LINGUIST List 12.2850

Tue Nov 13 2001

Jobs: Text to Speech: at Rhetorical Systems, UK

Editor for this issue: Karolina Owczarzak <karolinalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Art Blokland, Text to Speech: Dutch speaker at Rhetorical Systems, Edinburgh UK

Areas Required: Text to Speech
Other Desired Areas: Phonetics
University or Organization: Rhetorical Systems Ltd
State or Province: Edinburgh
Country: Scotland
Final Date of Application: 30 November 2001
Contact: Art Blokland Art.Bloklandrhetorical.com

Address for Applications:
4 Crichton's Close
Edinburgh
 EH8 8DT
Scotland

Rhetorical Systems is looking for a native Dutch speaker to join them
on a new Dutch-language text-to-speech system. This post is in
addition to the Italian position advertised recently.

We are an innovative company dedicated to the building of high-quality
text-to-speech systems. Following the successful completion of a
multi-lingual system, we are now embarking on a second phase of adding
new languages. One of these languages is Dutch.

We seek an enthusiastic person with solid knowledge of the phonetics
and phonology of Dutch. Experience with previous text-to-speech
systems is desirable. Experience in using computers is essential,
preferrably Linux or another variety of Unix.

Text-to-speech systems work by cutting up human speech into small
segments, and recombining them to produce new utterances. Some of the
variables in this process are the choice of segment, the duration of
the segments, and their pitch. These quantities are established using
automatic algorithms, guided by expert phonetic knowledge. It is your
skill in this area that will define the quality of the resulting
synthetic speech.

The appointment is for one year initially, with the possibility of
renewal afterwards.

If you are interested, write to us telling us about yourself, at one
of the following addresses.

 Art Blokland
 Rhetorical Systems Ltd
 4 Crichton's Close
 Edinburgh EH8 8DT
 T: ( +44 ) ( 0 ) 131 525 6811
 F: ( +44 ) ( 0 ) 131 525 6888
 E: artrhetorical.com