La focalisation prosodique désigne le soulignement d’un constituant dans un énoncé au moyen de différentes ressources prosodiques, en particulier l’accentuation et l’intonation. Plusieurs fonctions sont attribuées à la focalisation : le marquage des différentes catégories de focus, ainsi que des fonctions emphatiques (ici appelées insistance et expressivité). Cette thèse a pour principal but de savoir si la focalisation et ses fonctions présentent des propriétés spécifiques dans le phonogenre de la parole interprétée, c’est-à-dire l’oralisation d’un texte écrit mémorisé au préalable par le locuteur (généralement un comédien). Cette question présente un intérêt pour la linguistique et la phonétique à plusieurs titres. Tout d’abord, les différences de réalisation prosodique entre les fonctions de la focalisation sont encore mal connues. Par ailleurs, peu d’études ont été consacrées aux caractéristiques prosodiques de la parole interprétée. Enfin, notre thèse présente un apport sur le plan méthodologique à travers le protocole relativement novateur de ses deux expériences. Dans une expérience de production, des locuteurs ont reproduit des conversations spontanées en parole lue et en parole interprétée. Un groupe d’experts en prosodie a ensuite relevé les occurrences de focalisation dans le corpus et a effectué une classification fonctionnelle de ces occurrences. Nous avons également mené une expérience de perception afin de comparer la réalisation des fonctions de la focalisation indépendamment du phonogenre. Malgré un taux d’accord entre experts relativement faible (ce qui soulève plusieurs questions méthodologiques et théoriques), nos analyses révèlent plusieurs résultats originaux. La fréquence d’occurrence de la focalisation est la plus élevée en parole interprétée, suivie de la parole lue. Ce résultat confirme notre prédiction et suggère que la parole interprétée est un phonogenre favorable à l’étude de la focalisation. Une forte relation est observée entre la fonction d’insistance et le trait d’accentuation initiale, ce qui confirme de nombreuses études précédentes. Le phonogenre se révèle en revanche avoir très peu d’influence sur la réalisation de la focalisation et de ses fonctions. Ce résultat est dû selon nous à un manque de données et au fait que certains traits prosodiques n’ont pas été pris en compte dans l’analyse. / Prosodic highlighting refers to the distinction of a constituent through various prosodic means, especially accentuation and intonation. It is taken to fulfill several functions: marking the different types of focus, as well as emphatic functions (named here “insisting” and “expressiveness”). The main goal of this thesis is to determine whether prosodic highlighting and its functions display specific features in interpreted speech, a speaking style that can be defined as the oralization of a written text previously memorized by the speaker (typically an actor). This question is relevant for linguistics and phonetics on several counts. First, little is still known about prosodic differences between functions of prosodic highlighting. Moreover, few studies have analyzed the prosodic characteristics of interpreted speech. Finally, through their innovative protocols, the two experiments described in this thesis present a methodological contribution. A production experiment consisted in having speakers replicate spontaneous conversations in read and interpreted speech. A group of experts then annotated the occurrences of prosodic highlighting in the corpus, and assigned a function to each occurrence. A perception experiment was also led in order to compare the realization of each function independently of speaking style. Despite a relatively low agreement rate between experts (which raises several methodological and theoretical questions), our analyses reveal several important results. The frequency of occurrence of prosodic highlighting is highest in interpreted speech, followed by read speech. This confirms our prediction and suggests that interpreted speech is more suited to the study of prosodic highlighting than other speaking styles. A strong association is observed between insisting and initial secondary accent, which confirms many previous studies. However, there is almost no influence of speaking style on the realization of prosodic highlighting and its functions. We attribute this result to a lack of data and to the fact that some prosodic features were not taken into account in the analysis.

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, service robots play an increasingly important role in frontline service across various industries. However, many questions surrounding service robots as a novel service option are still less studied, and thus, remain uncertain to marketers. Therefore, this dissertation investigated and addressed some of these questions, by assessing the potential advantages of service robots, not only as compared to human employees, but also among service robots’ different humanlike vocal features, including voice types, accents, and speaking styles. Specifically, to address the research gaps identified through an in-depth literature review conducted in Chapter 2, a series of empirical studies were conducted and presented in Chapter 3 (Essay One) and Chapter 4 (Essay Two). Chapter 3 begins with Study 1a, an investigation into the potential advantages of service robots as compared to human employees in a hotel check-in setting. The findings suggest that service robots outperform human employees in customers’ enjoyment of the interactions. Study 1b replicated the earlier study in a fast-food restaurant setting, where service robots were found to outperform human employees in customers’ word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions as well. In Study 2, an investigation specifically into a service robot’s vocal design was conducted, by comparing three potential voice types (male, female, or robotic) in a movie theater setting. The findings reveal that a human male voice is the most ideal across various customer outcomes, highlighting the importance for marketers to determine the optimal voice type for a service robot. Chapter 4 reports further investigations of service robots’ vocal design, specifically regarding their accents and speaking styles. In Study 3, four subordinate studies were conducted in a hotel check-in setting. The findings suggest that when a service robot’s accent is congruent with its local region, it enhances customers’ perceived enjoyment of the interactions and various customer outcomes. In Study 4, a further investigation was conducted into a service robot’s speaking style, to assess its potential influence under a service failure and recovery context. The findings suggest that a service robot’s use of a colloquial speaking style attenuates customers’ perceived competence of the service robot and related customer outcomes, which further highlight the importance of a service robot’s appropriate language use, especially during a service recovery. A general discussion regarding Study 1 to Study 4 was provided in Chapter 5, offering valuable implications to both scholars and marketers, and suggesting promising avenues for future research.

In this thesis a study of discourse segmenting is carried out, which investigates both segment boundaries and segment content. The results are related to discourse theory. We study the questions of how the prosody and the text structure influence subjects' annotations of discourse boundaries and discourse prominence. The hypothesis was that the annotations would be influenced by the discourse type. Two studies were carried out. 1) a study of boundary annotation, 2) a study of prominence annotation. All studies were made on four different discourse types, scripted and spontaneous monologue and scripted and spontaneous dialogue. In addition the annotations were carried out under two different conditions 1) based on transcripts alone and 2) based on transcripts together with access to the speech signal. The results indicate that the boundary annotations were less dependent on the speech signal than the prominence annotations. It seems that subjects have segmented on the basis of the text structure, while prominence to a great extent was annotated on the basis of the prosody. In the case of boundary markings the boundary context in terms of parts of speech differs across speaking styles, which is not the case for the prominences. A separate study of segment intentions was also made, and it was found that the interpretation of a specific intention, questions, seems to be arrived at primarily on the basis of the text structure. However, in some cases also the prosody affects the annotations. The picture that emerges indicates a distribution of labour between text structure and prosody, governed by the principle of economy. In cases where the boundaries were less well definied, as in e.g. spontaneous monologue, the pattern of the prominences was clearer. In cases where the boundaries were more clearly indicated, as in read aloud text, the prominences were less clearly communicated. The findings were interpreted within Grosz and Sidner's (1986) discourse theory. It is suggested that differences in the segmenting strategy originating from the interaction of text structure and prosody can be expressed as differences in the contributions from the different components of discourse suggested in the framework of Grosz and Sidner (1986). / <p>För att köpa boken skicka en beställning till exp@ling.su.se/ To order the book send an e-mail to exp@ling.su.se</p>

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第24256号 / 情博第800号 / 新制||情||135(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科知能情報学専攻 / (主査)教授 河原 達也, 教授 森 信介, 教授 伊藤 孝行 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM