Study of Auditory and Acoustic Features of English Utterances Spoken by the Major Tribal Groups Khasi, Garo and Pnar of the State of Meghalaya

Authors: Singh SR and Nongdhar B*

Volume 4, Issue 3

Abstract

Audio Forensics plays an important role in the investigation of crime and judicial administration. The purposed work describes to a qualitative study of the influences of different dialects spoken by the three major tribal groups in Meghalaya state in India to their English utterances. The state is majorly a hills state with diverse languages spoken by people of different regions across the entire state. English language is the medium of education and for state official communication amongst the tribal groups. While speaking non-native language (English) they are always influenced by their native accent. In this present study, the three major spoken dialects of the state Meghalaya namely Khasi, Pnar and Garo have been chosen. A set of 30 sample speakers of males and females were selected from the three dialectal groups in equal proportion having common educational, equivalent age and normal health background. The Auditory and Acoustic characteristics of the vowels for the English utterances were measured from the intonation pattern and Formant frequencies included the first (F1) and second formant frequency (F2). The Mean value F1 and F2 for male and female of the three tribal groups speaking specific English utterances have been computed and were subjected for their graphical position showing overall distributions of the vowels on the vowel quadrilateral. The study shows that there are differences in the vowel quadrilaterals of the three tribal dialect speakers while speaking English utterances. The vowel quality, degree and nature of variation are different among their respective vowels of the speakers of these three dialects. The present studies provide major indication that these three tribal groups vary distinctly in their vowel quality in their speech utterances, reflecting distinct identity of a group or region they belong to. The overall distributions of vowels quality in the vowel quadrilateral are found to be unique in all the three tribal groups for both male and female. The study of overall distributions of the vowels on the vowel quadrilateral can be taken as an important parameter for the identification of the three tribal groups while Speaking English Utterances.

Keywords: Vowel Quality; Formant Frequency; Acoustic Feature; Vowel quadrilateral

View PDF