Expressing the opposite: Acoustic cues of Thai verbal irony

The present study examined the acoustic cues of sarcasm in Thai. Four Thai speakers participated in two reading tasks: neutrality and sarcasm reading. Speech rate, F0 mean, F0 range, amplitude mean, amplitude range, F0 slope, and F0 intercept were measured and analyzed. The results indicated that sarcasm was produced at a faster speech rate and with a higher F0 mean, a wider F0 range, and a higher amplitude mean. Amplitude range reported no statistical significance. F0 slope alone was an insignificant cue, but F0 slope together with F0 intercept could distinguish between sarcasm and neutrality. Regarding gender differences, male speakers decreased their speech rate and increased their F0 mean while female speakers increased their F0 range when expressing sarcasm. Also, both male and female speakers increased their amplitude mean when producing sarcasm.