Change in Finnish female university students' mean fundamental frequency in text reading from 1990's to 2010's
Keywords:
fo, effect of culture, speaking pitchAbstract
Habitual speaking pitch is both an individual, situational and social variable. A tendency for a lower speaking pitch in women has been reported in various countries during the last century. Changes in speaking pitch are supposed to refl ect changes in the society.
Th e present study investigates the commonly used correlates of speaking pitch, the mean and median of fundamental frequency, fo, in neutral text reading (160 words, duration of ca 1 minute) from young 20–25-year-old Finnish female university students in the 1990’s and 2010’s. Th e material was derived from the sound archive of Speech and Voice Research Laboratory at Tampere University. We chose randomly samples from 136 females who did not have any known pathologies of the voice or hearing, and whose voice quality sounded normal. Th e samples were recorded digitally in a well-damped studio using a measuring microphone. Th e analyses were made using Praat soft ware.
In the results, a small but signifi cant (Student’s t test p < 0.001) increase in fo was observed (in the 1990’s the fo mean was 195,7 Hz, and in the 2010’s it was 210,6 Hz, while the corresponding values of fo median were 190,9 Hz and 203,2 Hz). Th e change in Finnish female university students’ fo may potentially refl ect the eff ect of foreign languages and global entertainment culture.
