Whispered Speech

A Presentation by Susanne Filges, Agata Mroczkowska and

Annette Radon

Phonation Modes

• "normal" voice• breathy voice ("bedroom

voice")• creaky voice (dislike)• whisper

What does whispering mean in general?

• sounds "soft" • less amplitude• no difference in meaning between a

whispered and a "normal" sound• a speech variant across all languages• no special IPA symbol for whispered

sounds

How to Find Out the Distinction Method of Analysis

• two non-words "sha" and "shu", spoken in "normal voice" and whispered mode

• recorded with cool edit

• converted into spectrograms by Praat

Sha normal

sha whispered

shu normal

shu whispered

Pulses

there are no blue lines in whispered voice, only in "normal" speech

Intensity

The yellow line shows that the intensity in normal speech is higher

than in whispered speech

Spectrogram

same relation between dark and light

shades in normal and whispered speech

Formants• more "red dots" in normal speech

• formants at a lower frequency only in normal speech

• more acoustic energy in normal speech

Pitch

total absence of pitch in whispered speech

no fundamental frequency

in whispered speech

Major Difference

missing of pitch

means

no vibration of the vocal folds

An easier way to get this result would have

been

touching your throat while whispering!