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SUMMARY:Voice-Prosody and Technologies to Give Voice to Endangered Languag
 es: an Irish Perspective - Ailbhe Ní Chasaide (Trinity College Dublin)
DTSTART:20201126T163000Z
DTEND:20201126T180000Z
UID:TALK153193@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Tim Laméris
DESCRIPTION:*Registration link* https://forms.gle/pW2NTo3WHdVe59vD6\n\n*AB
 STRACT*\n\nThis paper presents research conducted along with researchers a
 t our laboratory\, looking at the voice\, human and synthetic\, from three
  rather different\, but complementary perspectives. Much of this work has 
 focussed on Irish. The first is the study of intonation\, or melodic modul
 ation in the Irish dialects. Striking differences emerge between Northern 
 and Southern dialects. Even within a single dialect region some striking s
 ub-dialect signatures emerge\, in the time-alignment of melody and syllabl
 es. The second area concerns our generally more holistic view of prosody\,
  as being not just about melodic modulation\, but rather a gestalt to whic
 h modulation of voice quality (tone-of-voice) features importantly contrib
 utes. It is argued that a full account and understanding of intonation wil
 l require that we encompass all dimensions of the voice – bearing in min
 d of course that capturing voice source modulation is a challenging task. 
 Such a holistic approach would also open up the area of affect in prosody\
 , a central aspect of prosody that is largely neglected within linguistics
 . The third area I discuss concerns the building of synthetic voices for t
 he Irish dialects\, which has been ongoing in the ABAIR project (www.abair
 .ie). This\, and the derivative technologies that have followed\, are givi
 ng voice to – and supporting – the language community\, in often unfor
 eseen ways. The impact of this work resonates well beyond academia and thi
 s research offers the linguist (in collaboration with technologists) ways\
 , not only to document a language\, but also to have a real impact on its 
 survival. Going forward\, we are currently exploring how our insights on v
 oice prosody can be implemented in our synthetic voices. This provides a t
 est bed for voice research and opens the door to future (synthetic) voice-
 based interactive systems\, which will hopefully capture some of the diver
 sity and affective dimensions of human prosody.
LOCATION:Online
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