A quantitative study of disfluencies in formal, informal and media spontaneous speech in Spanish

Proceedings of IberSpeech 2012 (Madrid, Spain)A descriptive study of the prevalence of different types of disfluencies (fragmented words, restarts and vocalic supports) in spontaneous Spanish is presented based on a hand-annotated corpus. A quantitative account of differences among three types of registers (formal, informal and media) and several subtypes of text for each register is provided to analyze the importance of each disfluency class for a given register

Variation in non-fluencies in a corpus of simultaneous interpreting vs. non-interpreted English

The present study aims to investigate the occurrence of various non- fl uencies (mispronounced words and hesitations; self-repairs and editing terms; silent pauses; repetitions; fi llers) in interpreted and non-interpreted, spontaneously produced English. The material for the study is the English component of a parallel bidirectional corpus of Russian-English interpreting of political discourse, consisting of approx. 130,000 words from 77 speech events. The instances of non- fl uencies have been automatically extracted from the corpus, with the exception of self-repair, which was subject to manual annotation. The fi gures for the two subcorpora were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test, chi-square test, and Fisher ' s exact test, as appropriate. The results show that (1) interpreted English has more dis fl uencies overall, and serial truncations speci fi cally; (2) the number of repaired dis fl uencies is lower in interpreted English; (3) and interpreted English has fewer fi llers and dis fl uent repetitions than non-interpreted English. The results on editing terms are inconclusive. While the fi rst fi nding conforms to the predictions in the literature on SI, the other two can be ascribed to di ff erences in style among interpreters

Quantitative study of linguistic phenomenas as indices of Thought and Language Disorders

International audienceThis work is concerned with cognitive dysfunction manifestation occurring in language. It was shown that schizophrenics show a difficulty in planning dialogic interaction. We are interested by these results in what we can learn at discourse level, we want to have a look at other linguistic levels. We come back here on the appearance of a specific distributions of disfluencies for these patients, and show that they have an equivalent morphosyntactic ability with respect to witnesses or psychologist.Ces travaux s'intéressent à la manifestation de dysfonctionnement cognitifs apparaissant dans le langage. Il a été montré que les schizophrènes manifestent une difficulté dans la planification de l'interaction dialogique. Si ces résultats nous intéresse en ce qu'il nous renseignent sur le niveau discursif, nous nous intéressons à d'autres niveaux linguistiques. Nous revenons ici sur l'apparition d'une distributions spécifiques des disfluences chez ces patients, et montrons que ces derniers ont une capacité morpho-syntaxique équivalente aux témoins ou au psychologue

Pause behaviour within reformulations and the proficiency level of second language learners of English

This research reports on a quantitative analysis of the combination of two types of disfluency, reformulations and pauses, in the speech of lower intermediate and advanced speakers of English as a second language (L2). The present study distinguishes between corrections and false starts within the category of reformulations as well as between silent and filled pauses. It focuses on the extent to which pause behavior within reformulations varies according to the stage of L2 development and the type of reformulation used. An analysis wasmade of 56 L2 speakers’ 2-min monologues. The results showed that lower intermediate and advanced speakers differed on the frequency of silent pauses inserted in corrections but not on their frequency in false starts. This suggests that false starts depend less on proficiency level, and may reflect temporary problems with conceptual encoding or extralinguistic factors that contribute to the efficacy of L2 production rather than difficulties with linguistic processing per se. The frequency of silent pauses rather than silent pause duration or the frequency and duration of filled pauses appeared to be the only marker to differentiate between false starts and corrections across the two proficiency groups

Access to recorded interviews: A research agenda

Recorded interviews form a rich basis for scholarly inquiry. Examples include oral histories, community memory projects, and interviews conducted for broadcast media. Emerging technologies offer the potential to radically transform the way in which recorded interviews are made accessible, but this vision will demand substantial investments from a broad range of research communities. This article reviews the present state of practice for making recorded interviews available and the state-of-the-art for key component technologies. A large number of important research issues are identified, and from that set of issues, a coherent research agenda is proposed

Pause behaviour within reformulations and the proficiency level of second language learners of English

This research reports on a quantitative analysis of the combination of two types of disfluency, reformulations and pauses, in the speech of lower intermediate and advanced speakers of English as a second language (L2). The present study distinguishes between corrections and false starts within the category of reformulations as well as between silent and filled pauses. It focuses on the extent to which pause behavior within reformulations varies according to the stage of L2 development and the type of reformulation used. An analysis was made of 56 L2 speakers’ 2-min monologues. The results showed that lower intermediate and advanced speakers differed on the frequency of silent pauses inserted in corrections but not on their frequency in false starts. This suggests that false starts depend less on proficiency level, and may reflect temporary problems with conceptual encoding or extralinguistic factors that contribute to the efficacy of L2 production rather than difficulties with linguistic processing per se. The frequency of silent pauses rather than silent pause duration or the frequency and duration of filled pauses appeared to be the only marker to differentiate between false starts and corrections across the two proficiency groups

Proceedings

Proceedings of the Ninth International Workshop on Treebanks and Linguistic Theories. Editors: Markus Dickinson, Kaili Müürisep and Marco Passarotti. NEALT Proceedings Series, Vol. 9 (2010), 268 pages. © 2010 The editors and contributors. Published by Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT) http://omilia.uio.no/nealt . Electronically published at Tartu University Library (Estonia) http://hdl.handle.net/10062/15891

Ear–voice span and pauses in intra- and interlingual respeaking: An exploratory study into temporal aspects of the respeaking process

Respeaking involves producing subtitles in real time to make live television programs accessible to deaf and hard of hearing viewers. In this study we investigated how the type of material to be respoken affects temporal aspects of respeaking, such as ear–voice span and pauses. Given the similarities between respeaking and interpreting (time constraints) and between interlingual respeaking and translation (interlingual processing), we also tested whether previous interpreting and translation experience leads to a smaller delay or lesser cognitive load in respeaking, as manifested by a smaller number of pauses. We tested 22 interpreters, 23 translators, and a control group of 12 bilingual controls, who performed interlingual (English to Polish) and intralingual (Polish to Polish) respeaking of five video clips with different characteristics (speech rate, number of speakers, and scriptedness). Interlingual respeaking was found to be more challenging than the intralingual one. The temporal aspects of respeaking were affected by clip type (especially in interpreters). We found no clear interpreter or translator advantage over the bilingual controls across the respeaking tasks. However, interlingual respeaking turned out to be too difficult for many bilinguals to perform at all. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine temporal aspects of respeaking as modulated by the type of materials and previous interpreting/translation experience. The results develop our understanding of temporal aspects of respeaking and are directly applicable to respeaker training

The ABD of orthography testing: Practical guidelines

Developing an orthography for a previously unwritten language may prove to be more of a challenge than anticipated. Orthography testing can help field workers and the speech community identify issues which warrant special attention. Subsequent testing will reveal whether or not various factors have been taken into consideration and challenges overcome. Findings might indicate that the orthography functions well or that it requires additional thought, revision, and /or additional testing. Few how-to helps on orthography testing exist. Drawing from various resources, the author provides practical guidelines and resources for field workers who are planning to engage in orthography testing activities