Angelika Hönemann

Free Labeling of Audio-visual Attitudinal Expressions in Cantonese

This paper reports results from a free labeling experiment employing short audio-visual utterances of Cantonese produced with varying attitudinal expressions. It is part of a series of such experiments with a cross-language setting between German and Cantonese. Cantonese-speaking perceivers were asked to specify a single word that best described these stimuli, which were presented in audio-visual, audio-only, and video-only modalities. The resulting terms were analyzed with respect to the emotional dimensions of valence, activation and dominance, as well as the linguistic dimension of assertion/interrogation. The analysis results are compared with the outcomes from similar experiments employing German stimuli with Cantonese perceivers, as well as German perceivers assessing both German and Cantonese stimuli. It is found that Cantonese perceivers judge the Cantonese stimuli as more activated than German perceives do. The valence judgments agree relatively well, however, “polite” stimuli were judged less positively by Cantonese perceivers. Generally speaking, valence judgments are mostly influenced by the stimuli whereas activation and dominance judgments depend more on the perceiver group.