A group of researchers working in Europe, Asia, and Oceania conducted a study to determine how quickly different Eurasian languages are typically spoken (in syllables per second) and how much information they can effectively convey (in bits per second). They found that, although languages vary widely in the speed at which they are spoken, the amount of information languages can effectively convey tends to vary much less. Thus, they claim that two languages with very different spoken rates can nonetheless convey the same amount of information in a given amount of time. Which choice best describes data from the table that support the researchers’ claim?A) Among the five languages in the table, Thai and Hungarian have the lowest rates of speech and the lowest rates of information conveyed.B) Vietnamese conveys information at approximately the same rate as Spanish despite being spoken at a slower rate.C) Among the five languages in the table, the language that is spoken the fastest is also the language that conveys information the fastest.D) Serbian and Spanish are spoken at approximately the same rate, but Serbian conveys information faster than Spanish does.

Approximate Rates of Speech andInformation Conveyed for Five LanguagesLanguageRate of speech(syllablesper second)Rate of informationconveyed (bitsper second)Serbian 7.2 39.1Spanish 7.7 42.0Vietnamese 5.3 42.5Thai 4.7 33.8Hungarian 5.9 34.6A group of researchers working in Europe, Asia, andOceania conducted a study to determine how quicklydifferent Eurasian languages are typically spoken(in syllables per second) and how much informationthey can effectively convey (in bits per second). Theyfound that, although languages vary widely in thespeed at which they are spoken, the amount ofinformation languages can effectively convey tendsto vary much less. Thus, they claim that twolanguages with very different spoken rates cannonetheless convey the same amount of informationin a given amount of time.Which choice best describes data from the table thatsupport the researchers’ claim?A) Among the five languages in the table, Thai andHungarian have the lowest rates of speech andthe lowest rates of information conveyed.B) Vietnamese conveys information atapproximately the same rate as Spanish despitebeing spoken at a slower rate.C) Among the five languages in the table, thelanguage that is spoken the fastest is also thelanguage that conveys information the fastest.D) Serbian and Spanish are spoken at approximatelythe same rate, but Serbian conveys informationfaster than Spanish does.

What do you mean by Rate of Information

A publishing company wanted to test whether typing speed differs when using word processor A or word processor B. A random sample of 25 typists was selected and the typing speeds (in words per minute) were recorded for each secretary when using word processor A and then when using word processor B. (Which word processor was used first was determined for each typist by a coin flip).Based on the collected data, a 95% confidence interval for μd, the mean difference (word processor A - word processor B) was found to be (2.5, 7.8).The appropriate hypotheses for testing whether the typing speeds differ when using word processor A or word processor B is the two-sided test:Based on this confidence interval for μd, what would be your conclusion (at the .05 significance level)? Explain.

Variation in our tone of voice or in its pitch, expression, or rate of speed is known as: (CSLO 1, CSLO 2, CSLO 3)Group of answer choicesParalinguisticsOcculesicsLinguisticsKinesics

. DiscussionAll rhythmic measures in this study confirm the syllable-timing impression of Cantonese and Beijing Mandarin. Theresults show that Cantonese has more extreme rhythmicvalues than Mandarin, French and Italian, which presumablyis contributed by the absence of lexical stress in Cantonese. Asimilar situation is also found in Singaporean Mandarin whichhas far fewer unstressed syllables than Beijing Mandarin. Thedata in [7] shows that Singaporean Mandarin has the lowestnPVI_V value and the highest %V value among all thelanguages in their study, suggesting that SingaporeanMandarin is the most typical syllable-timed language. It willbe of interest to compare more syllable-timed languages withand without lexical stress to assess the effect of lexical stressin syllable-timing.The significant difference in %V values of the two stylesin Cantonese and Mandarin (read speech vs semi-spontaneousspeech) implies that speakers may slightly change theirrhythmic patterns according to speaking styles. This seemsquite possible because read speech and spontaneous speechcan differ in many aspects, including prosody. The stylisticdifference in %V can also be partly explained bysegmentation issues. Initial /j/ and /w/ were consideredconsonantal if there were acoustic cues for segmentation.However, in semi-spontaneous speech, many of these initialglides could not be separated from the following vowels sothey could only be considered vocalic. This contributed to ahigher percentage of vocalic portions in semi-spontaneousspeech. On the other hand, results indicate that Mandarinspeakers spoke faster in semi-spontaneous speech than readspeech. Benton et al. [2] also showed that in Mandarin, genre(news broadcast vs interview) indeed gave significantlydifferent values for various rhythmic measures, whichparallels the stylistic difference found in this study. So far,most studies on speech rhythm use only one speaking style,either read speech or spontaneous speech. More studiescomparing speaking styles are needed in order to furtherexplore the relationship between speech styles and rhythm.The data of Cantonese English and Mandarin Englishposes a challenge to the acoustic measures. The two Englishaccents sound syllable-timed. VarcoC and %V show that theyare closer to syllable-timed than to stress-timed languages, butΔC, nPVI_V and rPVI_C values all suggest that they arecloser to stress-timed languages. The parameters of ΔC, ΔS,nPVI_V, rPVI_C and rPVI_S can only categorise languagesaccording to the auditory impression of speech rhythm classesif the data of the two English accents was excluded. Thissituation highlights the issue of using acoustic measures todetermine speech rhythm of non-native speakers.Results of the averaged syllable durations suggest thatCantonese and Mandarin speakers employed a slowerspeaking rate when they read in English, which is a commonphenomenon of second language speakers. As a result, manyof their syllables would be lengthened compared to the speechof native English speakers. Careful listening to the accented-English speech samples reveals that such lengthening is notsimply due to final-lengthening because these lengthenedsyllables can occur in various positions within an utterance.As expected, difficult words were lengthened more than easywords, but simple words like ‘North Wind’ and ‘Sun’ couldbe lengthened too. Individual speakers differ in the degree ofsuch selective lengthening, but they all reduced their speakingrate in English compared to their native language. Thesespeakers, having a syllable-timed native language, did notreduce unstressed syllables like what native English speakerswould do. Such selective lengthening contributes to a higherdegree of pairwise variability and a larger standard deviationof various intervals, but in an opposite way compared tonative English speakers (having many lengthened syllables vshaving many reduced syllables). Impressionistically, the twoEnglish accents still sounds quite syllable-timed. A slowerspeaking rate and selective lengthening result in thediscrepancy between listeners’ impression and the conclusionbased on some acoustic measures.Normalisation procedures for speaking rate alone may notsolve this problem because the higher variability in duration iscontributed by both speaking rate and selective lengthening.Among the five normalised measures used in this study, onlyVarcoC shows evidence that the two English accents aregrouped with syllable-timed languages. White & Mattys [12]also found some discrepancy between subjective impressionof second language rhythm and the results based on acousticrhythmic measures. Therefore, more studies on secondlanguage rhythm are needed in order to address this issue.5. ConclusionsThis study confirms the syllable-timing impression ofCantonese and Beijing Mandarin with acoustic rhythmicmeasures. Results show that Cantonese has more extremerhythmic values than Mandarin, French and Italian because ofthe lack of lexical stress. A slower speaking rate and selectivelengthening in Cantonese English and Mandarin Englishcontribute to the discrepancy between subjective impressionof their rhythm and the results based on rhythmic measures.The VarcoC and %V parameters give the best classification ofspeech rhythm in this study