Phonetics Research

Research in phonetics and speech science at Saarland University covers both linguistic phonetics and speech technology. Active research areas include speech production and perception, prosody, phonetic characteristics of discourse and dialog, and speech synthesis. A central theme of our research is to integrate phonetic knowledge in speech technology. Our group has worked extensively on text-to-speech synthesis, a wonderful framework for implementing and testing computational models of linguistic and phonetic processes. Recent work has focused on experimental methods and computational models to study various aspects of speech production, perception, and second language acquisition.

Current research projects

• Judeo-Spanish in Bulgaria: a contact language between archaism and innovation
  (Andreeva, Avgustinova, Fischer, Gabriel; funded by DFG 2022-2023)
• The Prosodic Marking of Givenness in Bulgarian, English, French and German.
  (Andreeva; funded by DAAD and Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridsky", 2021-2023)
• Prosodic aspects of Bulgarian compared to other languages with lexical stress
  (Patseva, Andreeva, Alexieva, Dimitrova, Chergova, Marinkova; funded by Bulgarian National Science Fund 2019-2022)
• Pause-internal phonetic particles in speech communication
  (Trouvain, Möbius; funded by DFG 2019-2022)
• Information density and the predictability of phonetic structure
  (Möbius, Andreeva; funded by DFG within SFB 1102 [C1], 2014-2022)
• Mutual intelligibility and surprisal in Slavic intercomprehension (INCOMSLAV)
  (Avgustinova, Klakow, Möbius; funded by DFG within SFB 1102 [C4], 2014-2022)
• Phonetic convergence in human-computer interaction (CHI-C)
  (Möbius, Steiner; funded by DFG, 2016-2022)

Completed research projects

• Prosodische Kodierung des Informationsstatus in der Fremdsprache: Prosodietransfer aus dem Polnischen ins Deutsche und umgekehrt
  (Andreeva; funded by DAAD & University of Warsaw, 2018-2020)
• SimPhon.Net: Usage-based approaches, computational modeling and simulation studies in phonetics and phonology
  (Möbius; funded by DFG, coordinator: Daniel Duran, University of Freiburg, 2016-2020)
• Individualized feedback for computer-assisted spoken language learning
  (Trouvain, Möbius; funded by DFG/ANR, 2013-2016)
• The function of speech rhythm in information processing
  (Andreeva, Marti; funded by Saarland University)
• FIGUS: Functional interpretation of healthy speech production based on cerebral organization structures and instrumental analysis of acoustic and electrophysiological correlates of production
  
  (Prof. Dr. Dr. Pützer; funded by Saarland University)
  In collaboration with the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology, University Hospital of Saarland, Homburg (Prof. Dr. Reith, Dr. Krick) and the Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital of Saarland, Homburg (Prof. Dr. Moringlane)
• A Longitudinal Study of the Intonation of the Sofia Variety of Contemporary Standard Bulgarian
  
  (Andreeva; funded by DAAD, 2015-2017)
  In Collaboration with Snezhina Dimitrova, Sofia University "St.Kliment Ohridsky", English and American Studies Department
• Prosody and Politeness in L2
  
  (Andreeva; funded by DAAD, 2015-2017)
  In Collaboration with Silvia Bonacchi, Warsaw University, Institute of Specialised and Intercultural Communication
• Repräsentation individueller Sprecher- und Stimm-Merkmale in synthetischen Sprachstimuli
  
  (Möbius; funded by Saarland University, 2014-2015)
• MCCA
  
  Culturological and Suprasegmental Analysis of Communicative Interactions Marked by Politeness and Impoliteness
  (Andreeva, Bonacchi; funded by Polish National Center of Science, 2012-2015)
• Second Language Prosody Effects of L1 Experience on Rhythm and Prominence of L2 Speech
  
  (Andreeva; funded by DAAD, 2012-2014)
  In Collaboration with Snezhina Dimitrova, Sofia University "St.Kliment Ohridsky", English and American Studies Department
• GENIE: spoken Sorbian/Wendish
  Database of spoken Sorbian/Wendish, in collaboration with the Department of Slavonic Studies.
  (Marti, von Rauch, Barry, Andreeva; funded by Saarland University, 2005-2006)
• Speech Production: The syllable as a processing unit
  
  (Möbius with Wagner, Univ. Bielefeld; funded by DFG within SPP-1234, 2009-2012)
• eTon: The music of speech
  
