Varieties of the Russian Language and Their Influence on the Visual Perception of Speech

Abstract

In this paper we investigate an important problem of how a person visually perceives isolated words of verbal speech. We investigate the varieties of the Russian language and describe their distinctive features from the reference language. Our attention is focused on the dialectal varieties of colloquial speech used in informal communication throughout the country. We focus on the peculiarities of vernacular and slang vocabulary penetrating into the literary language. Examples of unilateral use of less common vernacular words are given; if the recipient does not know these words, he or she can misunderstand the phrase. That, in turn, may lead to a conflict situation. We investigate what factors lead to phonetic and articulatory uncertainty as words are pronounced and if the words can be replaced with the ones of similar articulatory patterns. The definition of these words - "homovisems"- is given. The interchangeability of such words affects the quality of speech perception. We identified and described some external factors that influence the process of how we perceive oral speech in a visual way, i.e. how the speaker’s lips move. In this work, we use the articulatory approach to describe and analyze speech perception by means of phonemes and visemes. We describe the phonetic and articulatory features of the Russian language. We recorded these features by means of phonetic and articulatory transcription. This makes it possible to examine the structure of speech elements in a convenient static form and to identify their similar and distinctive features. Models have been developed to represent the features of speech elements of the Russian language in a static form. We determined how interrelated parameters of words interact with each other in terms of their expression and in terms of semantic meaning. Our results can be used by specialists in articulatory colloquial speech and to develop speech recognition software.

Keywords

• visual recognition of spoken language
• articulation approach
• spoken language
• sound modifications
• visemes
• homovisemes
• interrelated parameters