ERIC Number: ED640994
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 147
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: 979-8-3811-6772-6
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Towards a Model of the Mapping between English and Spanish Prosody
Jonathan Avila
ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Texas at El Paso
Current speech-to-speech translation systems face challenges in effectively translating the nuances of prosody, which plays a pivotal role in conveying speaker intent and stance in dialog. This limitation restricts cross-lingual communication, especially in situations demanding deeper interpersonal understanding. To address this, this research delves into the relationships between prosody and its pragmatic functions, in English and Spanish. First, I discuss a data collection protocol in which bilingual speakers re-enact utterances from an earlier conversation in their other language, then describe an English-Spanish corpus, consisting of 3816 matched utterance pairs. Second, I describe a prosodic dissimilarity metric based on Euclidean distance over a broad set of prosodic features. I then used these to investigate cross-language prosodic differences, and create three simple models for mapping prosody from one language to another to identify phenomena which will require more powerful modeling. These findings should inform future research on cross-language prosody and the design of speech-to-speech translation systems capable of effective prosody translation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]
Descriptors: Speech Communication, Suprasegmentals, Translation, Barriers, Interpersonal Communication, Bilingual Students, English, Spanish
ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway, P.O. Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Tel: 800-521-0600; Web site: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml
Publication Type: Dissertations/Theses - Doctoral Dissertations
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Authoring Institution: N/A
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: 2229873