A Study on the Characteristics of the Intonational Slope of the Korean Broadcasting News Utterances

한국어 방송 뉴스 발화의 억양 기울기 특성 연구

The purpose of this study is to analyze the intonational slope characteristics of the Korean news utterances. Prosodic phrases were analyzed in terms of the K-ToBI labeling system. In addition, the change of intonation contour that occurs throughout the sentences was discussed in terms of types of media and gender. Results showed that the overall declination of the intonation contour of radio and male revealed a gentler slope than that of TV and female, respectively. While the regression of the top line slope showed male's higher $R^2$ with the number of words, the base line slope of the radio and female was proved to be highly influenced from the number of syllables, words, and prosodic phrases. A lot more independent variables statistically affected to the base line slope. This means that the base line slope was strongly related to the variables, the top line slope, otherwise, could be more freely fluctuated due to the light correlation with them.