The Integration of Laughter and Speech in Vocal Communication

Author:

Nwokah Eva E.1,Hsu Hui-Chin2,Davies Patricia3,Fogel Alan4

Affiliation:

1. Richardson Development Center for Children Dallas, TX

2. Department of Child and Family Development University of Georgia Athens

3. School of Mechanical Engineering Purdue University West Lafayette, IN

4. Department of Psychology University of Utah Salt Lake City

Abstract

Laughter in infant-directed speech was examined in 13 mother-infant pairs to investigate the possible co-occurrence of speech and laughter. Contrary to previous findings in adult-adult social interaction, all mothers produced speech simultaneously with laughter in up to 50% of laughs. In most of these speech-laughs the onset of laugh and speech was simultaneous. Laughter occurred on both function and content words and was more likely to occur on approximately 2 words and on utterances that were statements rather than questions or exclamations. Laughter and speech are different outcomes produced from a reorganization of the same vocal/anatomical parameters. A 3rd outcome is possible in the form of speech-laughs utilizing features from both laughter and speech. In speech-laughs, the duration of the vocalization was more likely to increase, and the changes in the utterance were likely to include 1 or more of the features of vowel elongation, syllabic pulsation, breathiness, and pitch change. These findings and individual variations in the resulting vocal output are discussed from a dynamic systems perspective. It is argued that neither speech nor laughter is dominant when both are combined, but that this is a more complex vocal outcome produced with idiosyncratic flexibility within stable temporal and physiological constraints.

Publisher

American Speech Language Hearing Association

Subject

Speech and Hearing,Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics

Reference47 articles.

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3. Acoustic analysis of laughter;Bickley C.;Proceedings of the International Conference on Spoken Language Processes,1992

4. Clark H. & Clark E. (1977). Psychology and language: An introduction to psycholinguistics. Chicago: Harcourt Brace and Janovitch.

5. Crystal D. (1969). Prosodic systems and intonation in English. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

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