Intro to linguistic pitch

What do pitch variations in speech tell us?

Exercise 1: Can you tell what language this is?

[10 minutes] Introduce yourself to one of your neighbors. As a team, come up with a guess about:

• Is your audio file a recording of American English? Why do you think so?

• If not, what language do you think it might be? Why do you think so?

• Audio files:

  • Apple
  • Banana
  • Coconut
  • Durian
  • Eggplant
  • Fig
  • Grapefruit
  • Halva

• Languages:

  • American English
  • Cantonese
  • French
  • Hausa
  • Hindi
  • Igbo
  • Japanese
  • Swedish

Exercise 2: What conversation was this uttered in?

[10 minutes] Introduce yourself to two of your other neighbors. As a team, come up with a guess about a very brief scenario/dialogue/conversation where the particular utterance of this sentence might naturally have come up:

Linguistic and musical pitch are closely related.

• Audio files:
  • Antimony
  • Bromine
  • Copper
  • Iron
  • Potassium