Research in Phonetics

People

About the Phonetics Research Group

We are a highly-active modern experimental research centre, making internationally-recognised contributions in our main areas of research; speech prosody (Xu, Dellwo and House), phonetic theory (Xu), theoretical and computational modelling (Huckvale, Xu) and quantitative sociophonetics (Evans).

We publish widely in top journals such as Cognition, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Journal of Phonetics, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Language and Speech, and Speech Communication.

Some of our recent research achievements include:

•  the development of the PENTA model, an articulatory-functional approach to speech prosody, which has gained international recognition and which, in collaboration with researchers in Canada, Thailand, USA and China, has been applied to intonation, coarticulation, segmental timing, speech synthesis and infant speech acquisition (Xu).

•  a number of novel approaches to the quantitative study of accent, including a state-of-the-art accent identification system, speaker clustering methods, and means for accent morphing (Huckvale).

•  funding from the Home Office for a centre (jointly with Imperial College ) to study methods for improving the intelligibility of speech recordings (Huckvale).

•  the development of quantitative approaches to sociophonetics, jointly with colleagues at UCL, Newcastle , Nijmegen and Glasgow . In particular, the development of techniques to investigate the perception of sociophonetic variation (Evans).

•  a novel approach to speech rhythm suggesting that the perception of durational rhythmic variability in speech is to a large degree dependent on the rate of speech. (Dellwo).

Current Research Projects

• Centre for Law Enforcement Audio Research (CLEAR) (2007-2012)
  Principal Investigator: Mark Huckvale/Mike Brookes (Imperial College), funded by the Home Office
  
  
• Spoken Language Conversion with Accent Morphing (2006)
  Principal Investigator: Mark Huckvale, Kayoko Yanagisawa
  
  

Recently Completed Research Projects

• ProSynth: An integrated prosodic approach to device-independent, natural-sounding speech synthesis, (1997-2001). Researchers: Jill House, Mark Huckvale,
  
  
• SIPhTra: System for Interactive Phonetics Training & Assessment, (1997-2000). Researchers: Michael Ashby, John Maidment, Jill House,
  
  

Collaborators from other departments/institutions

With Volker Dellwo: Jana Dankovicová (HCS; UCL), Emmanuel Ferrand (CNRS Lyon), Francisco Guttierez (Murcia), Petra Wagner (Bonn),

With Bronwen Evans: Patti Adank (FC Donders, Nijmegen), Ghada Khattab (Newcastle) Jane Stuart-Smith (Glasgow).

With Mark Huckvale: Mike Brookes (Imperial), Ian Howard (Cambridge);

With Yi Xu: Bruno Gauthier and Rushen Shi (Quebec), Charles Larson and Hanjun Liu (Northwestern), Fang Liu (Chicago),  Yiya Chen (Leiden), Santitham Prom-on (Thailand), Suthathip Chuenwattanapranithi (Thailand), Ying Wai Wong (Hong Kong), Bei Wang (Beijing).

Recently published work:

