Non-native speaker pause patterns closely correspond to those of native speakers at different speech rates.

ABSTRACT: When speaking a foreign language, non-native speakers can typically be readily identified by their accents. But which aspects of the speech signal determine such accents? Speech pauses occur in all languages but may nonetheless vary in different languages with regard to their duration, number or positions in the speech stream, and therefore are one potential contributor to foreign speech production. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate whether non-native speakers pause 'with a foreign accent'. We recorded native English speakers and non-native speakers of German or Serbo-Croatian with excellent English reading out an English text at three different speech rates, and analyzed their vocal output in terms of number, duration and location of pauses. Overall, all non-native speake

SUBMITTER: Matzinger T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7124187 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature