Acoustic features of twins’ speech

This article presents an analysis of works of both Russian and foreign researchers, who deal with the problem of monozygotic twins identification and study the acoustic features twins’ speech. The article provides the reader with some information on the concept of acoustics phonetics, gives characteristics of its parameters including fundamental frequency, formants and the shimmer-effect. Much attention is paid to the description of conditions under which acoustic characteristics are revealed. The article deals with the investigations which serve the purpose to look at the main stages of twins (both heterozygotic and monozygotic) speech acquisition in comparison with those children who were born single. It is stated in the article that the science finds out the main acoustic parameters valuable for identification of twins such as shimmer values and jitter. The comparison of different research results reveals conflicting experimental data on the possibility of using acoustic features for twins identification. According to the author, a complex approach to studying the acoustics of twins’ speech is the most prospective. This approach implies the consideration of both segmental and prosodic levels of language, and it can contribute to a more precise understanding of the studied phenomenon.