Prosodic Patterns in English Conversation

Nigel G. Ward, Professor of Computer Science, University of Texas at El Paso

Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Spoken language is more than words: it includes the prosodic features and patterns that speakers use, subconsciously, to frame meanings and achieve interactional goals. Thanks to the application of simple processing techniques to spoken dialog corpora, this book goes beyond intonation to describe how pitch, timing, intensity and voicing properties combine to form meaningful temporal configurations: prosodic constructions. Combining new findings with hitherto-scattered observations from diverse research traditions, this book enumerates twenty of the principal prosodic constructions of English.  

http://www.cambridge.org/ward/

nigel@utep.edu    http://www.cs.utep.edu/nigel/   

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Voice Quality

The Laryngeal Articulator Model

Hardback 978-1-108-49842-5

John H. Esling, University of Victoria, British Columbia

Scott R. Moisik, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Allison Benner, University of Victoria, British Columbia

Lise Crevier-Buchman, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris

The first description of voice quality production in forty years, this book

provides a new framework for its study: The Laryngeal Articulator Model.

Informed by instrumental examinations of the laryngeal articulatory

mechanism, it revises our understanding of articulatory postures to explain

the actions, vibrations and resonances generated in the epilarynx and

pharynx. It focuses on the long-term auditory-articulatory component of

accent in the languages of the world, explaining how voice quality relates to

segmental and syllabic sounds. Phonetic illustrations of phonation types

and of laryngeal and oral vocal tract articulatory postures are provided.

Extensive video and audio material is available on a companion website.

The book presents computational simulations, the laryngeal and voice

quality foundations of infant speech acquisition, speech/voice disorders and

surgeries that entail compensatory laryngeal articulator adjustment, and an

exploration of the role of voice quality in sound change and of the larynx in

the evolution of speech.

1. Voice and voice quality; 2. Voice quality classification; 3. Instrumental case

studies and computational simulations of voice quality; 4. Linguistic, paralinguistic

and extralinguistic illustrations of voice quality; 5. Phonological implications of

voice quality theory; 6. Infant acquisition of speech and voice quality; 7. Clinical

illustrations of voice quality; 8. Laryngeal articulation and voice quality in sound

change, language ontogeny.

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Albert di Cristo, les langues naturelles.
Première partie : La structure informationnelle et ses déterminants, 2019, 548 p. 

https://hal-amu.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02149640

Cet ouvrage constitue la première partie d?un vaste travail dédié à l?étude des façons dont les langues naturelles conditionnent l?information et au rôle que joue la prosodie dans l?expression de ces conditionnements. Cette première partie se propose d?analyser, sous ses divers aspects (principalement d'ordre épistémologiques), la notion de structure informationnelle, notamment dans ses relations avec la grammaire et d?examiner, dans le détail, les déterminants qui forment l?armature de cette structure. Dans cette perspective, les discussions portent, outre sur les notions de thème, de topique et de « given », sur celles de focus, de focalisation et de contraste, qui font l?objet d?analyses approfondies. Les discussions s?attachent à appréhender ces notions, à la fois dans l?optique de leurs propriétés formelles, de leur fonctionnalité et des significations qu?elles contribuent à délivrer. Un chapitre entier de cette première partie est consacré à l?étude du questionnement et à la manière dont l?organisation de l?information est gérée dans l?exercice de cette activité. L?ouvrage est doté d?une bibliographie qui comporte plus de deux mille références.

Cet ouvrage sera complété par une 2ème partie, en cours de rédaction, qui traitera essentiellement de la prosodie et de son rôle dans les conditionnements de l'information.
 

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Benjamin Weiss (2020): 'Talker Quality in Human and Machine Interaction - Modeling the Listener’s Perspective in Passive and Interactive Scenarios'. T-Labs Series in Telecommunication Services. Springer Nature, Cham.

In this book, the background, state of research, and own contributions to the assessment and prediction of talker quality that is constituted in voice perception and in dialog are presented. Starting from theories and empirical findings from human interaction, major results and approaches are transferred to the domain of human-computer interaction. The main subject of this book is to contribute to the evaluation of spoken interaction in both humans and between human and computer, and in particular to the quality subsequently attributed to the speaking system or person, based on the listening and interactive experience.

https://rd.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-22769-2

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Dear all,

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Voice Attractiveness

Studies on Sexy, Likable, and Charismatic Speakers

Special session at Interspeech 2017

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 My name is Jens Blauert, and you may recall me as an ESCA-Founder and ISCA-Goldmedalist. Although I am professor emeritus since many years, I am still active in science.
     Recently I published an edited book together with Jonas Braasch (Professor at RPI, Troy NY) at both SPRINGER and ASA-Press. The book?s title is ?The Technology of Binaural Understanding?. It attempts to bridge between audition and cognition and thus, as far as speech communication is concerned, between speech and language. The book's motto is:

     People, when exposed to acoustic stimuli, do not react directly to what they hear
     but rather to what they hear means to them.

     Obviously this is an issue which is also relevant for speech communication at large. Thus, I kindly  ask you to consider whether this book would qualify for a book announcement in the ISCAPad. If a full book review were also feasible, I can send you an eBook-link, and after a reviewer is has been assigned, SPRINGER will deliver a printed copy to him/her.
--   Thank you for your efforts in advance!
     With best regards, Jens Blauert

.PS. Preface and  table of contents of the book are available under the following link:
      https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030003852      

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