Eyebrow raising in dialogue: discourse structure, utterance function, and pitch accents

Some studies have suggested a relationship between eyebrow raising and different aspects of the verbal message, but our knowledge about this link is still very limited. If we could establish and characterise a relation between eyebrow raises and the linguistic signal we could better understand human multimodal communication behaviour. We could also improve the credibility and efficiency of computer animated conversational agents in multimodal communication systems.This thesis investigated eyebrow raising in a corpus of task-oriented English dialogues. Applying a standard dialogue coding scheme (Conversational Game Analysis, Carletta et al., 1997), eyebrow raises were studied in connection with discourse structure and utterance function. Supporting the prediction, more frequent and longer eyebrow raising occurred in the initial utterance of highlevel discourse segments than anywhere else in the dialogue (where 'high-level discourse segment' = transaction, and 'utterance' = move, following Carletta et al.). Additionally, eyebrow raises were more frequent in instructions than in requests for or acknowledgements of information. Instructions also had longer eyebrow raising than any other type of utterance. Contrary to the prediction, the start of a lower-level discourse segment (conversational game) did not have more eyebrow raising than any other position in the dialogue, and queries did not have more eyebrow raising than any other type of utterance.Eyebrow raises were also studied in relation to intonational events, namely pitch accents. Results showed evidence of alignment between the brow raise start and the start of a pitch accent. Most pitch accents were not associated with brow raising, but when brow raises occurred they tended to immediately precede a pitch accent on the speech signal. To investigate what could explain the alignment between the two events, pitch accents aligned with eyebrow raises were compared to all other pitch accents in terms of: phonological characteristics (primary vs. secondary pitch accents, and downstep-initial vs. non-initial pitch accents), information structure (given vs. new information in referring expressions, and the last quarter vs. earlier parts of the utterance length) and type of utterance in which they occurred (instruction vs. non-instruction). Those comparisons suggested that brow raises may be aligned more frequently with pitch accents in downstepinitial position and in instructions. No differences were found in terms of information structure or between primary/secondary accents.The results provide evidence of a link between eyebrow raising and spoken language. Eyebrow raises may signal the start of linguistic units such as discourse segments and some prosodic phenomena, they may be related to utterance function, and they are aligned with pitch accents. Possible linguistic functions are proposed, such as structuring and emphasising information in the verbal message

Near Real-Time Sentiment and Topic Analysis of Sport Events

Sport events’ media consumption patterns have started transitioning to a multi-screen paradigm, where, through multitasking, viewers are able to search for additional information about the event they are watching live, as well as contribute with their perspective of the event to other viewers. The audiovisual and multimedia industries, however, are failing to capitalize on this by not providing the sports’ teams and those in charge of the audiovisual production with insights on the final consumers perspective of sport events. As a result of this opportunity, this document focuses on presenting the development of a near real-time sentiment analysis tool and a near real-time topic analysis tool for the analysis of sports events’ related social media content that was published during the transmission of the respective events, thus enabling, in near real-time, the understanding of the sentiment of the viewers and the topics being discussed through each event.Os padrões de consumo de media, têm vindo a mudar para um paradigma de ecrãs múltiplos, onde, através de multitasking, os telespetadores podem pesquisar informações adicionais sobre o evento que estão a assistir, bem como partilhar a sua perspetiva do evento. As indústrias do setor audiovisual e multimédia, no entanto, não estão a aproveitar esta oportunidade, falhando em fornecer às equipas desportivas e aos responsáveis pela produção audiovisual uma visão sobre a perspetiva dos consumidores finais dos eventos desportivos. Como resultado desta oportunidade, este documento foca-se em apresentar o desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta de análise de sentimento e uma ferramenta de análise de tópicos para a análise, em perto de tempo real, de conteúdo das redes sociais relacionado com eventos esportivos e publicado durante a transmissão dos respetivos eventos, permitindo assim, em perto de tempo real, perceber o sentimento dos espectadores e os tópicos mais falados durante cada evento

The shifting voice: Investigating accent and dialect training for West Australian actors

This masters research examines accent and dialect training for actors in the Western Australian context and seeks an understanding about what aural, embodied and cognitive attributes an actor needs in order to move from one accent to another. In particular, this research explores the characteristics of Australian dialects as grounds for the acquisition of the Standard British accent or Received Pronunciation. The purpose of this research was to identify the expertise required when teaching an accent to acting students in pre-professional levels of tertiary training. This practice-led approach to the research included interviewing, observation, the circulation of questionnaires, and my own reflective practice as a voice and dialect coach on several stage productions. The participants for this research included experts in the field of vocal and dialect training, students at two tertiary institutions in Western Australia, the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and Curtin University’s production of Dear Charlotte, in 2013. This thesis presents an analysis and research findings of vocal awakenings spring-boarding from working on the play, Dear Charlotte, a practical component of this research. The research has confirmed the benefits of phonetics as an important aspect of accent acquisition. The discussion focuses on the techniques used and the challenges actors face when making the shift from their idiolects to Received Pronunciation. It outlines the importance of an actor’s cognition, listening, and embodiment as facets of voice that need attention when making accent and dialect shifts. In addition to the process of enhancing and enriching my own practice as a voice and dialect coach, this research aims to contribute to understandings of accent and dialect training and the diversity of the needs from the perspective of Western Australian actors

Proceedings of the 1st Doctoral Consortium at the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (DC-ECAI 2020)

1st Doctoral Consortium at the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (DC-ECAI 2020), 29-30 August, 2020 Santiago de Compostela, SpainThe DC-ECAI 2020 provides a unique opportunity for PhD students, who are close to finishing their doctorate research, to interact with experienced researchers in the field. Senior members of the community are assigned as mentors for each group of students based on the student’s research or similarity of research interests. The DC-ECAI 2020, which is held virtually this year, allows students from all over the world to present their research and discuss their ongoing research and career plans with their mentor, to do networking with other participants, and to receive training and mentoring about career planning and career option

A comparison study on the effects of two explicit pronunciation syllabi on Korean adult EFL learners' learning of English sounds

textThis study compared two explicit approaches to teaching English pronunciation to Korean adult EFL learners. One approach involved teaching agendas based on the analysis of pronunciation errors that were considered to be typically observed in the target students. The other approach involved rather general teaching agendas that considered no specific L1 background. The experimental group, the error-analysis-based group, was taught by two Korean instructors of English, while the control group was taught by two native English-speaking instructors. The experimental group teachers used an in-house workbook that consisted of segmental sound items from the clinical data obtained from the error analysis. These Korean instructors of English presented short authentic video clips that the researcher edited from feature movies, situational comedies, news casts, etc. to the learners as model L2 utterances. The native English-speaking teachers used a pre-existing pronunciation workbook published by two native English-speaking language practitioners and presented relevant parts of the supplementary tutorial video to their learners. These four 75-minute pronunciation lectures were conducted as a part of an English intensive course at a tertiary institute in Korea. The two groups did not significantly differ in terms of L2 identification improvements. Based on the real-word and fake-word reading-aloud tests, the experimental group indicated a significantly higher production accuracy rate than the accuracy mean score observed in the control group. Mean accuracy scores of the identification and production tests of each individual sound were compared using Post Hoc ANCOVA techniques for any significant mean differences. Qualitative data from relevant surveys were also included.Foreign Language Educatio