This theoretical-empirical diploma thesis deals with chuchotage, i.e. whispered interpreting. The analysis focuses on chuchotage without using equipment, however some aspects of whispered interpreting using the portable interpretation equipment are discussed and compared with simultaneous booth interpreting. In the theoretical part of the thesis, relevant research findings are summarized and an introduction to the selected problem field is provided. Subsequently, I name occasions on which this type of interpretation is usually applied and discuss advantages and disadvantages of it with respect to the interpreter himself, the client and other participants. This part also focuses on the working conditions during whispered interpreting (positioning of the interpreter, acoustic conditions, relation between the interpreter and other participants, personal needs of the interpreter and cognitive factors). The empirical part presents the actual research based on questionnaires that aims to describe the current situation on the interpretation market in the Czech Republic (usage extent of whispered interpreting, working conditions of the interpreter, comparison of whispered interpreting and simultaneous booth interpreting). This part deals also with the quality and mistakes made during the interpretation. As...

Ability of human listeners to understand altered speech is argued as evidence of uniquely human processing abilities, but early auditory experience also may contribute to this capability. I tested the ability of Panzee, a language-trained chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), reared and spoken to from infancy by humans, to recognize synthesized words. Training and testing was conducted with different sets of English words in natural, “harmonics-only” (resynthesized using only voiced components), or “noise-vocoded” (based on amplitude-modulated noise bands) forms, with Panzee choosing from “lexigram” symbols that represented words. In Experiment 1 performance was equivalent with words in natural and harmonics-only form. In Experiment 2 performance with noise-vocoded words was significantly higher than chance but lower than with natural words. Results suggest specialized processing mechanisms are not necessary to speech perception in the absence of traditional acoustic cues, with the more important factor for speech-processing abilities being early immersion in a speech-rich environment.

Notre recherche est une contribution à l’étude des indices acoustiques secondaires des tons lexicaux en mandarin, comparant les données recueillies en parole modale avec celles obtenues en parole chuchotée. Selon la littérature, ces indices devraient se présenter en tant qu’un ensemble d’attributs dans les dimensions acoustiques du spectre, outre que dans la fréquence fondamentale. Nous avons analysé des attributs temporels, des attributs au niveau de l’intensité, des attributs spectraux, ainsi que leur corrélation avec les tons. Les résultats montrent que certains paramètres temporels et la quatrième résonance du spectre sont étroitement liés au ton. Leurs rapports dépendent de la caractéristique intrinsèque de la voyelle qui porte le ton (équivalente de la rime dans notre recherche). / Our research is a contribution to studies on secondary acoustic cues in Mandarin tone identification, by comparing acoustic data collected in modal speech and in whispered speech. According to the literature on the same issue, theses cues could be found in acoustic dimensions other than in the fundamental frequency, as a set of attributes. We have analyzed these attributes in the temporal domain, at the intensity level and in the spectrum, as well as their relations with tones. Our results show that some temporal parameters and the fourth resonance in the spectrum are very closely related to tones. These relations are dependent on the intrinsic characteristics of the vowel that carries the tone (which is equivalent to the rime in our research).