• Chen,S. H., Liu,H., Xu,Y., Larson,C. R. (2007). Voice F0 Responses to Pitch-Shifted Voice Feedback During English Speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 121(2), 1157-1163.
• Dellwo,V., Huckvale,M., Ashby,M. (2007) . How is individuality expressed in voice? An introduction to speech production & description for speaker classification. in Müller,C. (ed.) Speaker Classification I . Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series. Series edited by Carbonell,J., Siekmann,J.. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1-20. ISBN: 978-3-540-74186-2
• Evans,B.G., Iverson,P. (2007). Plasticity in vowel perception and production: A study of accent change in young adults. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 121(6), 3814-3826. ISSN: 0001-4966. [DOI link]
• Gauthier,B., Shi,R., Xu,Y. (2007). Learning phonetic categories by tracking movements. Cognition 103(1), 80-106. ISSN: 0010-0277. [DOI link]
• House, Jill (2007). The role of prosody in constraining context selection: a procedural approach. Cahiers de Linguistique Francaise 28: Interfaces discours-prosodie 2(28), 369-383. [Online]
• Huckvale,M. (2007). ACCDIST: an accent similarity metric for accent recognition and diagnosis. in Speaker Classification. Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. Springer Verlag, 258-275. ISBN: 978-3-540-74121-3.
• Huckvale,M. (2007). Hierarchical clustering of speakers into accents with the ACCDIST metric. International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Saarbrücken, Germany.
• Huckvale,M. (2007). ACCDIST: an accent similarity metric for accent recognition and diagnosis. in Müller,C (ed.) Speaker Classification II. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series. Series edited by Carbonell,J., Siekmann,J.. Berlin: Springer, 258-275. ISBN: 978-3-540-74121-3.
• Huckvale,M., Yanagisawa,K. (2007). Spoken Language Conversion with Accent Morphing. 6th ISCA Speech Synthesis Workshop, Bonn, Germany:University of Bonn, 64-70.
• Huckvale,M., Yanagisawa,K. (2007). Spoken Language Conversion with Accent Morphing. 6th ISCA Speech Synthesis Workshop, Bonn, Germany.
• Kuo,Y. C., Xu,Y., Yip,M. (2007) . The phonetics and phonology of apparent cases of iterative tonal change in Standard Chinese. in Gussenhoven,C., Riad,T. (ed.) Tones and Tunes Vol 2: Experimental Studies in Word and Sentence Prosody . Phonology and phonetucs series. Series edited by A. Lahiri. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 211-237
• Liu,F., Xu,Y. (2007). The Neutral Tone in Question Intonation in Mandarin. Interspeech 2007, , 630-633.
• Liu,F., Xu,Y. (2007). Question intonation as affected by word stress and focus in English. The 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, , 1189-1192.
• Olsberg,M., Xu,Y. Green,G. (2007). Dependence of tone perception on syllable perception. Interspeech 2007, 2649-2652.
• Wong,Y. W., Xu,Y. (2007). Consonantal perturbation of f0 contours of Cantonese tones. The 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, , 1293-1296.
• Xu,Y. (2007). Speech as articulatory encoding of communicative functions. The 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, , 25-30.
• Xu,Y., Chuenwattanapranithi,S. (2007). Perceiving anger and joy in speech through the size code. The 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, , 2105-2108.
• Xu,Y., Liu,F. (2007). Determining the temporal interval of segments with the help of F0 contours. Journal of Phonetics 35, 398-420. ISSN: 0022-2267.
• Yanagisawa,K., Huckvale,M. (2007) . Accent morphing as a technique to improve the intelligibility of foreign-accented speech. International Congress of Phonetics Sciences , Saarbrücken, Germany
• Ashby,M. (2006). Prosody and idioms in English. Journal of Pragmatics 38(10), 1580-1597. ISSN: 0378-2166 [Online] [DOI link]
• Chen,Y., Xu,Y. (2006). Production of weak elements in speech - Evidence from f0 patterns of neutral tone in standard Chinese. Phonetica 63, 47-75. ISSN: 0031-8388.
• Chuenwattanapranithi,S., Xu,Y., Thipakorn,B., Maneewongvatana,S. (2006). Expressing anger and joy with the size code. Speech Prosody 2006, Dresden, Germany, OS4-1_0090
• Dellwo,V. (2006). Rhythm and Speech Rate: A Variation Coefficient for deltaC. in Karnowski,P., Szigeti,I. (ed.) Language and language-processing. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 231-241. ISBN: 3-631-50311-3.
• Dellwo,V., Ferragne,E., Pellegrino,F. (2006). The perception of intended speech rate in English, French, and German by French listeners. Speech Prosody.
• House,J. (2006). Constructing a context with intonation. Journal of Pragmatics 38(10), 1542-1558. ISSN: 0378-2166. [Online]
