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How variable is speech?

Category
Completed Projects
Phonetics and Phonology
Quantitative methods
Research
Date

Project Description

As part of the project 'How variable is speech? Assessing the medium-term dynamics of speech through iterative data collection' I am preparing a formant analysis of just over 4,000 vowels. The vowels were produced by 16 young female speakers of Standard Southern British English in words like 'bead', 'bad', 'bide' and so on. Each speaker produced each word twice in each of 6 to 8 recording sessions. The analysis will attempt to quantify the resulting variation (within-session, between-sessions, within-speaker, between-speakers) and present up-to-date formant estimates for SSBE vowels.

To allow for formant measurements to be extracted, the vowels were segmented using an automatic speech recognition system. Unfortunately parts of the /b/ release and /d/ hold phase were often included in the vowel segment, so that further automated formant analysis is going to be difficult to interpret. The segmented vowels therefore need to be manually checked and trimmed where relevant. I am looking for Linguistics students who have completed LING2330 Phonetics and have an interest in acoustic phonetic analysis to help out with this checking and trimming, starting as soon as feasible.

The checking and trimming procedure is itself partly automated, using a Praat script. 12 vowels remain to be analysed. Each vowel corresponds to about 300 audio files, which take 2-3 hours to get through in one sitting. Students should be prepared to take on 4-6 vowels and complete work for 1 vowel per week, following an initial training session.

Relevant fields of linguistics:

  • Phonetics

Student profile

  • Linguistics student who has completed LING2330 Phonetics (or equivalent module) and enjoyed working with Praat.
  • Priority will be given to students currently enrolled on LING3600 Sociophonetics.

Number of possible students: 2-3

Relevant dates and expected hours per week

  • Interview date: 8 October
  • Start date: 11 October (approximate)
  • End date: 15 November (approximate)

Hours per week: 2-4

Skills to be gained

  • Experience of partly automated acoustic phonetic research
  • Skills in using Praat to segment speech sounds

Application

Students who have questions about this project should contact Dr Leendert Plug.

If you would like to work on this project, please complete an RES application form and send it to Dr Leendert Plug by Friday 4 October. If your application is successful, the supervisor will be in touch in due course.