LINGUIST List 8.574

Tue Apr 22 1997

Qs: Chinese, learning, synthetic speech

Editor for this issue: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar <aristarlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Johanna Rubba, Query: Chinese
2. ute.smit, Qu: Pronunciation learning at university level
3. Bente Henrikka Moxness, Synthetic speech

I find myself in a hurry to find a linguistic description of the
segmental phoneme inventory of standard Mandarin Chinese, and unable to
find one that seems modern or makes sense to me either in our library or on
the web (in spite of the fact that I have checked out about six books on
Chinese ... none are modern linguistic descriptions. Not even the 10-volume
ling. encyclopedia has simple vowel and consonant charts for Mandarin).

If anyone has a list or chart that gives descriptions in the usual terms
(e.g. retroflex palatal whatever) known to linguistics, could you send
it to me? I am preparing a very short lesson on 'contrastive analysis'
between Chinese and English for some local schoolteachers headed to China
for a six-week program in which they are to help Chinese teachers with
their English, so they need a mini-course in Chinese phonology contrasted
with English.

Remarks on major phonotactic differences would also be very helpful.

I don't need to relate the phonemes to the Chinese writing system, and I
have sufficient material on the tones.

Thanks in advance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba	Assistant Professor, Linguistics ~
English Department, California Polytechnic State University ~
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 ~
Tel. (805)-756-2184 E-mail: jrubbaoboe.aix.calpoly.edu ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear listers,
I'd be interested to get information on how the pronunciation of second/foreign
languages (specifically English) is taught at university language
departments.
I see four possibilities:
(1) not at all
(2) as part of general language classes
(3) in elective/optional pronunciation classes
(4) in obligatory pronunciation classes
As I'd like to get a good overview of the varying policies, I'd
really appreciate it if a lot of you could respond. I hope that the
four possibilities will make this easier: simply indicate which of
them applies to you. If none does, it would be very
helpful if you could email me a brief description of how pronunciation
learning is handled at your department.
If there is interest, I'd of course post a summary of my findings,
and thanks a lot for your help.
Best regards,
Ute Smit
Email: ute.smitunivie.ac.at
University of Vienna, Austria

Hi everybody;

I'm a phonetician currently working on a project involving synthetic speech
for telecommunication services.
For some time I've been wondering about how people react to synthetic
speech, but I do not know of any studies/research carried out on the topic.

What I would like to know is whether there has been any research done on
the perception of synthetic speech. How do people react when they encounter
a synthetic voice on the phone when booking their airplane tickets, for
instance? I would also like to hear personal experiences on the topic.
I am mainly interested in synthetic speech on the phone, but I welcome
anything related to this topic! If anyone should have
material/experiences/references on reactions to prerecorded voices employed
in telecommunicational purposes, I am interested in that as well.
The assumption that I seem to share with many others is that people will
react negatively when they realize that they are conversing with a machine.
Do people react negatively to synthetic speech as a general rule?
If so, what triggers the negative response?
Are there certain spectral features that are especially prominent in
trigging the negative response? By using the term "negative response" I
mean to cover experiences of frustration, anger, fright, etc.
If somebody could help me out, I'd be much obliged! I will post a summary
if I receive enough responses.

Regards,
Bente


#########################################################################
Bente Henrikka Moxness
Research Assistant
Dept. of Linguistics
NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
7055 Dragvoll
Norway
Tel: +47 73 59 15 16
Fax: +47 73 59 61 19
e-mail: benmoxalfa.itea.ntnu.no
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