How to impress your interviewer
64
Final paper
The pitch of voice and the speaking pace
Introduction
There are a lot of factors that affect our impression in talking. For example, speaking pace, interval, volume, tone, pitch of a voice, etc. If we can control these factors at will, we will have more interesting time to talk. From these factors, I choose two, the pitch of a voice (ex. difference between male voice and female voice.) and a speaking pace.
The two factors have big influence on speaking, because the two is basis of speaking. In this time, through rough research, they will help us communicate be more understandable than now.
Literature review
Generally, it is said that female voice is higher than male voice, about a octave. There is a little difference between female voice and voice of child. On the other hand, men have very big deference before breaking voice and after breaking voice.
What kind of voice we consider attractive? In the field of music, boy soprano singer is popular through the history. To my surprise, there were “Castrato”, who were castrated in Italy in the old days. From it, my thought is that neutral voice is thought it attractive.
What kind of voice we consider easy to hear? It is said that person who have lower voice is considered as honest, person who have higher voice is considered as thoughtless.
And then, how about speaking pace? It is said that slow speaking makes the person’s impression stupid, fast speaking makes the person’s impression smart.
Reference ()
Methods
I will have a questionnaire written by 20 female university students, and from these answers, I will make graphs to easy to see.
Questionnaire
どの程度の高さの声が理解しやすいと思いますか？（男声）（数字に○）
1
2
3
4
5
低い 高い
どの程度の高さの声が理解しやすいと思いますか？（女声）（数字に○）
1
2
3
4
5
低い 高い
どの程度の声の高さを魅力的に感じますか？（男声）（数字に○）
1
2
3
4
5
低い 高い
どの程度の声の高さを魅力的に感じますか？（女声）（数字に○）
1
2
3
4
5
低い 高い
どの程度の話し速度が理解しやすいと思いますか？（数字に○）
1
2
3
4
5
遅い 速い
どの程度の話し速度を魅力的に感じますか？（数字に○）
1
2
3
4
5
遅い
Results
There are answers of questionnaire showed as graphs.
1. Which level of a pitch of voice is the most understandable for you? (male voice)
2. Which level of a pitch of voice is the most understandable for you? (female voice)
3. Which level of a pitch of voice is the most attractive for you? (male voice)
4. Which level of the pitch of voice is the most attractive for you? (female voice)
5. Which speaking pace is the most understandable for you?
6. Which speaking pace is the most attractive for you?
Results from these graphs.
・ The pitch of voice
Many people selected the pitch of level 3 as the most appropriate to understand. Question2 (same as the question1 except for sex) showed the same pattern as this, and the fact that female voice, it is higher pitch than male voice, is took into consideration to their answers.
Tendency about attractive voice for people is little difference to voice that is easy to understand. The results showed that people like male-like, female-like voice. Different from my hypothesis (neutral pitch of voice tend to be preferred by people), people tend to prefer lower voice of men, higher voice of women. They may think it is important that saving their own sex in nature. However, No people selected level1 (lowest voice) and level5 (highest voice). Extreme pitch of voice may not be liked.
・The speaking pace
Many people selected level 3 as the most understandable speaking pace, and faster pace (level 4) had more points than slower pace (level 2). On the other hand, many people selected level 2 and level 3 as the most attractive voice. No people selected level 1, level 5 and level 4.
From this difference between Question4 and Question5, I added one question. Most people selected level 3, 4 as these paces are easy to understand (faster pace tend to be preferred at the point of understanding), but most people selected level 2, 3, as these paces are attractive. (slower pace tend to be preferred at the point of attraction). They got different impressions to understandable pitch of voice and attractive pitch of voice. Which pitch of the voice they make much point? How much pace do people think that it is proper in speaking?
Which speaking pace do you like? (added question)
“Like” is ambiguous word. From this question, the graph pattern is more close to question5 (about how understandable) than question6 (how attractive). 13 people selected level3 and 7 people selected level4. No people selected level2. The result may show that people take priority to the speaking pace easy to understand than the speaking pace that is attractive.
・They tend to select the level of the pitch of voice that easy to understand; standard level.
・The attractive pitch of voice is different by sex and manly pitch of voice, womanly pitch of voice tend to be preferred.
・Proper level is different in a respect of understanding and attraction in the point of the speaking pace, and they tend to prior how understandable to attraction.
Questionnaire in English
1. Which level of a pitch of voice is the most understandable for you?(male voice)
1
2
3
4
5
low high
2. Which level of a pitch of voice is the most understandable for you? (female voice)
1
2
3
4
5
low high
3. Which level of a pitch of voice is the most attractive for you? (male voice)
1
2
3
4
5
low high
4. Which level of the pitch of voice is the most attractive for you? (female voice)
1
2
3
4
5
low high
5. Which speaking pace is the most understandable for you?
1
2
3
4
5
slow fast
6. Which speaking pace is the most attractive for you?
1
2
3
4
5
slow fast
