The relation between subjective and objective assessment of speaking rate in Czech radio newsreaders

This article examined objective and subjective speaking rate and their relation. Read speech of 22 Czech radio newsreaders (13 male and 9 female) constituted the material for the study. The objective rate was measured as speech rate and articulation rate, both expressed in syllables per second. Two domains, a single news report and an intonation phrase, were chosen as the units of observation. A perception test was used to establish the subjective assessment of speaking rate. The test was made up of the full news reports and the subjects were asked to rate their tempo on a scale slow – normal – fast. The median of speech rate and articulation rate for the individual news reports was 5.7 syll/s and 6.2 syll/s, respectively. In general, the listeners rated the stimuli tempo as normal and there was no significant difference between the subjective evaluation of female and male speakers. The possible factors influencing the relation between the subjective and objective rating are discussed; no simple and direct relationship between them was found.