Reading aloud: Acoustic differences between prose and poetry

Research on silent reading has shown that text genre influences the way texts are read, including differences between prose and poetry (e.g. Zwaan, 1994; Hanauer, 1998). There is little data examining whether text layout (prose vs. poetry) affects the way it is read aloud by non-expert readers, and, if yes, how do readers express those differences acoustically. Native speakers of English (N = 37) read aloud twenty short texts in their native language. Stimuli were original texts that were acceptable as both prose and poetry, written by young published authors. Each text was formatted in four layouts (prose left aligned and justified, a single stanza and verses in multiple stanzas). Each participant saw each text in only one of these layouts. Separate mixed effects logistic regression analyses were performed for each language, testing whether prose vs. poetry layouts influenced the silent period and utterance duration, pitch, and intensity values of the productions. Differences and similarities between reading prose and poetry are discussed.