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The aim of this study is to select and formulate criteria for the assessment of tools and exercises that are using computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT). We examined ten different CAPT tools selected on the basis of an informal questionnaire among 10 colleagues working in a German-French CAPT project. Although the applied assessment must still be regarded as informal, and although the selected CAPT tools might not be an optimal sample for representing the state of the art, the results clearly show that there is a lot to improve regarding the clarity of instruction, the quality of exercises, the robustness of the diagnosis, the clarity and appropriateness of scoring, the diversity of feedback methods, the assumed benefit for various types of users as well as the usage of ASR. Despite various good approaches regarding graphics and game-like exercises there are obviously missing links between the pedagogical expertise in phonetic training on the one hand, and software development including usability engineering on the other.
Based on specific linguistic landmarks in the speech signal, this study investigates pitch level and pitch span differences in English, German, Bulgarian and Polish. The analysis is based on 22 speakers per language (11 males and 11 females). Linear mixed models were computed that include various linguistic measures of pitch level and span, revealing characteristic differences across languages and between language groups. Pitch level appeared to have significantly higher values for the female speakers in the Slavic than the Germanic group. The male speakers showed slightly different results, with only the Polish speakers displaying significantly higher mean values for pitch level than the German males. Overall, the results show that the Slavic speakers tend to have a wider pitch span than the German speakers. But for the linguistic measure, namely for span between the initial peaks and the non-prominent valleys, we only find the difference between Polish and German speakers. We found a flatter intonation contour in German than in Polish, Bulgarian and English male and female speakers and differences in the frequency of the landmarks between languages. Concerning “speaker liveliness” we found that the speakers from the Slavic group are significantly livelier than the speakers from the Germanic group.
This study investigates cross-language differences in pitch range and variation in four languages from two language groups: English and German (Germanic) and Bulgarian and Polish (Slavic). The analysis is based on large multi-speaker corpora (48 speakers for Polish, 60 for each of the other three languages). Linear mixed models were computed that include various distributional measures of pitch level, span and variation, revealing characteristic differences across languages and between language groups. A classification experiment based on the relevant parameter measures (span, kurtosis and skewness values for pitch distributions for each speaker) succeeded in separating the language groups.