Vortrag: Acoustic analysis of Turkish vowel formants: A methodological perspective

In this talk, a methodological approach to analyzing Turkish vowel formants will be presented, and inconsistencies identified in previous studies will be addressed through a systematic and replicable framework. A newly developed dataset of 1,280 vowel tokens from 20 speakers will be analyzed and demonstrated using VowSpace, an open-source tool developed for this research, to visualize and normalize vowel data with the Lobanov method. Beyond Turkish, it will be shown how careful methodological design can enhance cross-linguistic phonetic research and contribute to the broader typological literature on vowel systems.

Acoustic Analysis of Turkish Vowel Formants: A Methodological Perspective
This study investigates the formant frequencies of vowels in Standard Turkish, addressing methodological inconsistencies identified in previous research. A preliminary meta-analysis of existing studies revealed significant variation in reported vowel formants, largely attributable to discrepancies in data elicitation materials, vowel environments, recording equipment, and participant age. Additionally, only a limited number of studies apply vowel normalisation, further complicating cross-study comparisons.
To address these challenges, I developed a transparent and replicable methodology for analysing Turkish vowel formants, aiming to establish a systematic framework for future research. Voice recordings were collected in a sound-isolated environment using the read-aloud method from 20 participants (five women and five men across two age groups: 18–29 and 30–40). The recordings spanned various phonetic contexts, including isolated words and structured environments such as /hVd/, /bVd/, /bVt/, /hVdVt/, and /bVdVt/, yielding a total of 1,280 vowel tokens (64 per speaker).
The analysis was conducted using VowSpace, a Python-based open-source desktop application developed specifically for this study. VowSpace facilitates the acquisition, visualization, normalization, and linguistic analysis of vowel data from audio files. I applied Lobanov normalization to reduce speaker-specific anatomical variation while preserving linguistic distinctions. The normalized data was then used to visualize the vowel space of Standard Turkish, offering a clearer representation of vowel distributions.
By emphasizing methodological transparency and reproducibility, this study offers a foundational resource for future acoustic research on Turkish vowels. The resulting dataset will be made openly available to support continued efforts in the systematic description of Turkish vowel acoustics. Furthermore, by refining methods for analyzing vowel formants in underrepresented languages, this work contributes to cross-linguistic phonetic comparisons and supports broader typological investigations. I hope that the methodological insights presented here will inform future studies of vowel systems across languages, ultimately enriching the universal literature on vowel acoustics and variation.

 
Aydın, Ö., & Uzun, İ. P. (2020). Ünlü formant normalizasyonu: R programlama dilinde bir uygulama. In İ. P. Uzun (Ed.), Kuramsal ve uygulamalı sesbilim: Kavramlar, terimler (pp. 297-322). Seçkin Yayıncılık.
Kaya, A. Ç. (2024). VowSpace: A Vowel Formant Analysis Application [Poster presentation]. 37th National Linguistics Congress, Kocaeli, Türkiye. The Linguistics Association.
Kendall, T., & Vaughn, C. (2015). Measurement variability in vowel formant estimation: A simulation experiment. M. Wolters vd. (Yay. haz.), Proceedings of the International Congress on Phonetics (ICPhS) 2015. International Phonetic Association.
Kent, R., & Vorperian, H. K. (2018). Static measurements of vowel formant frequencies and bandwidths: A review. Journal of Communication Disorders, 74, 74-97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2018.05.004
Rathcke, T., vd. (2017). The beauty in a beast: Minimising the effects of diverse recording quality on vowel formant measurements in sociophonetic real-time studies. Speech Communication, 86, 24-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2016.11.001
Zhang, C., Jepson, K. & Chuang, Y., (2024) Investigating differences in lab-quality and remote recording methods with dynamic acoustic measures. Laboratory Phonology 15(1). https://doi.org/10.16995/labphon.10492

Info

Tag: 15.05.2025
Anfangszeit: 14:00
Dauer: 00:30
Raum: GWZ 2.116
Track: Phonetics/Phonology
Sprache: en

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