Session Keynote Talks:

Keynote Talks

Type: oral
Chair: William Barry
Date: Monday - August 06, 2007
Time: 09:20
Room: 1 (Red)

 

Keynote Talks-1 PHONETIC DETAIL AND THE ORGANISATION OF TALK-IN-INTERACTION
John Local, University of York
Paper File
  This paper examines some methodological and empirical issues concerning phonetic detail and phonetic variability and the work they accomplish in everyday talk-in-interaction. By considering the phonetic and sequential design of a variety of conversational practices I show that phonetic aspects of language should in the first instance be understood as shaped by nteractional considerations. I argue that in order to provide a robust account for the organisation and functioning of phonetic detail in everyday conversation we need to: i) enrich our understanding of `context' and `communicative function'; ii) develop a theory of phonetic exponency which derives from a sequential, action-based analysis of talk-in-interaction, and iii) treat all phonetic resources equally and not give analytic privilege to one kind of phonetic parameter over another. If we adopt this approach, it becomes possible to document systematically the ways in which speakers and listeners use fine phonetic detail and phonetic variability in producing and interpreting the moment-to-moment flow of everyday talk.
Keynote Talks-2 INSIDE OUT – ACOUSTIC AND VISUAL ASPECTS OF VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION
Björn Granström, Centre for Speech Technology, KTH, Stockholm
David House, Centre for Speech Technology, KTH, Stockholm
Paper File
  In face-to-face communication both visual and auditory information play an obvious and significant role. In this presentation we will discuss work done, primarily at KTH, that aims at analyzing and modelling verbal and non-verbal communication from a multi-modal perspective. In our studies, it appears that both segmental and prosodic phenomena are strongly affected by the communicative context of speech interaction. One platform for modelling audiovisual speech communication is the ECA, embodied conversational agent. We will describe how ECAs have been used in our research, including examples of applications and a series of experiments for studying multimodal aspects of speech communication.

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