Voice Preference in German: A Cross-linguistic Comparison of Native and Chinese Listeners

Authors: Hongwei Ding, Rüdiger Hoffmann, Oliver Jokisch

Abstract:

In this study we investigated whether native and non-native speakers demonstrate a similar preference in the selection of a pleasant voice, and how their preference rankings correlate with the voice quality and the prosodic features. 50 Chinese without prior knowledge of German and 10 native German listeners par- ticipated in a pair comparison test to choose the best voice out of eight candidate speakers for a German speech synthesis. The results showed that the ranking scores of German and Chinese listeners were highly correlated. A further investigation revealed though both German and Chinese listeners preferred a breathy voice, Chi- nese listeners also voted for speakers who exhibited faster falling pitch movements. The decisions of German listeners relied mainly on voice quality, while those of the Chinese listeners relied more on pitch movements. The findings suggest that speakers of a tone language may associate their voice preference with local pitch movements, especially when they have no knowledge with the concerned language.