Teaching and learning phonetics with the help of your computer

The State of the Art

Dr. A. Rosado García

Departamento de Filología Inglesa
Universidad de Granada
arosado@ugr.es

The main purpose of this article is to inform about the possibilities that the
web offers us in the field of speech technology and its application to learning
and teaching pronunciation as well as the teaching and learning of instrumental
phonetics .
Speech technology covers a wide area. It is an integral part of a wider field
of research that includes robotics and artificial intelligence. Today we can
converse with machines using human language (computational linguistics)
thanks to word processors and speech technology we can do this in two ways
spoken and written. Speech technology allows us to have intelligent intercourse
with a computer through well designed dialog systems. We can dictate our
computer a letter and have it sent, or have our e-mail read out in a loud voice
thanks to speech-to-text and text-to-speech (TTS) conversion. All these tasks
that include speech analysis and synthesis, speech and speaker identification,
text-to-speech conversion, and speech-to-text conversion are the main area of
research of speech technology (see http://www.cse.ogi.edu/CSLU/HLTsurvey)
This paper copes with what we can find in The Web, such as courses
online, universitites contributions, tools for research and ananlysis, but
particularly with software (free download and demos). We will do a survey of the
most outstandind sites with a critical view. This contemplates quality,
accessibility, retrievability . Some of the most outstanding sites are these:
 • Speech and Hearing Net http://www.speechandhearing.net a virtual
institute for the teaching and learning of phonetics created by M. Huckvale
of University College London, which contains
• Center for Spoken Language Understanding CSLU
http://www.cse.ogi.edu/CSLU,
• Summer Institute of Linguistics SIL Where you can download several
tools such as Speech Analyzer, Speech Manager and IPA Help and IPA
fonts, SIL Speech Analysis Tools http:
/www.sil.org/computing/speechtools
• Joaquín Llisterri http://liceu.uab.es/~joaquim/teaching.
• Comp.Linguistics
http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/comp.speech/Section1/Q1.9.html
As to software for speech analysis we have both commercial and non-
commercial
Commercial Speech Tools include:
the Kay Elemetrics Computerized Speech Lab (CSL)
(http://www.kayelemetrics.com/). This is just one of their many hardware and
software products for voice analysis
Computerized Speech Research Environment (CSRE)
(http://www.avaaz.com/researchresources/csre.htm)
SpeechLab (http://www.media-enterprise.de/engl/speechla/speechla.htm)
Laryngograph Speech Studio
(http://www.laryngograph.com/products/spstudio.htm)
Signalyze (for Apple Mac) (http://www.signalyze.com/)

Free Tools include:

WASP (http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/resource/sfs/wasp.htm)
Speech Filing System (http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/resource/sfs)
PRAAT (http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/)
Speech Analyser
(http://www.sil.org/computing/speechtools/speechanalyzer.htm)
A detailed account of one commercial and one non/commercial tool for Speech
analysis will be given
a) Laryngograph Speech
Sudio

b) WASP/Speech Filing System