Toward a comprehensive vowel space for whispered speech

Whispered speech, as a means of communication,

has received prior research efforts on different aspects including

some rough estimations/studies on the main vowels /

I

,

E

,

æ

,

2

,

U

/.

Despite these efforts, it still lacks a classic vowel space determi-

nation similar to the vowel acoustic measurements for normal

speech which have played a central role in the development and

testing of speech recognition and processing theories over the

past few decades.

The purpose of this study is to redress the shortfall through

a preliminary vowel formant space for whispered speech,

while comparing the results with corresponding phonated

samples. Since the study was conducted using speakers from

Birmingham, the analysis also briefly considers the possible

effect of British West Midlands (WM) accent in comparison

with Standard English (RP) accent. Thus, the paper presents the

analysis of formant data showing differences between normal

and whispered speech while also considering accentual effect on

whispered speech.