Webinar: A New Approach to Vowel Visualization

A New Approach to Vowel Visualization

Date:  Friday, January 30, 2015

Presenter(s): Harold Hendricks, Brigham Young University

Computer pronunciation feedback has traditionally relied on waveform modeling, where the student is shown both a waveform produced by a native speaker and the waveform recorded by the student. This session will demonstrate an automated vowel evaluation program that first positions in real-time the student’s live vowel production on a simplified vowel chart. After the student has practiced the pure vowel, the student then records vowel production within words, again positioned on the vowel chart along with visual feedback for dipthongization, tongue position, lip position, and vowel duration. Prescriptive textual feedback is given for improvement. The test case for this program has been first-year German, but the program is not language specific.