Speech Rate in Adult Syrian Arabic Speakers: Preliminary Data

Research studying the speech rate in the Arabic population is scarce. This study aimed to establish a preliminary normative speech rate of Syrian Arabic speakers and identify speech rate differences between females and males within the Syrian population. Sixty-five Syrian Arabic-speaking adults (33 females and 32 males) were recruited from Syrian universities. Data collection was performed in the speech clinics within the universities. Approximately 10-minute conversational speech and reading samples were taken from each participant. Speaking rate during conversational speech and reading tasks and articulation rate were measured in terms of words per minute (WPM) and syllables per minute (SPM). Additionally, the duration of silent intervals and pauses was measured. The normative speech rate results for Syrian Arabic speakers for speaking and reading indicate that female speakers exhibited significantly higher rates in reading tasks but reveal no significant difference between females and males in conversational speech tasks. On the contrary, silent intervals and pauses were significantly higher in males than females in reading tasks but not in spontaneous tasks. Speech rate therefore varies depending on the task and gender in the normal population. As speech rates may be vastly different between languages and even dialects of a specific language, further studies may be needed to identify the normal speech rate in other Arabic dialects.