Revoices

Revoices, often written re-voicing, is a term used in linguistics and speech technology to describe the act of reintroducing or modifying vocal fold vibration in a speech segment. Voicing refers to the vibration of the vocal folds during articulation. Revoicing is the process by which a segment that is voiceless becomes voiced, typically by engaging the vocal folds to produce periodic vibration. This can occur in natural speech through coarticulation with surrounding voiced sounds or as a deliberate articulatory adjustment, and it underpins phonemic contrasts in languages that distinguish voiced and voiceless consonants.

In phonetics and phonology, revoicing is contrasted with de-voicing, the latter being the loss or reduction of vocal fold vibration as a segment becomes voiceless. The observable effects include changes in acoustic cues such as voice onset time, pitch, and spectral characteristics, which can alter the perception of the consonant as voiced or voiceless.

In audio processing and speech technology, revoicing refers to methods that modify or create voicing to improve naturalness or match a target voice. This includes voice conversion, augmentation of synthetic speech, and editing practices where the voicing of a segment is adjusted to fit prosody or dialectal requirements. In clinical contexts, revoicing considerations may be relevant to therapies aiming to improve voice quality and closure for certain disorders.

See also: voicing, de-voicing, voice onset time, phonology, speech synthesis, voice conversion.