TY - GEN
T1 - Feedback utterances for computer-adied language learning using accent reduction and voice conversion method
AU - Zhao, Sixuan
AU - Koh, Soo Ngee
AU - Yann, Soon Ing
AU - Luke, Kang Kwong
PY - 2013/10/18
Y1 - 2013/10/18
N2 - This paper considers the generation of feedback utterances for speaking skills training of non-native English learners. The proposed feedback is in the form of a combination of the learner's voice and the linguistic gestures, i.e., the prosody or pronunciation, of a native speaker. Both accent reduction method and voice conversion method are employed to generate feedback stimuli. For accent reduction, three speech synthesis methods, namely pitch-synchronous overlap and add (PSOLA), harmonic stochastic model (HSM), and speech transformation and representation by adaptive interpolation of weighted spectrogram (STRAIGHT) are used to reduce the accent of the utterances of English learners. For voice conversion, the teacher's voice is converted to that of the learner and the converted speech is used as a feedback. Objective measurements are employed to assess the nativeness and acoustic quality of the generated stimuli. A feedback scheme which combines the accent reduction and voice conversion methods is also proposed.
AB - This paper considers the generation of feedback utterances for speaking skills training of non-native English learners. The proposed feedback is in the form of a combination of the learner's voice and the linguistic gestures, i.e., the prosody or pronunciation, of a native speaker. Both accent reduction method and voice conversion method are employed to generate feedback stimuli. For accent reduction, three speech synthesis methods, namely pitch-synchronous overlap and add (PSOLA), harmonic stochastic model (HSM), and speech transformation and representation by adaptive interpolation of weighted spectrogram (STRAIGHT) are used to reduce the accent of the utterances of English learners. For voice conversion, the teacher's voice is converted to that of the learner and the converted speech is used as a feedback. Objective measurements are employed to assess the nativeness and acoustic quality of the generated stimuli. A feedback scheme which combines the accent reduction and voice conversion methods is also proposed.
KW - accent reduction
KW - CALL
KW - feedback utterances
KW - voice conversion
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84890498048&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84890498048&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ICASSP.2013.6639265
DO - 10.1109/ICASSP.2013.6639265
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84890498048
SN - 9781479903566
T3 - ICASSP, IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing - Proceedings
SP - 8208
EP - 8212
BT - 2013 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, ICASSP 2013 - Proceedings
T2 - 2013 38th IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, ICASSP 2013
Y2 - 26 May 2013 through 31 May 2013
ER -