Systems and Methods for Assessment of Non-Native Spontaneous Speech
- Author(s):
- Chen, Lei; Zechner, Klaus; Xi, Xiaoming
- Patent Issued:
- Mar 05, 2013
- Patent Number:
- 8,392,190
- Source:
- ETS Patent
- Document Type:
- Patent
- Family ID:
- 42232069
- Subject/Key Words:
- Patent, Active Patent, Non-Native Spontaneous Speech, Automated Scoring and Natural Language Processing, Pronunciation, Automatic Speech Recognition, Spoken Language Assessment, Automated Scoring of Speech
Abstract
Computer-implemented systems and methods are provided for assessing non-native spontaneous speech pronunciation. Speech recognition on digitized speech is performed using a non-native acoustic model trained with non-native speech to generate word hypotheses for the digitized speech. Time alignment is performed between the digitized speech and the word hypotheses using a reference acoustic model trained with native-quality speech. Statistics are calculated regarding individual words and phonemes in the word hypotheses based on the alignment. A plurality of features for use in assessing pronunciation of the speech are calculated based on the statistics, an assessment score is calculated based on one or more of the calculated features, and the assessment score is stored in a computer-readable memory.