THE IMPACT OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE ON RECOGNIZING OF VOCAL EMOTIONS

Abstract

The aim of my study is to find out to what extent the understanding of vocal emotions could depend on linguistic and cultural affiliation. The research was based on the understanding of moderately expressed vocal emotions (happiness, anger, sadness,neutrality) of each sentence in Chinese speech without seeing the speaker and Urdu native speakers were asked to recognize the target emotion expressed in sentences that have no knowledge of Chinese language. Also some Urdu sentences were presented to them to see the cultural affiliation of speakers belonging to same culture and backgrounds. It also based on to test the hypothesis of universality and similarity. The listening test was consisting of total hundred students from NUML university of Faisalabad selected randomly out of which thirty  were from Chinese class who were learning Chinese as a second language. The results were contradictory to universal hypothesis as most of students were able to understand the emotions of Happiness and Anger at a higher rate and a moderate understanding of Neutral emotion and least understanding of Sad Emotion. Also cultural contrast was seen between people belonging to same culture and backgrounds. This article indicated that genealogical relation of languages and similarity of cultural values are advantages in recognizing vocal emotions and people may have their own thoughts even they are belonging to same culture and backgrounds, but the change of language and culture changes the emotions and create confusions. The article contains the evidence research data that point out various questions and answers of it through practical approach. The study contains the tables and percentages of each emotions understanding by Cross-cultural communication and open gate for further researches by ariseing various questions.