BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Fundamental Frequency and the Production of Intonation in SSBE - M
 eg Zellers\, RCEAL\, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20081111T160000Z
DTEND:20081111T173000Z
UID:TALK14824@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Susan Rolfe
DESCRIPTION:Intonation is traditionally defined as the modulation of pitch
  in speech.  Pitch\, however\, describes something that listeners perceive
 \, and is not definable in terms of any one measureable aspect of the spee
 ch signal.  Although fundamental frequency (F0) has long been seen as the 
 primary cue used in perception of pitch\, it is still unclear how measurab
 le changes in F0 map to meaning in speech.   \n\n\nMuch research has cente
 red on phenomena occurring at the level of the sentence\, but only a few s
 tudies (e.g. Wichmann 2000) have investigated how intonation is employed i
 n the larger discourse.  However\, prior research in this area has suggest
 ed that small modulations in the timing of F0 contours relative to the seg
 mental structure of an utterance may be valuable as a marker of the organi
 zation of sentences around a discourse topic.  Phenomena such as variation
  in F0 peak height\, particularly pitch reset at initial boundaries\, can 
 also play a role in organizing discourse. \n\n\nMy production experiment l
 ooks into how speakers modulate F0 to signal meaning in long units of disc
 ourse with regard to the discourse topic.  Native speakers of SSBE read al
 oud a written text that was controlled for both segmental and topical fact
 ors.  Through analysis of these recordings\, I investigate how the F0 rang
 e and timing of falling pitch contours are used to signal the relationship
 s between sentences in this long discourse.  The results of this experimen
 t will provide insight into the ways in which speakers modulate their spee
 ch production to help listeners reconstruct the correct discourse structur
 e\, and will be relevant to theories of intonation which must be able to a
 ccount for meaningful versus non-meaningful variation in F0.
LOCATION:GR-06/07\, English Faculty Building
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR