Date: 21-Aug-2006 From: Fred Cummins <fred.cumminsucd.ie> Subject: Speaking Style and Identity: New Corpus
We are releasing a novel speech corpus which may be of interest into those looking at diverse speaking styles, and those seeking to characterize speaker identity. The CHAINS corpus (CHaracterizing INdividual Speakers) features approximately 36 speakers recorded under a variety of speaking conditions, allowing comparison of the same speaker across different well-defined speech styles. Speakers read a variety of texts alone, in synchrony with a dialect-matched co-speaker, in imitation of a dialect-matched co-speaker, in a whisper, and at a fast rate. There is also an unscripted spontaneous retelling of a read fable. The bulk of the speakers were speakers of Eastern Hiberno-English.
The corpus is being made freely available for research purposes. Full details are available at the corpus website: http://chains.ucd.ie. This research is funded by Science Foundation Ireland.
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