7.1040, Jobs: Spanish Linguistics, Automatic Speech Recognition

Wed Jul 17 18:11:16 UTC 1996

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-1040. Wed Jul 17 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  152

Subject: 7.1040, Jobs: Spanish Linguistics, Automatic Speech Recognition

Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu> (On Leave)
            T. Daniel Seely: Eastern Michigan U. <dseely at emunix.emich.edu>

Associate Editor:  Ljuba Veselinova <lveselin at emunix.emich.edu>
Assistant Editors: Ron Reck <rreck at emunix.emich.edu>
                   Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
                   Annemarie Valdez <avaldez at emunix.emich.edu>

Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>

Editor for this issue: lveselin at emunix.emich.edu (Ljuba Veselinova)

---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Wed, 17 Jul 1996 11:14:57 EDT
From:  preston at pilot.msu.edu (Dennis R. Preston)
Subject:  Spanish Linguistics Position at MSU

2)
Date:  Wed, 17 Jul 1996 17:18:55 +0200
From:  strik at let.kun.nl (Helmer Strik)
Subject:  jobs: PhD's about ASR at the University of Nijmegen

---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Wed, 17 Jul 1996 11:14:57 EDT
From:  preston at pilot.msu.edu (Dennis R. Preston)
Subject:  Spanish Linguistics Position at MSU

SPANISH LINGUISTICS.  Visiting Assistant Professor or Instructor for
the 1996-1997 academic year.  Ph.D. preferred.  Candidates should have
broad scholarly interests, demonstrable evidence of excellence in
teaching and scholarship, and native or near-native competence in
Spanish.  Courses to be taught may include phonetics, grammar and
composition, and Romance Linguistics, as well as elementary and
intermediate Spanish.  Expressions of interest, with a recent
curriculum vitae and a placement dossier, should be sent to Professor
Michael S. Koppisch, Chair, Department of Romance and Classical
Languages, 256 Old Horticulture Building, Michigan State University,
East Lansing, MI 48824-1112. Phone: (5l7) 355-8352. E-mail:
Koppisch at pilot.msu.edu. Michigan State University is an Affirmative
Action/Equal Opportunity Institution.  Handicappers have the right to
request and receive reasonable accommodation.

Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)432-1235
Fax: (517)432-2736

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2)
Date:  Wed, 17 Jul 1996 17:18:55 +0200
From:  strik at let.kun.nl (Helmer Strik)
Subject:  jobs: PhD's about ASR at the University of Nijmegen

At the Dept. of Language & Speech of the University of Nijmegen there
are two openings in the field of automatic speech recognition. The
goal of these two Ph.D. projects is to model pronunciation variation
in Dutch in order to improve the performance of automatic speech
recognition in spoken dialogue systems (SDS's).

General information

At the Dept. of Language & Speech a team consisting of people with
diverse backgrounds (a.o. linguistics, phonetics, cognitive science,
mathematics, physics, electrical engineering, and informatics) works
on various aspects of speech research.
The candidates should fit
within this team.

A large part of the research carried out at our dept. concerns speech
technology. At present, the two main research topics in this field
are:

[1] Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) for SDS's, and
[2] Automatic Speaker Verification/Identification (ASV/I).
Both candidates will be working on the first topic.

A substantial part of the ASR research takes place within the Dutch
Priority Programme Language and Speech Technology of the Netherlands
Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).  The goal of this project
is an SDS for public transport information.  One of the candidates
(called OIO) will work on this project and will be employed by
NWO. The other candidate (called AIO) will receive his/her grant from
the Dutch research school Center for Language Studies (CLS).

About the research

It is well-known that pronunciation variation is a serious problem for
automatic speech recognition. The goal of these two Ph.D. projects is
to model pronunciation variation in Dutch in order to improve the
performance of spoken dialogue systems (SDS's).
To achieve this goal,
two approaches are usually followed:
'top-down' and 'bottom-up',
where bottom stands for the speech signal and top for the word.

The 'top-down' approach is more linguistic and will be followed by the
AIO. In this approach phonological rules will be used for
(semi-)automatic generation of pronunciation variants, which are
subsequently matched to the signals. Therefore, the candidate should
have a linguistic background (e.g. M.S. in a linguistic discipline),
but should not be deterred by the technical details of automatic
speech recognition. Optionally, the candidate may also have a
technical background. However, in the latter case the candidate should
be able to show a clear interest in linguistics.  Furthermore, a good
knowledge of Dutch is required.

The other candidate will follow the more technical 'bottom-up'
approach. Here, digital signal processing techniques such as
clustering, state-tying, pattern-matching, and discriminant analysis
will be used.  Therefore, the candidate should have a technical
background (i.e.  M.S. in computer science, electrical engineering, or
a related field), and preferably some interest in linguistics. A
thorough knowledge of Dutch is not required. However, the candidate
should be willing to learn (some) Dutch.

The duration of both projects is 4 years. The approximate starting
dates of the projects are Nov. 1996 for the OIO, and Jan. 1997 for the
AIO. The two researchers will work together on the topic mentioned
above. Desired qualifications for both candidates are knowledge of
UNIX and speech recognition, and ability to write in English.

If you are interested,
you can contact Lou Boves or Helmer Strik.

Prof. Dr. L. Boves
tel. nr.: 31-24-3612902
e-mail: Boves at let.kun.nl

Dr. H. Strik
tel. nr.: 31-24-3616104
e-mail: Strik at let.kun.nl

Department of Language & Speech
P.O. Box 9103
6500 HD Nijmegen
fax nr.: 31-24-3615939
URL http://lands.let.kun.nl/

More information about this advertisement can be found
at http://lands.let.kun.nl/adv
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