• Huckvale,M., (2006). The new accent technologies:recognition, measurement and manipulation of accented speech. Research and Application of Digitized Chinese Teaching and Learning, Zhang,P., Xie,T.-W., Lin,S., Xie,J.-H., Fang,A.C., Xu,J. (ed.) Hong Kong:Beijing: Language and Culture Press.
• Hunter,G., Huckvale,M., (2006). Cluster-based approaches to the statistical modelling of dialogue data in the british national corpus. 2nd IEE International Conference on Intelligent Environments, 5-6 July, 2006, Athens, Greece. Athens.
• Iverson,P., Smith,C.A., Evans,B.G. (2006). Vowel recognition via cochlear implants and noise vocoders: Effects of formant movement and duration. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 120(6), 3998-4006. ISSN: 0001-4966. [DOI link]
• Kim,Y.,S., Ashby,M. (2006). Denasalization in Korean. BAAP (British Association of Academic Phoneticians) Edinburgh.
• Liu,F., Surendran,D., Xu,Y. (2006). Classification of statement and question intonations in Mandarin. Speech Prosody 2006, Dresden, Germany, PS5-25_023.
• Mackay,K., Ashby,M. (2006). Prosodic cues to idiomatic and literal interpretation in English. BAAP 2006(Bristish Association of Academic Phoneticians) Edinburgh
• Prom-on,S., Xu,Y., Thipakorn,B. (2006). Quantitative Target Approximation model: Simulating underlying mechanisms of tones and intonations. 31st International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, Toulouse, France, I-749-752.
• Prom-on,S., Xu,Y., Thipakorn1,B. (2006). Functional-oriented articulatory modeling of tones and intonations. Speech Prosody 2006, Dresden, Germany, PS2-14_008.
• Wang,B., Xu,Y. (2006). Prosodic encoding of topic and focus in Mandarin. Speech Prosody 2006, Dresden, Germany, PS3-12_017.
• Wells,J.C. (2006), Esperanto,Brown,K. (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics series. Oxford: Elsevier. ISBN: 0-08-044299-4. 225pp.
• Wells,J.C. (2006), Fry, Dennis Butler (1907-1983)Brown,K. (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics series. Oxford: Elsevier. ISBN: 0-08-044299-4. 656pp.
• Wells,J.C. (2006), Gimson, Alfred Charles (1917-1985)Brown,K. (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics series. Oxford: Elsevier. ISBN: 0-08-044299-4. 85pp.
• Wells,J.C. (2006), Phonetic transcription analysis,Brown,K. (ed.) Oxford: Elsevier. ISBN: 0-08-044299-4. 396pp.
• Wells,J.C. (2006), Diacritics,Keith Brown (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics series. Oxford: Elsevier. ISBN: 0-08-044299-4. 517pp
• Xu,Y. (2006). Principles of tone research. Second International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages, La Rochelle, France, 3-13
• Xu,Y. (2006). Speech prosody as articulated communicative functions. Speech Prosody 2006, Dresden, Germany, SPS5-4-218.
• Xu,Y. (2006). Tone in connected discourse. in Brown,K. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Ed.. Oxford: Elsevier, 2nd edition, 742-750. ISBN: 0-08-044299-4
• Xu,Y., Liu,F. (2006). Tonal alignment, syllable structure and coarticulation: Toward an integrated model. Italian Journal of Linguistics 18(1), 125-159.
• Abberton,E. (2005). Phonetic consideration in the design of voice assessment material. Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology 2005(30), 175-180.
• Ashby,M. (2005), Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English. Seventh Edition,Ashby,M., et al (ed.) Oxford: OUP.
• Ashby,M. (2005). Phonetic classification. in Brown,K. (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Second Edition. Elsevier, 2nd edition, 364-372. ISBN: 0-08-044299-4 [Detail]
• Ashby,M., Figueroa-Clark,M., Seo,E., Yanagisawa,K., (2005). ). Innovations in practical phonetics teaching and learning. PTLC 2005. Phonetics Teaching and Learning Conference. UCL, [Detail]
• Ashby,M., Maidment,J. (2005), Introducing Phonetic Science,Cambridge: CUP. ISBN: 0-521-80882-0. 222pp.
• Dellwo,V., Wagner,P. (2005). The perception of speech rhythm: An investigation of inter and intra rhythmic class variability using delexicalized stimuli. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 117(4), 2622-2622.[Online]
• Dziubalska-Koaczyk,K., Przedlacka,J. (2005). Models and myth: updating the (non)standard accents. English pronunciation models:a changing scene . ISSN: 0196-0202
• Gauthier,B., Shi,R., Xu,Y. (2005). Recognising tones by tracking movements -- How infants may develop tonal categories from adult speech input. ISCA Workshop on Plasticity in Speech Perception
• Guimaraes,I., Abberton,E. (2005). Fundamental frequency in speakers of Portuguese for different voice samples. J.Voice 19(4), 592-606.
• Guimaraes,I., Abberton,E. (2005). Health and voice quality in smokers: an exploratory investigation. Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology 30(3), 85-191
