15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15) Barcelona, Spain August 3-9, 2003

A Web-Based Transcription Tool

M. Luisa García Lecumberri (1), John Maidment (2), Martin Cooke (3), Anders Eriksson (4), Mircea Giurgiu (5)

(1) University of the Basque Country, Spain
(2) University College London, UK
(3) University of Sheffield, UK
(4) Stockholms Universitet, Sweden
(5) Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Transcription raises speakers' awareness of sound systems and, in the case of language learners, of pronunciation errors. It is also a valuable diagnostic technique in pronunciation competence assessment. Nevertheless, transcription requires extensive practice and feedback, making heavy demands on tutors. Autonomous transcription learning can be difficult and frustrating due to the lack of contextual variation information and personalized feedback. We describe a web-based tool (www.wtt.org.uk) for transcription practice, which may also be used for pronunciation training and diagnosis. It incorporates automatic, fast and personalized feedback, making exercises customisable and varied. The tool performs an optimal alignment of student versus model transcriptions using a dynamic programming algorithm, modified to handle alternative pronunciations. It computes a summary of errors and their locations within a student's transcription. The current version contains materials for British English and Castilian Spanish and is readily adaptable to additional languages.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  García Lecumberri, M. Luisa / Maidment, John / Cooke, Martin / Eriksson, Anders / Giurgiu, Mircea (2003): "A web-based transcription tool", In ICPhS-15, 981-984.