Speech Processing

Fridays 2-3.30

This course will introduce students to a range of computational techniques for the analysis and generation of speech and phonological representations in speech synthesis and recognition. The target audience is M.Phil. and D.Phil. research students specializing in phonetics. The course may also be of some use to students interested in Psycholinguistics or Computational Linguistics. The course has been designed for students from a humanities background, attempts to introduce the necessary technical concepts as gently as possible and has a strongly practical focus.

No prior knowledge of digital signal processing, computer programming, probability theory or automata theory is assumed, but as the material will be covered incrementally and intensively, the full active participation of all who come is essential, and attendance at later sessions is predicated on attendance at earlier ones. The weekly format will be prelimary reading, a 1½ hour lecture, followed by exercises and private study of computer programs developed week-by-week.

The course content will follow selected chapters from my textbook, Introducing Speech and Language Processing, which was developed from earlier cycles of this course in years past. Course participants are not required and will not need to purchase the textbook, unless they wish to: all necessary material (except for the text of the classes!) will be provided.

All who wish to attend are asked to complete the preliminary exercise prior to the first lecture.

Preliminary exercise: plotting a sine wave.

Reading list.