I was fortunate enough to be able to visit UC Berkeley for Cal-Day which is an open house for admitted students for the university. During Cal-Day the linguistics department had an "Ask a Linguist" information session. Throughout this session you could go to the phonetics lab and talk to current undergraduate, graduate, and professors in the linguistic department. You could also get your voice recorded in the phonetic lab booth. (pictured above) I got my voice recorded saying my name. The recording is then transferred and can be viewed using the frequency scale. Higher pitch is higher frequency lower pitch is lower frequency. The linguist Dr. Lin that recorded my voice told me that just by looking at my recorded voice she can tell I am from California. The reason she could tell that I was a Californian was because I had an up tone. An up tone is when the end of a sentence, phrase, or word ends in a higher pitch. When I said my name my last syllable ended in an up tone. This up tone can be found in almost all Californians speech. I found this interesting because this can be applied to analyzing different languages and how their melody influences cognition.
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