The text sets out in simple and accessible terms the various methods of acoustic analysis of speech, placing them in their historical context, allowing a better understanding of the mathematical and technical solutions adopted today in phonetics and experimental phonology. Without mathematical complications, the operating bases of the many speech analysis software currently available are exposed so that everyone can understand the limits and avoid errors and misinterpretations in their implementation.
The Acoustic Analysis Of Speech presents essential information on modern methods for the acoustic analysis of speech. It assumes only a modest technical background and is intended for the reader who wants to know the basic issues in speech analysis but does not have an extensive background in engineering, physics or mathematics. The book discusses the basic methods for the acoustic analysis of speech in relation to (a) the acoustic theory of speech production and (b) measures of primary interest to speech scientists, speech-language pathologists, linguists, psychologists or others who are interested in the acoustic signal of speech. Readers will gain an understanding of theory, methods and databases pertaining to speech acoustics. The book offers a simple and straightforward explanation of all aspects of acoustic analysis from recording the signal, to analysis methods, to sources of data on phonetic and suprasegmental aspects of speech. Includes reference to acoustic data for several languages in addition to English. The book is written at a general introductory level for course in Speech Science; Speech Acoustics; Experimental Phonetics and Laboratory Instrumentation for Speech and Hearing.
The accurate determination of the speech spectrum, particularly for short frames, is commonly pursued in diverse areas including speech processing, recognition, and acoustic phonetics. With this book the author makes the subject of spectrum analysis understandable to a wide audience, including those with a solid background in general signal processing and those without such background. In keeping with these goals, this is not a book that replaces or attempts to cover the material found in a general signal processing textbook. Some essential signal processing concepts are presented in the first chapter, but even there the concepts are presented in a generally understandable fashion as far as is possible. Throughout the book, the focus is on applications to speech analysis; mathematical theory is provided for completeness, but these developments are set off in boxes for the benefit of those readers with sufficient background. Other readers may proceed through the main text, where the key results and applications will be presented in general heuristic terms, and illustrated with software routines and practical "show-and-tell" discussions of the results. At some points, the book refers to and uses the implementations in the Praat speech analysis software package, which has the advantages that it is used by many scientists around the world, and it is free and open source software. At other points, special software routines have been developed and made available to complement the book, and these are provided in the Matlab programming language. If the reader has the basic Matlab package, he/she will be able to immediately implement the programs in that platform---no extra "toolboxes" are required.
This book addresses important issues of speech processing and language learning in Chinese. It highlights perception and production of speech in healthy and clinical populations and in children and adults. This book provides diverse perspectives and reviews of cutting-edge research in past decades on how Chinese speech is processed and learned. Along with each chapter, future research directions have been discussed. With these unique features and the broad coverage of topics, this book appeals to not only scholars and students who study speech perception in preverbal infants and in children and adults learning Chinese, but also to teachers with interests in pedagogical applications in teaching Chinese as Second Language.
An accessible introduction to the phonetic analysis of speech corpora, this workbook-style text provides an extensive set of exercises to help readers develop the necessary skills to design and carry out experiments in speech research. Offers the first step-by-step treatment of advanced techniques in experimental phonetics using speech corpora and downloadable software, including the R programming language Introduces methods of analyzing phonetically-labelled speech corpora, with the goal of testing hypotheses that often arise in experimental phonetics and laboratory phonology Incorporates an extensive set of exercises and answers to reinforce the techniques introduced Accessibly written with easy-to-follow computer commands and spectrograms of speech Companion website at www.wiley.com/go/harrington, which includes illustrations, video tutorials, appendices, and downloadable speech corpora for testing purposes. Discusses techniques in digital speech processing and in structuring and querying annotations from speech corpora Includes substantial coverage of analysis, including measuring gestural synchronization using EMA, the acoustics of vowels, consonant overlap using EPG, spectral analysis of fricatives and obstruents, and the probabilistic classification of acoustic speech data
Can free speech coexist with an inclusive campus environment? Hardly a week goes by without another controversy over free speech on college campuses. On one side, there are increased demands to censor hateful, disrespectful, and bullying expression and to ensure an inclusive and nondiscriminatory learning environment. On the other side are traditional free speech advocates who charge that recent demands for censorship coddle students and threaten free inquiry. In this clear and carefully reasoned book, a university chancellor and a law school dean—both constitutional scholars who teach a course in free speech to undergraduates—argue that campuses must provide supportive learning environments for an increasingly diverse student body but can never restrict the expression of ideas. This book provides the background necessary to understanding the importance of free speech on campus and offers clear prescriptions for what colleges can and can’t do when dealing with free speech controversies.
"David Kaye's book is crucial to understanding the tactics, rhetoric and stakes in one of the most consequential free speech debates in human history." -- Cory Doctorow, author of Radicalized, Walkaway and Little Brother The internet was designed to be a kind of free-speech paradise, but a lot of the material on it turned out to incite violence, spread untruth, and promote hate. Over the years, three American behemoths--Facebook, YouTube and Twitter--became the way most of the world experiences the internet, and therefore the conveyors of much of its disturbing material. What should be done about this enormous problem? Should the giant social media platforms police the content themselves, as is the norm in the U.S., or should governments and international organizations regulate the internet, as many are demanding in Europe? How do we keep from helping authoritarian regimes to censor all criticisms of themselves? David Kaye, who serves as the United Nations' special rapporteur on free expression, has been has been at the center of the discussions of these issues for years. He takes us behind the scenes, from Facebook's "mini-legislative" meetings, to the European Commission's closed-door negotiations, and introduces us to journalists, activists, and content moderators whose stories bring clarity and urgency to the topic of censorship. Speech Police is the most comprehensive and insightful treatment of the subject thus far, and reminds us of the importance of maintaining the internet's original commitment to free speech, free of any company's or government's absolute control, while finding ways to modulate its worst aspects.
