Description
The articulation of Japanese and English sounds involves different muscle memories and coordination, so frequent articulatory practice is essential. This two-part workshop is designed for Japanese learners of English as well as engineers interested in developing computer-assisted and/or mobile pronunciation training apps. In part 1, I will provide an overview of useful tools for facilitating English pronunciation practice and discuss the technologies underlying the tools (e.g. automatic speech recognition, dialogue systems). I will cite relevant research to discuss the pros and cons of pronunciation training with a teacher versus a computer. I will also highlight how recent advances in speech technologies such as prosodic transplantation and voice-cloning may facilitate improvements in L2 learners’ understanding and use of tone of voice. Part 2 will focus on speech prosody, illustrating how the nine tones in English convey different attitudinal meanings and the discourse, psycholinguistic and structural functions of speech prosody. There will be hands-on English pronunciation practice using various apps, including English Central, Google Translate, Siri and Resemble.ai. Finally, I will present my new machine-learning project which aims at providing automatic feedback on the accuracy of users’ imitation of the tone of voice of presenters heard on YouTube videos.Period | 1 Nov 2022 |
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Held at | University of Tsukuba, Japan |
Degree of Recognition | International |
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Prizes
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Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitational Research Fellowship
Prize: Prize (research)
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Invitational Fellowships for Research in Japan
Prize: Honorary award › Honorary award (research)