Intonation pattern and duration differences in imitated speech

Abstract

The present paper is a study of one impersonator and one of his voice imitations.The aim of the study was to investigate how he changes his own voice and speech behavior in order to get close to the target speaker's.A comparison is made between three recordings of the same text material: the target speaker, the voice imitation and the impersonator's own voice and dialect.The results presented in this paper focus on mean fundamental frequency, intonation pattern and duration differences.It is obvious that the impersonator changes his dialect and articulation in the voice imitation.