1. Introduction

Speech is performed with the intention of communicating a certain set of meanings tothe listener. To be able to convey this message, the speaker uses, besides the words
themselves, some vocal strategies (i.e., timing, loudness) in order to transmit certain
intentions. These prosodic signals are often used to accent the verbal message by addingemphasis to particular words, phrases, or sentences. The importance of prosody indetermining the speaker’s intent has often been assumed, but with little actual research.
Although attempts to analyze the ways used for emphasizing words in a sentence havebeen undertaken, and methods for accenting a sentence are known and used in speechdelivery, there is little physical analysis and measurement of the factors contributing to
the accenting of a sentence in context. In light of this, the present study aimed atinvestigating the vocal strategies used by speakers to emphasize a certain part of speech,
when trying to communicate to the listeners that this part is the most important in thecontext. As the communicative potential of nonverbal behaviour is heavily influenced
by culture, and the specific nonverbal messages vary significantly within different
languages, this topic was approached from a cross-cultural point of view, analyzing thepattern of intention communication in languages belonging to different linguistic groups(Romanian, English, Japanese). This study focuses on the analysis of pauses inparticular, and additionally on vocal intensity and speech rate.

2. Experiment 1 (Japanese), Experiment 2 (Romanian), Experiment 3 (English) Vocal strategies in expressing ‘importance’

Purpose and Method
These experiments investigated the vocal strategies used by speakers of three languages(Japanese, Romanian, English) for accenting a certain part of the speech. The speakers
read aloud two texts in their native languages (respectively Japanese, Romanian andEnglish), firstly with no particular instructions (control condition) and secondly, suchthat they communicate to the listener that one of the sentences (chosen by the94experimenter) was the most important in the context (communication of intentioncondition). Their speeches were acoustically analysed.

Results and Discussion
When trying to communicate that a certain segment of speech is more important thanthe rest, the speakers took longer pauses before and after the emphasized (important)sentence, and uttered this sentence at a slower rate. Moreover, the important sentence
was louder than the other, non-important, sentences, and the variations in intensity werebigger for the emphasized sentence.
In Japanese, the pausing behaviour was found to be heavily employed in thecommunication of intention, long pauses being taken before, and especially after theimportant sentences. In Romanian, the absolute duration of the pauses was muchsmaller than in Japanese, but the changes in the pause durations for the importantsentences relative to the non-important sentences were higher in Romanian for thepreceding pauses. In English, the pauses were shorter than in Japanese but longer thanin Romanian; however, the ‘importance’ communication had no significant effect on theduration of the preceding pauses, whilst the post-target pauses increased considerably, atabout the same rate as for Romanian.

3. Experiment 4 – Detection of intention in speech
Purpose and Method
This experiment aimed at evaluating the extent to which the intention of the speakers isdetected by listeners via acoustic correlates of speech. The speeches were presented inboth Japanese (as native language) and Romanian (as unfamiliar language). The goal of
the unfamiliar language study was to investigate if it is possible to communicate acertain intention only acoustically, independent of linguistic meaning.

Results and Discussion
In a native language, the intention of the speaker was successfully communicated to thelisteners, most of them choosing the sentence emphasized by the speaker as the mostimportant in the context. The detection of the target sentence was influenced by speech95rate (the slower the rate of a sentence, the more the subjects chose it as the target
sentence), duration of the pauses following the sentence (the longer the pause, the more
important the sentence was considered to be), and vocal intensity (the higher the level,
the more the subjects chose it as the target sentence).
Even in an unfamiliar language, the intention of the speaker was fairly well detected,
information being extracted only from the acoustic factors used by the speaker.
In this case the choices of the listeners were possibly influenced by acoustic cues suchas the pauses preceding the sentence, and the vocal intensity across the target sentence.

4. General Discussion
This study has shown that prosodic factors such as pauses, speech rate and vocal
intensity are heavily employed in the communication of important information in
speech for all the three languages belonging to different linguistic groups: Japanese,
Romanian and English. Native speakers of these languages use similar strategies in
expressing ‘importance’, combining the three acoustic correlates analysed, for more
effective intention communication. However, the degree to which each of the acoustic
factors contributes to the communication of intention in each language and their
combination in accenting a part of the speech are different for the three languages.
Especially the pause taking behaviour differs considerably. In Japanese, as well as inEnglish, the pauses taken after the target sentences appear to play a more significant
role in intention communication, while in Romanian, the preceding pauses areemployed more for adding emphasis.
Additionally, the results suggest that, even if they may be insufficient when semantic
information is not available (as in an unfamiliar language), the acoustical cues play avery important role in understanding a certain intention.
In the future, it is necessary to investigate the effect of emphasis at the word level, andalso to test how the manipulation of prosodic cues (especially pausing) influences thelistener’s understanding of the speaker’s intended message.

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