puheenluku

Puheenluku is a Finnish term used in linguistics and related fields to describe the quantitative analysis of spoken language. The word combines puhe (speech) and luku (counting or reading). In practice, puheenluku involves recording a speech sample and extracting numerical measures that characterize how talk is produced.

Common metrics include words per minute (WPM), syllables per minute, articulation rate, and pause analysis. Researchers may also track hesitations, filler words, and the distribution of long versus short pauses to assess fluency and cognitive load during speaking.

Analysis typically requires transcription of the speech sample, either manually or using automated speech recognition, followed by annotation of timing and linguistic units. Data sources range from spontaneous conversations and interviews to lectures, podcasts, and broadcast speech. Puheenluku can be applied to small- or large-scale corpora to compare speaking styles across speakers, contexts, or languages.

Applications include language development assessment in education and speech-language pathology, phonetic and prosodic research in linguistics, and evaluation of speech technologies such as voice assistants and text-to-speech systems. It is also used in media and public speaking to study pacing and delivery.

Challenges include dialectal variation, background noise, and inconsistency in transcription and annotation standards. Reliability depends on clear guidelines and inter-annotator agreement, particularly for symbols denoting pauses, hesitations, and prosodic boundaries.

See also: prosody, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics.