Voice actors imitating child speech: A study using 3D ultrasound

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2019-03, Vol.145 (3), p.1930-1930
• Main Authors: Feehan, Colette, Lulich, Steven M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.5102023

Voice actors are an interesting population for linguistic study because their profession requires them to perform complex vocal tract manipulations in order to portray specific social identities and convey socially indexed linguistic information. Previous investigations have looked at how voice actors manipulate laryngeal setting and voice quality to portray specific character types in animation (Teshigawara and Murano, 2004; Starr, 2015), but investigations of articulatory manipulations employed by voice actors are rare. This study uses three-dimensional ultrasound, formant, and F0 analyses to compare the strategies that one amateur and one professional voice actor use in order to imitate child speech. Preliminary analysis shows that the amateur actor relies on manipulation of articulatory setting by implementing hyoid bone raising, gesture fronting, and tongue grooving in order to sound like a child. The professional actor relies more on manipulation of laryngeal structures and prosody. Despite these differences in approach, the two actors still achieve similar child-like percepts. This study will describe the differences in strategy implemented by each actor as well as the within-subject variation across each actor’s adult and imitated child voices.