Nasal voices in accents of English: Aeroacoustics, sociolinguistic variation, and forensic application

当一个人说话时，他们的口音会在许多方面有所不同。这包括他们产生不同的元音或辅音，特定的语调模式，以及语音质量的总体方面，如沙哑(Laver 1980)。对于某些人，或特别是方言，有时可以听到所有语音的鼻音质量。虽然所有说英语的人都会发出鼻音，但鼻音质量是指空气在鼻子和嘴里习惯性地产生共鸣所产生的所有语音的一种特性。虽然社会语音学对元音和辅音等口音方面的研究很多，但对鼻音等语音质量知之甚少。就法医演讲从业者需要的知识而言，这是一个明显的差距，以便进行个案工作，评估可疑录音的可能方言来源。该项目将利用尖端语音工具的组合，包括鼻气流动、声学和听觉方法，以及先进的统计和计算分析。这项研究的主要目的是从语音的角度研究社会语言学变异，同时对法医语言学产生影响。

When a person speaks, their accent will differ along a number of dimensions. This includes theirproduction of different vowels or consonants, specific intonation patterns, and also overarchingaspects of voice quality, such as a creakiness (Laver 1980). For some individuals, or in particulardialects, an overarching nasal quality across all speech sounds can sometimes be heard. While allEnglish speakers produce nasal sounds in words spelt with 'n' or 'm', nasal voice quality refers to aproperty of all speech sounds achieved by air habitually resonating in the nose as well as in the mouth.While aspects of accent such as vowels and consonants are well-studied in the sociophoneticliterature, comparatively little is known about voice qualities such as overarching nasalisation. This isa clear gap in terms of the knowledge forensic speech practitioners require in order to performcasework assessing possible dialectal origins of suspect recordings. The project will utilise acombination of cutting-edge phonetic tools including nasal air flow, acoustic and auditory methods,and advanced statistical and computational analysis. The primary aim of the research is to inform thestudy of sociolinguistic variation from a phonetic perspective, whilst having impactful implications forforensic linguistics.