• Howard,I., Huckvale,M., (2005). Training a Vocal Tract Synthesiser to imitate speech using Distal Supervised Learning. SpeCom: 10th International Conference on Speech and Computer 2005, Patras, Greece. Patras, Greece.
• Huckvale,M., Howard,I., (2005). Teaching a vocal tract simulation to imitate stop consonants. Proc. EuroSpeech Lisbon, Portugal.
• Hunter,G., Huckvale,M., (2005). An evaluation of statistical language models of spoken dialogue using the British National Corpus. IEE International workshop on Intelligent Environments, Essex University, Essex University.
• Liu,F., Xu,Y. (2005). Parallel Encoding of Focus and Interrogative Meaning in Mandarin Intonation. Phonetica 62, 70-87. ISSN: 0031-8388.
• Surendran,D., Levow,G.-A., Xu,Y. (2005). Tone Recognition in Mandarin using Focus. Interspeech 2005, Lisbon, Portugal, 3301-3304
• Tjalve,M., Huckvale,M., (2005). Pronunciation variation modelling using accent features. Proc. EuroSpeech Lisbon, Portugal
• Dellwo,V., Steiner,I., Aschenberner,B., Dankovicova,J., Wagner,P. (2004) . The BonnTempo-Corpus & BonnTempo-Tools: A database for the study of speech rhythm and rate. ICSLP - Interspeech - 2005
• Wells,J.C. (2005). Goals in teaching English pronunciation. in English pronunciation models: a changing scene. Series edited by Dziubalska-Kolaczyk,K., Przedlacka,J.. Bern: Peter Lang, 101-110.
• Wells,J.C. (2005). Abbreviatory conventions in pronunciation dictionaries. in Dziubalska-Kolaczyk,K., Przedlacka,J. (ed.) English pronunciation models: a changing scene. Bern: Peter Lang, 401-408.
• Xu,Y. (2005). Speech melody as articulatorily implemented communicative functions. Speech Communication 46(3-4), 220-251. ISSN: 0167-6393. [DOI link]
• Xu,Y., Xu,C.X. (2005). Phonetic realization of focus in English declarative intonation. Journal of Phonetics 33(2), 159-197. ISSN: 0022-2267. [Online] [DOI link]
• Evans,B.G., Iverson,P. (2004). Vowel normalization for accent: An investigation of best exemplar locations in northern and southern British English sentences. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 115(1), 352-361. ISSN: 0001-4966 [DOI link]
• Guimaraes,I., Abberton,E. (2004). An investigation of the Voice Handicap Index with speakers of Portuguese: preliminary data. J.Voice 18(1), 71-82
• Howard,I., Huckvale,M. (2004). Learning to control an articulatory synthesizer through imitation of natural speech. Summer School on Cognitive and physical models of speech production, perception and perception-production interaction, Lubmin, Germany [Online]
• Howell,P., Huckvale,M. (2004). Facilities to assist people to research into stammered speech. Stammering Research 1, 130-242. ISSN: 1742-5867
• Huckvale,M. (2004). ACCDIST: a metric for comparing speakers' accents. ICSLP 2004, Kim,S.H., Young,D.H. (ed.) Jeju, Korea, 29-32
• Wagner,P., Dellwo,V. (2004). Introducing YARD (Yet Another Rhythm Determination) And Re-Introducing Isochrony to Rhythm Research. Speech Prosody
• Xu,Y. (2004). The PENTA model of speech melody: Transmitting multiple communicative functions in parallel. Proceedings of From Sound to Sense: 50+ years of discoveries in speech communication. Cambridge, MA 91-96.
• Xu,Y. (2004). Understanding tone from the perspective of production and perception. Language and Linguistics. Language and Linguistics 5, 757-797. ISSN: 1606-822X.
• Xu,Y., Larson,C. R., Bauer,J. J. and Hain,T. C. (2004). Compensation for pitch-shifted auditory feedback during the production of Mandarin tone sequences. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 116, 1168-1178. ISSN: 0001-4966
• Ashby,M. (2003) . Revising the phonetics of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences , Solé,M.J., Recasens,D., Romero,J. (ed.) Barcelona
• Dellwo,V. (2003) . The combined analysis of speech and gesture. Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetics Science , Barcelona, 351-354
• Dellwo,V., Wagner,P. (2003) . Relations between language rhythm and speech rate. Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetics Science , Barcelona, 471-474
• Evans,B.G., Iverson,P. (2003). Vowel normalization for accent: a comparison of northern and southern British English speakers. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference of Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona
• House,J., Shobbrook,K. (2003). High Rising Tones in Southern British English. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. IBSN 1-876346-48-5, Sole,M.J., Recasens,D., Romero,J. (ed.) Barcelona:Causal Productions, 1273-1276.
