Unpacking the gender-role interaction of prosodic entrainment in Chinese long-and-short turn-taking: evidence from perceptual and acoustic similarities

Prosodic entrainment, the phenomenon of speakers adapting their speech patterns to each other, has been extensively studied in short turn-taking conversations. However, little is known about its dynamics in long-and-short turn-taking contexts, such as talk shows. This study investigates prosodic entrainment in Mandarin Chinese talk shows, focusing on the effects of gender and role on entrainment behaviour and the correlation between perceived similarity and acoustic-prosodic features. We analysed a corpus of 50 audio files from a popular Mandarin Chinese talk show, examining three acoustic-prosodic features: pitch, intensity, and speaking rate. Prosodic entrainment was measured using proximity and synchrony-related distances at both local and global levels. Additionally, a perceptual judgement task was conducted to assess perceived prosodic similarity. Results showed that negative entrainment was more prevalent than positive entrainment across all three feature sets, particularly in speaking rate synchrony. The female host demonstrated larger positive entrainment compared to both male and female guests. Gender-role interactions revealed complex entrainment patterns: mixed-gender pairs showed greater local synchrony, while same-gender pairs exhibited more global entrainment. Perceived similarity correlated moderately with pitch for male guests in both local proximity and synchrony, suggesting pitch plays a crucial role in listeners’ perception of prosodic similarity. These findings challenge conventional assumptions about positive entrainment’s benefits in communication and highlight the complex interplay between gender, role, and entrainment behaviour in talk show settings. The prevalence of negative entrainment suggests that contrasting speech patterns can contribute to engaging and dynamic conversations in specific contexts. This study enhances our understanding of prosodic entrainment in long-and-short turn-taking contexts and emphasises the need to consider gender, role, and communicative settings in future research on speech accommodation.