Acoustic Analysis of the Speakers’ Variability for Regional Accent-Affected Pronunciation in Bangladeshi Bangla: A Study on Sylheti Accent
Accented pronunciation variability is one of the key elements that deteriorate the accuracy of the automatic speech recognition (ASR). This article reports the results of the acoustic analysis of the two groups of speakers' variability caused by regional accent in Bangladeshi Bangla. The analys...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2020-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Access |
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| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9001082/ |
| _version_ | 1819120651611406336 |
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| author | Shafkat Kibria M. Shahidur Rahman M. Reza Selim M. Zafar Iqbal |
| author_facet | Shafkat Kibria M. Shahidur Rahman M. Reza Selim M. Zafar Iqbal |
| author_sort | Shafkat Kibria |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Accented pronunciation variability is one of the key elements that deteriorate the accuracy of the automatic speech recognition (ASR). This article reports the results of the acoustic analysis of the two groups of speakers' variability caused by regional accent in Bangladeshi Bangla. The analysis considers the seven monophthongal and four diphthongal vowels of Bangla to investigate the acoustic characteristics of two groups of single-accent speakers and their correlation on the articulation of the Standard Colloquial Bangladeshi Bangla (SCBB). An accent is the speaker's regional signature and shaped by his/her community and educational background. This study examines both male and female speakers from the Sylhet region, which has one of the extremely deviant dialects in Bangla, and comparatively less deviant speakers from different districts of North-West and Middle Part of Bangladesh. Accent-related acoustic features such as pitch slope, formant frequencies, and vowel duration have been considered to examine the prominent characteristics of the accents and to classify the accents from these features. Both gender groups are distinctly analyzed. It has been found that there are significant deviations in formant frequencies and various steepness of the rise/fall in pitch slope within accents of both gender groups. In this study, it has been observed that accent related changes in speech affect the ASR performance. This has emphasized the need for accent-specific acoustic models to handle the speakers from highly deviant dialects as well as considering the accent-affected speakers' variability in the corpora development for robust ASR system in Bangladeshi Bangla. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-22T06:24:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-506a8e037f7548d3b9ea2038391d2f94 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-22T06:24:03Z |
| publishDate | 2020-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj.art-506a8e037f7548d3b9ea2038391d2f942022-12-21T18:35:52ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362020-01-018352003522110.1109/ACCESS.2020.29747999001082Acoustic Analysis of the Speakers’ Variability for Regional Accent-Affected Pronunciation in Bangladeshi Bangla: A Study on Sylheti AccentShafkat Kibria0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7526-7015M. Shahidur Rahman1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5635-4105M. Reza Selim2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7140-1499M. Zafar Iqbal3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7298-1237Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, BangladeshDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, BangladeshDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, BangladeshDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, BangladeshAccented pronunciation variability is one of the key elements that deteriorate the accuracy of the automatic speech recognition (ASR). This article reports the results of the acoustic analysis of the two groups of speakers' variability caused by regional accent in Bangladeshi Bangla. The analysis considers the seven monophthongal and four diphthongal vowels of Bangla to investigate the acoustic characteristics of two groups of single-accent speakers and their correlation on the articulation of the Standard Colloquial Bangladeshi Bangla (SCBB). An accent is the speaker's regional signature and shaped by his/her community and educational background. This study examines both male and female speakers from the Sylhet region, which has one of the extremely deviant dialects in Bangla, and comparatively less deviant speakers from different districts of North-West and Middle Part of Bangladesh. Accent-related acoustic features such as pitch slope, formant frequencies, and vowel duration have been considered to examine the prominent characteristics of the accents and to classify the accents from these features. Both gender groups are distinctly analyzed. It has been found that there are significant deviations in formant frequencies and various steepness of the rise/fall in pitch slope within accents of both gender groups. In this study, it has been observed that accent related changes in speech affect the ASR performance. This has emphasized the need for accent-specific acoustic models to handle the speakers from highly deviant dialects as well as considering the accent-affected speakers' variability in the corpora development for robust ASR system in Bangladeshi Bangla.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9001082/Accent checkeraccent analysisaccent classificationaccent databaseacoustic analysisBangladeshi Bangla |
| spellingShingle | Shafkat Kibria M. Shahidur Rahman M. Reza Selim M. Zafar Iqbal Acoustic Analysis of the Speakers’ Variability for Regional Accent-Affected Pronunciation in Bangladeshi Bangla: A Study on Sylheti Accent IEEE Access Accent checker accent analysis accent classification accent database acoustic analysis Bangladeshi Bangla |
| title | Acoustic Analysis of the Speakers’ Variability for Regional Accent-Affected Pronunciation in Bangladeshi Bangla: A Study on Sylheti Accent |
| title_full | Acoustic Analysis of the Speakers’ Variability for Regional Accent-Affected Pronunciation in Bangladeshi Bangla: A Study on Sylheti Accent |
| title_fullStr | Acoustic Analysis of the Speakers’ Variability for Regional Accent-Affected Pronunciation in Bangladeshi Bangla: A Study on Sylheti Accent |
| title_full_unstemmed | Acoustic Analysis of the Speakers’ Variability for Regional Accent-Affected Pronunciation in Bangladeshi Bangla: A Study on Sylheti Accent |
| title_short | Acoustic Analysis of the Speakers’ Variability for Regional Accent-Affected Pronunciation in Bangladeshi Bangla: A Study on Sylheti Accent |
| title_sort | acoustic analysis of the speakers x2019 variability for regional accent affected pronunciation in bangladeshi bangla a study on sylheti accent |
| topic | Accent checker accent analysis accent classification accent database acoustic analysis Bangladeshi Bangla |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9001082/ |
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