= Joint speech
<Joint speech> occurs when two or more people utter the same thing at the same time. The definition includes choral recitation and chanting, and can extend across the boundary between ordinary <speech> and song. Shared timing and shared utterance content distinguish it from people merely talking simultaneously about different things.<Fred Cummins research overview>[Research, definition of joint speech and examples]{ref}
The topic has a tractable scientific core: how do separate speakers coordinate the timing of one utterance? A laboratory <synchronous speech> task can give two speakers the same text and record their voices separately. Corresponding acoustic landmarks then provide measurements rather than relying only on a listener's impression that the group sounds unified.<Practice and performance in speech produced synchronously by Fred Cummins>[experimental design, paired prepared-text readings]{ref}
Two properties need separate measurements. Speakers may produce identical words with a persistent time offset, or align their onsets while producing different words. Neither observation alone establishes both components of <joint speech>. A useful protocol therefore specifies the text, the events used to assess timing and the accepted deviation.
This turns a social activity into questions about <speech perception>, production and mutual adjustment. Findings from a controlled reading task identify what happened under those conditions; transferring them to a large spontaneous chant additionally requires evidence about that setting.
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