In this paper an algorithm and rst results from our investigations in automatically learning pronunciation variations from speech data are presented. Pronunciation dictionaries establish an important feature in state-of-the-art speech recognition systems. In most systems only simple dictionaries containing the canonical pronunciation forms are implemented. However, for a good recognition perfor...

Speech corpora play an important role in phonetic research and have been applied in daily life. Their application can be found in pronunciation teaching and learning. This article takes Jianghuai mandarin, a transitional dialect between northern and southern dialects in China, as an example to illustrate the necessity and procedures about the construction of an English speech corpus of learners...

Pronunciation scoring is one important task for software designed to give feedback to students practicing a second language. English intonation can convey information about a speaker’s nativeness, so previous studies have proposed using intonation-based models to score nonnative pronunciation. One past approach trained models for a set of pronunciation scores using ad hoc features derived from ...

This paper reviews interactive methods for improving the phonetic competence of subjects in the case of second language learning as well as in the case of speech therapy for subjects suffering from hearing-impairments or articulation disorders. As an example our audiovisual feedback software “SpeechTrainer” for improving the pronunciation quality of Standard German by visually highlighting acou...

Traditional dialect maps based on data from carefully selected informants, usually give clear-cut dialect borders, isoglosses, with one dialect characteristic present on one side of the isogloss and absent on the other. We have compared results from traditional dialect research with results from a thorough auditory analysis of /r/ and /l/ pronunciation among the 1015 informants in the Norwegian...

We apply a computational measure of pronunciation di erence to a database of 36 word pronunciations from 490 sites throughout Stoykov's Bulgarian Dialect Atlases. The result is a comprehensive view of the aggregate pronunciation di erences among the 490 sites. This study aims to contribute therefore to Bulgarian dialectology, as well as to the development and testing of the computational techni...

Nowadays there are several challenges for English teachers as well as researchers regarding how to teach foreign language pronunciation more effectively. The current study aimed to explore the effect of computer-assisted pronunciation teaching (CAPT) on Persian monolinguals and Turkmen- Persian and also Baloch- Persian bilinguals’ pronunciation considering production and perception. A sample of...