Conveyance of emotional connotations by a single word in English

Abstract Native British English speakers uttered the name Sarah to simulate 10 emotional connotations: “naming”, “sad”, “pleading”, “admiring”, “content”, “commanding”, “astonished”, “scornful”, “angry”, and “frightened”. In an identification task, British English listeners categorized the samples. Of the connotations, “angry”, “frightened” and “astonished” were conveyed best, and “content” poorest. Regarding auditory differentiation among the connotations, the results suggest that recognition of “naming”, “sad”, “admiring” “commanding”, “angry”, and “frightened” is based on differences in the signal wave form and its short-term alterations, whereas recognition of “pleading”, “astonished”, and “scornful” also relies on temporal patterning of short-term cues. In general, the present results together with an earlier comparable study on the conveyance of emotional connotations by a single word in Finnish indicate that English and Finnish have shared features in the vocal expression of admiration, positive surprise, scorn, plea, command, fear, and emotional neutrality.

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