Speaking Rate among Professional Radio Newscasters: Hebrew Speakers

Abstract

This is a preliminary and exploratory study aimed to examine and quantify speaking and articulation rate among professional Hebrew speaking radio newscasters. Nineteen radio newscasters (ten men and nine women) were digitally recorded during live public broadcasts. The newscasters were assigned to two age-groups: “younger” (under 30 years) and “older” (over 58 years). All recordings were first transcribed and then analyzed acoustically to measure overall speaking rate, speaking rate within-item, articulation rate, pause duration and percentage of disfluency. The average speaking rate obtained for the entire group was 5.90 Syllable-per-Second, and average articulation rate was 6.42. No differences were found between men and women for any of the observed measures, and no age-group differences were found. This study provides preliminary rate data for a reading task, performed by Hebrew speaking professional newscasters. It also suggests that within this professional population of adult speakers, rate and fluency measures are not affected by gender or age.