This paper proposes a method for the measurement and quantification of the impact of accents on speech models. An accent metric is introduced based on the cross entropy (CE) of the probability models of speech from different accents. The CE metric has potentials for use in analysis, identification, quantification and ranking of the salient features of accents. The accent metric is used for phon...

2], there is also variation amongst consonants, particularly post-vocalic (as in ‘horse’, RP versus Scottish English) and postalveolar (as in ‘news’, RP versus General American). This paper reports on work developing an accent-independent lexicon for use in synthesising speech in English. Lexica which use phonemic transcriptions are only suitable for one accent, and developing a lexicon for a n...

How do L2 learners cope with L2 accent variation? We developed predictions based upon the Perceptual Assimilation Model-L2 (PAM-L2) and tested them in an eye-tracking experiment using the visual world paradigm. L2-English learners in Australia with Chinese L1 were presented with words spoken in familiar Australian-accented English (AusE), and two unfamiliar accents: Jamaican Mesolect English (J...

The pitch contour of an English declarative question read aloud by 12 Chinese EFL learners is labeled and analyzed by means of the phonetic software “praat” on the basis of the English intonation grammar proposed by Pierrehumbert. The careful study yields to two findings. 1) Most Chinese EFL learners can locate correctly the stresses of the target sentence and attach legal tonal events to the p...

No studies have investigated cross-cultural and cross-language characteristics of depressed speech. We investigated the generalisability of a vocal biomarker-based approach to depression detection in clinical interviews recorded in three countries (Australia, the USA and Germany), two languages (German and English) and different accents (Australian and American). Several approaches to training ...

In a corpus containing speech data from seven dialects of English, we hand-labelled over 700 nuclear accents and identified seven accent types. Then we used four-term mathematical models to describe the fundamental frequency patterns associated with the accents. A statistical analysis showed that the models for six of the seven accents differed significantly from each other. Our hand-labels wer...

In this paper we investigate whether it is possible to combine speech data from two South African accents of English in order to improve speech recognition in any one accent. Our investigation is based on Afrikaans-accented English and South African English speech data. We compare three acoustic modelling approaches: separate accent-specific models, accentindependent models obtained by straight...

When we speak a second language, tend to do so with an accent. An accent is change of the sounds often result influence first language. For example, English speaker might produce French “r” sounds. Accents from more than just poor muscular coordination. Second-language speakers are drawing on unconscious rules that they already know about their This body knowledge influences not only how people...