Vowel Space Areas across Age, Gender and Dialects in Telugu

Abstract

Vowel space is an acoustic measure for indexing the size of the vowel articulatory working space constructed using F1 and F2 of vowels /i/, /a/ and /u/. Watson et.al., (2004) reported significant differences in the vowel space among different age groups (50s, 70s and 80s). Larger vowel space and area could be indicators of clear speech and used for judging the speech intelligibility (Carrell, 1984; Blomgren, Robb & Chen, 1998; Ferguson & Kewley-Port, 2007).

Though vowel space has been used as a diagnostic tool in Telugu population, no studies on the vowel space across the age, gender and region groups exist in Telugu literature. This justified the current study on obtaining vowel space for different age, gender and region groups of Telugu language. Speech samples consisting of target word in CVCV/CVCCV context with varying preceding consonants were recorded from 72 Telugu speaking normal individuals in age groups (Group I: 06 to 09 years; Group II: 13 – 15 years; Group III: 20 – 30 years) from three different regions (Coastal, Rayalaseema and Telengana).

Analysis of the recorded speech was done using CSL 4500. Formant frequencies F1 and F2 were recorded to draw the vowel triangle and to calculate the vowel space. The results suggest that with age increase the vowel space decreased; females have larger vowel space than males and samples of Coastal region speaker have larger vowel space followed by Telengana and Rayalaseema regions.