The research for this thesis lies within the field of speaker characterisation through the acoustic-phonetic analysis of speech. The thesis consists of two parts: 1. An investigation of the acoustic-phonetic differences between the speech of women and men; 2. An examination of the practicalities of automating the investigation to analyse a large speech database. The acoustic-phonetic markers of speaker sex examined here are the fundamental frequency, the formant frequencies, and the relative amplitude of the first harmonic. The aims of the investigation were, firstly, to establish to what extent these markers differentiate between the sexes, and secondly, to examine the extent of between- and within-speaker deviation from the female and male norms, or average values for each sex. These points were investigated by an automated acoustic-phonetic analysis of the TIMIT database, involving a data set of almost 16,000 segments of speech. An automated method was developed to enable the signal processing and statistical analysis of a data set of this size. The problems to be encountered in the analysis of a highly variable data source (i.e. the acoustic speech waveform) are addressed.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Akron, Dept. of History, 2009. / "May, 2009." Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed 8/2/2009) Advisor, Martin Wainwright; Faculty Reader, Shelley Baranowski; Department Chair, Michael Sheng; Dean of the College, Chand Midha; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-204).

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Submitted by Adriana Alves Rodrigues (aalves@espm.br) on 2018-10-05T18:45:33Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ppgcom - gabriela agostinho pereira.pdf: 18869184 bytes, checksum: 82c6bfb0ce2e876f0893fc603365bbe2 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Alves Rodrigues (aalves@espm.br) on 2018-10-05T18:46:25Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 ppgcom - gabriela agostinho pereira.pdf: 18869184 bytes, checksum: 82c6bfb0ce2e876f0893fc603365bbe2 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Debora Cristina Bonfim Aquarone (deborabonfim@espm.br) on 2018-10-08T11:53:14Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 ppgcom - gabriela agostinho pereira.pdf: 18869184 bytes, checksum: 82c6bfb0ce2e876f0893fc603365bbe2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-08T11:54:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ppgcom - gabriela agostinho pereira.pdf: 18869184 bytes, checksum: 82c6bfb0ce2e876f0893fc603365bbe2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-27 / Discussions regarding gender have gained space in the media and in the public agenda in recent years, especially in social media sites. Besides being ubiquitous in society, multiple groups have starting using these sites as tools for mobilization and activism around gender issues, questioning hegemonic societal patterns. The individuals who frequent these spaces have the possibility of not only consuming, but also producing, reproducing, sharing, and divulging content related to virtually all themes in a way that is very quick and often has immeasurable reach. Therefore, depending of content produced and consumed, these sites can act both as a space for transformation, giving voice and visibility to topics and people who wouldn’t be heard or seen outside this environment, and as a space that reinforces hegemonic, conservative, and discriminatory ideas. In this light, some issues are fundamental to the construction of our work, such as: 1) to understand what is hate speech and what are its social consequences for ethics, communication, and consumption; 2) it is also necessary to understand how the production, circulation, and consumption of this type of discourse happens in social media sites; and, 3) to discuss the limits between freedom of expression and defense of democratic values such as ethics and human rights. To conduct the empirical research proposed in this article we opted to focus on four social media sites: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. From a methodological standpoint, we used the depth hermeneutics proposed by Thompson. / As discussões acerca das questões de gênero ganharam espaço na mídia e na agenda pública nos últimos anos, principalmente em sites de redes sociais. Ademais de uma ampla penetração na sociedade, diversos grupos e coletivos passaram a utilizar essas ferramentas como um meio de mobilização e ativismo acerca das questões de gênero, questionando os padrões hegemônicos presentes na sociedade. Os indivíduos que frequentam esses espaços têm a possibilidade não só de consumir, mas de produzir, reproduzir, compartilhar e divulgar conteúdos relacionados a praticamente todos os temas, de maneira muito rápida e com um alcance muitas vezes imensurável. Assim, de acordo com o tipo de conteúdo produzido e consumido, esses sites podem tanto ser um espaço de transformação, que dá voz e visibilidade para pautas e pessoas que não o teriam fora daquele ambiente, quanto um espaço que reforça ideias hegemônicas, conservadoras e discriminatórias. Dessa maneira, algumas discussões são basilares para a construção do nosso trabalho, tais como: 1) compreender o que é o discurso de ódio e quais suas consequências sociais do ponto de vista ético, comunicacional e do consumo; 2) também é necessário entender como se dá a produção, circulação e o consumo desse tipo de discurso nos sites de redes sociais; e 3) discutir os limites entre a liberdade de expressão e a defesa dos valores democráticos como a ética e os direitos humanos. Para a elaboração da pesquisa empírica proposta neste trabalho optamos por focar em quatro sites de redes sociais Facebook, Instagram, Twitter e YouTube. Do ponto de vista metodológico, apoiamo-nos na hermenêutica de profundidade proposta por Thompson.