Within-speaker variability; Between-language differences

‘Who talks fast?’

• sales people

• lawyers

• hustlers and con artists

• New Yorkers

• people in a rush

• nervous people

• upset people

‘Who talks slowly?’

• 
  elderly people
  
• 
  teachers
  
• 
  tired people
  
• 
  preacher/priest
  
• 
  doctor
  
• 
  We should note that a person’s subjective measure of tempo does not necessarily match the objective measure.
  

• How do we measure tempo?

It is relatively easy to see why the syllable is potentially a better measure than the word as a measure of speaking rate if you consider how long it takes you to say (1) serendipitous internationalisation, and then (2) the boy. Both phrases consist of just two words – but the first phrase takes longer to speak. The first phrase has around 13 syllables and the second has only two. So, most linguists would agree that using syllables to measure rate of speech is potentially more useful than using words as a measure. However, there are even more units of measurement that are used to measure rate. In the literature we encounter a great variety of tempo denotations such as:

• 
  syllables per second (syll/sec or s/s)
  
• 
  average syllable duration (ASD in msec)
  
• 
  phones per second
  
• 
  average phone duration (in ms)
  

What this means is that there is no normative data. It is not always possible to compare one piece of research with another. There is no definitive statement of ‘the average rate of speech’.

Speech tempo is a measure of the number of speech units of a given type produced within a given amount of time. Speech tempo is believed to vary within the speech of one person according to contextual and emotional factors, between speakers and also between different languages and dialects. However, there are many problems involved in investigating this variance scientifically.