Project Details
Projekt
Breathing in conversation
Applicant
Dr. Marcin Wlodarczak
Subject Area
General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
Term
Funded in 2014
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 261917578
In humans the mechanism of breathing necessary for sustaining life is additionally employed in the complex activity of sound production. Respiration in speech has been studied extensively before, with recent years seeing particular interest in the topic. Yet, in real life speaking is never an end in itself but is interwoven in a complicated network of intentions, goals and social norms, which become coordinated in the context of communication. Given that much breathing in dialogue is clearly audible and visible, it has been suggested that respiration is implicated in negotiation of dialogue flow, e.g. by indicating intention to take or release a speaking turn. However, its interactional aspects have been largely overlooked by earlier research. In addition, no account exists of breathing in dialogue between more than two interlocutors, which is likely to show a greater range of respiratory patterns due to increased turn management complexity. Consequently, the proposed project aims at investigating the role of breathing and its perceptual cues (visual and auditory) for interactive control of conversation, especially in the multiparty setting. We assume breathing has important interactional functions linked to coordination of speaker change. At the same time, given the embodied nature of interaction, the project will examine the interplay between communicative demands and physical constraints of the breathing apparatus. Finally, automatic methods for classification of communicative breathing will be developed with a view to improving current speech technology applications. From the dialogue system point of view, information about user's intention to start speaking is highly valuable and could be used, for example, to prevent user barge-ins. The analyses will be based on a corpus of multiparty spontaneous conversations in Swedish. Changes in rib cage and abdomen circumference due to breathing will be captured using Respiratory Inductance Plethysmography. Auditory and visual breathing cues will be recorded in parallel to the actual conversations. By exploring physiological basis of elementary mechanisms of conversation, the project will contribute significantly to the understanding of embodied practices underlying collaborative human action. In addition, by refining computational models of turn-taking, it will pave the way towards more human-like dialogue systems. Lastly, it will inform methods of respiratory data collection in spontaneous dialogue. The project will be realised at Stockholm University, a leading European research institution with an established position in phonetic and interactional studies. Extensive collaboration with Swedish (KTH, Karolinska Institute) and German (Bielefeld University, Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft) research centres is planned. In particular, collection of data in Swedish and German is envisaged, which will allow for a cross-linguistic perspective on breathing in multiparty conversation.
DFG Programme
Research Fellowships
International Connection
Sweden
