic Features in Child-directed Speech during the Child's First Year

Rask, Linnea January 2015 (has links)
This study investigates prosodic features of child-directed speech during the child’s first year, using the automated prosodic annotation software Prosogram. From previous studies on first language acquisition and child-directed speech we know that speech directed to infants and small children is characterised by exaggerated use of several prosodic features, including a higher pitch, livelier pitch movement and slower speech rate. Annotation of these phenomena has previously been done manually, which is time consuming and includes a risk of circularity. If we can use semi-automated systems to carry out this task, it would be a huge methodological gain. This study analysed recordings of 10 parent-child pairs at four occasions (3, 6, 9 and 12 months of age) for a total of 40 recordings. The audio files were analysed in Prosogram in order to detect possible differences depending on the child’s age. The results showed a noticeable change in child-directed speech over the first year of the child’s life. A change in several characteristic prosodic features was noted to occur between the ages of 6 and 9 months. Pitch levels decreased, and articulation rate increased. Additionally, parents seemed to use pitch values much higher than their mean pitch speaking to children aged 3 and 6 months than to children aged 9 and 12 months. Despite using a relatively small sample, the results show several interesting trends in the usage of child-directed speech. Furthermore, this study shows that Prosogram is a useful tool for automatic analysis of child-directed speech.

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