Identification of communicative aspects in television reporters’ locution

Abstract

Objective: To identify the possibility of naive people differentiate reporters and non-reporters through communicative aspects in the text reading task. Methods: 24 speakers and 12 listeners participated in the research; the speakers were 12 reporters and 12 non-reporters, and non-voice professionals, who made a recording of a pattern piece of news excerpt; the listeners were 12 non-reporters lay people who, by using a numeral ranking of 11 points, assessed the 24 speaking samples in terms of pleasantness, credibility and clarity of speaking articulation, besides identifying whether the recording samples belonged or not to a reporter. Results: There was high level of intra-raters reliability, and high degrees of inter-raters reliability, for the three aspects in question (pleasantness; clarity of diction; credibility). Reporters obtained higher average scores for the parameters assessed, when compared to the non-reporters. Credibility was the aspect which best differentiated reporters from non-reporters. As for the aspects of pleasantness and clarity of speaking, the correct identification of the speaking voice professionals fell to 83%. Conclusions: The lay people can differentiate reporters and non-reporters by the communicative aspects of pleasantness, credibility and clarity of diction in the text reading task. Credibility was the parameter that allowed all the lay listeners realized the correct identification of reporters and non-reporters.