Pauses in native and foreign-accented spontaneous speech: acoustic analysis of native Chinese, Chinese learners of Russian, and native Russian speech

The present study aimed to explore pause types and their fillers in Russian and Chinese native speech compared to the speech of Chinese bilinguals speaking Russian with a focus on universal and language-specific patterns. An acoustic study of 8 subjects has been performed: 4 Russian males speaking Russian, and 4 Chinese males speaking both Chinese and Russian. Acoustic measurements were performed using PRAAT and included pause count, pause duration, pitch direction, vocalic fillers formant values, and their duration. Descriptive statistics were used to determine count, mean, minimal, and maximal values. The results demonstrate that first, silent and filled pauses were used by all subjects with the preference for the silent pause strategy. For all Chinese subjects, the pause rate was considerably higher in native speech than in non-native Russian speech. Second, the universal pause fillers were [a]-like, [am]-like, and [m]-like ones. Simple fillers like [ɤ], [o] were language-specific for Chinese subjects. Another language-specific feature was the wide use of vowel groups by Chinese subjects. Finally, vowel + nasal (velar and forelingual) sequences like [ɤŋ] were language-specific for Chinese subjects.