African American English speakers' pitch variation and rate adjustments for imagined technological and human addressees

JASA Express Lett. 2024 Apr 1;4(4):047601. doi: 10.1121/10.0025484.

Abstract

This paper examines the adaptations African American English speakers make when imagining talking to a voice assistant, compared to a close friend/family member and to a stranger. Results show that speakers slowed their rate and produced less pitch variation in voice-assistant-"directed speech" (DS), relative to human-DS. These adjustments were not mediated by how often participants reported experiencing errors with automatic speech recognition. Overall, this paper addresses a limitation in the types of language varieties explored when examining technology-DS registers and contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of human-computer interaction.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Black or African American*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Imagination
  • Language
  • Male
  • Speech
  • Speech Acoustics
  • Young Adult