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• House,J., Sityaev,D. (2003). Phonetic and Phonological Correlates of Broad, Narrow and Contrastive Focus in English. Proceedings of the 15th International Congressof Phonetic Sciences. ISBN 1-876346-48-5, Sole,M.J., Recasens,D., Romero,J. (ed.) Barcelona:Causal Productions, 1819-1822.
• Huckvale,M., Shaw,M. (2003). The intelligibility of a spelling-regular English accent. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona, 2509-2512 [Online]
• Sheng,L., McGregor,K. K., Xu,Y. (2003). Prosodic and lexical-syntactic aspects of the therapeutic register. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 17, 355-363. ISSN: 0269-9206
• Wells,J. (2003). Phonetic symbols in word processing and on the web. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Solé,M.J., Recasens,D., Romero,J. (ed.) Barcelona, 8 (6).
• Wells,J. (2003). Phonetic research by written questionnaire. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Solé,M.J., Recasens,D., Romero,J. (ed.) Barcelona, 7 (4).
• Wells,J. (2003). Accents in Britain today. in Waniek-Klimczak,E., Melia,P.J. (ed.) Accents and Speech in Teaching English Phonetics and Phonology. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 9-17.
• Xu,C. X., Xu,Y. (2003). Effects of Consonant Aspiration on Mandarin Tones. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33, 165-181. ISSN: 0025-1003. [Online]
• Abberton,E. (2002). In: Measurement of Speech Sound Data and its Practical Application. Aspects of voice quality in women. (2002), 128-131.
• Ashby,M. (2002). Pronunciation in EFL. The Guide to Good Practice for learning and teaching in Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies
• Ashby,M., Graham,J (2002), Practical Pronunciation. BBC English series.
• Evans,B.G., Iverson,P (2002). Vowel normalisation for dialect. in Hawkins,S, Nguyen,N (ed.) Temporal Integration in the Perception of Speech. Cambridge: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, 35.
• Huckvale,M (2002). Speech synthesis, speech simulation and speech science. International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, Denver, 2002, Hansen,J., Pellom,B. (ed.) , 1261-1264.
• Huckvale,M.A., Fang,A. (2002). Using phonologically-constrained morphological analysis in speech recognition. Computer Speech and Language, 16, 165-181. ISSN: 0885-2308. [Online] [DOI link]
• Hunter,G., Huckvale,M (2002). Studies in the Statistical Modelling of DialogueTurn Pairs in the British National Corpus. Proceedings of the 3rd WSEAS International Conference on Acoustics, Music, Speech and Language Processing (Tenerife)
• Sun,X., Xu,Y. (2002). Perceived pitch of synthesized voice with alternate cycles. Journal of Voice 16, 443-459.
• Vazquez-Alvarez,Y, Huckvale,M (2002). The Reliability of the ITU-P.85 Standard for the Evaluation of Text-to-Speech Systems. Proceedings of the International Conference for Speech and Language Processing (Denver) , 329-332.
• Wells,J.C. (2002) . John Wells. in Brown,K, Law,V (ed.) Linguistics in Britain: personal histories . Publications of the Philological Society series. Oxford: Blackwell
• Ashby,M., various (ed.) (2001), Oxford Idioms Dictionary for Learners of English,Oxford: OUP. ISBN: 0-19-431545-2. 
• Ashby,M., various (ed.) (2001), Oxford Phrasal Verbs Dictionary for Learners of English,Oxford: OUP. ISBN: 0-19-43153-6. 
• Ashby,M., various (ed.) (2001), Oxford Student's Dictionary of English,Oxford: OUP. ISBN: 0-19-431517-7.
• Chung,H., Huckvale,M (2001). Linguistic factors affecting timing in Korean with application to speech synthesis.
• Fang,A.C. (2001). Prepositional Phrases: Towards the Automatic Determination of their Syntactic Functions. Journal of Natural Language Engineering.
• Fang,A.C., Huckvale,M (2001). Out-of-Vocabulary Rate Reduction through Dispersion-Based Lexical Selection. Oxford Literary and Linguistic Computing
• Huckvale,M. (2001). The Use and Potential of Extensible Mark-Up (XML) in Speech Generation. in Keller (ed.) Improvements in Speech Synthesis. Wiley.
• Huckvale,M., Fang,A. (2001). Experiments in apply morphological analysis in speech recognition and their cognitive explanation, Proceedings of the Intsitute of Acoustics series. Institute of Acoustics
• Huckvale,M., Hunter,G. (2001). Learning on the job: the application of machine learning within the speech decoder, Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics series. St. Albans:Institute of Acoustics, 23 (3), 71-79
• Xu,Y. (2001). Fundamental frequency peak delay in Mandarin. Phonetica 58, 26-52.
• Xu,Y. (2001). Sources of tonal variations in connected speech. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 17, 1-31.
• Xu,Y., Wang,Q. E. (2001). Pitch targets and their realization: Evidence from Mandarin Chinese. Speech Communication 33(4), 319-337. ISSN: 0167-6393.[Online] [DOI link]