Effects of Selected Phonetic Aspects in German Speech Audiometry

Abstract

In Germany, phonetically balanced lists containing two to five syllable numbers are presently used in speech audiometry. An investigation was carried out to obtain properly selected lists of German words similar to the spondee lists in English and the “grave” lists in Spanish. Two lists containing 238 common German spondee words were selected from a total of 6535 bisyllabic words obtained from newspapers of four main German dialectal regions. These were administered in the form of intelligibility test to a German population. The scores were statistically analyzed, and the phonetic aspects of the German phonemes were examined concerning the intelligibility and preservation-in-error values as well as the influence of voiced and voiceless characteristics on the intelligibility of the word. The study will be continued in order to provide a vocabulary which can be used with some foreknowledge in appraising speakers, listeners, and communication equipment. This vocabulary will be useful for speech reception, speech discrimination, and multiple-choice intelligibility tests.