  Creation and implementation of multimedia training material for production and perception of pitch contours in Standard German considering the various functions of intonation in human communication.
  (Andreeva, Köser, Gast; funded by Saarland University, 2010)
• Prominence & Rhythm
  Cross-language analysis of the production and perception of prominence.
  (Barry, Andreeva, Kötzer; funded by DFG, within SPP1234)
• audite vocem - Online training program for perceptual identification of different voice qualities. (eLearning)
  
  PowerPoint presentation (contents and structure of the training)
  (Köser, Pützer; funded by Saarland University, 2008-2009)
• BULGARISCH: Development and implementation of multimedia language courses (eLearning)
  
  Bulgarian online language learning.
  (Andreeva, Avgustinova; funded by Saarland University, 2008-2009)
• eLAUT
  
  eLearning Analytisches Hören und Transkribieren. Online illustrations and training program for the IPA-system with demonstrations of sound inventories of various languages and dialects.
  (Trouvain; funded by Saarland University)
• SecurePhone
  
  The SecurePhone project integrates a biometric recogniser in a 3G/B3G enabled PDA. The text-dependent speaker verification is the main responsibility of Saarland University. 
  (Koreman; funded in the European Union's 6th Framework Programme. Partners: Atos Origin (AO) (E), Informa (IN) (E), Telefónica Móviles Espa ña (TM) (E), Nergal (NE) (I), The Institute of Phonetics of the University of Saarbrücken (SU) (D), The University of Buckingham (BU) (UK), Group des Écoles des Télécommunications - INT (GI ) (F), Group des Écoles des Télécommunications - ENST (GE ) (F)) 
• ProPhonO
  
  Programmierkurs für Phonetiker Online (ProPhonO), e-learning project.
  (Brinckmann; funded by Saarland University, 2005-2006) 
• Phon2
  
  Online phonetics course, initially aimed at native speakers of Bulgarian, English, French and German
  (Barry in collaboration with University of Reading (coordinator), University of Sofia and University of Pau; funded by EU)
• NECA
  
  A net environment for embodied emotional conversational agents, in collaboration with OEFAI (coordinator), DFKI Freeserve, ITRI and Sysis.
  (Grice, Baumann; funded by the European Commission under the Information Society Technologies Programme IST-2000-28580, 2001-2004)
• NaDia
  
  Phrase-based speech synthesis.
  (Trouvain; in collaboration with and funded by CLT, 2001-2002)
• PhonASR
  
  Phonetic features, speaking rate and subword units in acoustic decoding for automatic speech recognition.
  (Koreman, Barry, Andreeva; internal funding 2000-2003)
• PrAnK
  
  Prosodic analysis of the German KielCorpus.
  (Grice, Baumann; funded by Saarland University, 2000-2001)
• Evaluating Prosody
  
  Evaluationg prosody in the synthesis of prompts for a telephone directory dialogue system, in collaboration with and funded by Berkom (T-Systems).
  (Barry, Trouvain; 2000)
• Database of healthy and pathological voices / Voice profiles
  
  Classification of healthy and pathological voice profiles on the basis of the acoustic and electroglottographic signals. 
  Collaboration with the ENT clinic of Caritasklinik St. Theresia in Saarbrücken and the Department of Neurology and the Department of Neurosurgery of the University of the Saarland in Homburg.
  (Barry, Pützer; funded by DFG 1999-2000 and 2001-2004; funded by Ministry of Science and Education, Caritas Gesellschaft and University of the Saarland, 1997-2001)
• GToBI
  
  Consensus transcription System for German Intonationand German Intonation Verification and extension of a model of German
  (Grice, Benzmüller, Baumann; internal funding 1995-2003)
• Mary
  
  A modular German text-to-speech synthesis system
  (collaborative project with computational linguistics, continuation by Marc Schröder, DFKI; internal funding)
• Aaltalk
  
  Danish text-to speech using diphone synthesis, in collaboration with CPK, Aalborg University
  (Barry, Trouvain, Koreman; funded by Danish Telekom, 1998-1998)
• Babel
  
  Multi-Language database comprising five of the most widely differing Eastern European languages: Bulgarian, Estonian, Hungarian, Polish and Romanian.
  Partners: Phonetics and Speech Technology Group (Bulgaria), Institute of Cybernetics (Tallinn - Estonia), Technical University of Budapest, Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw), Marie Curie University (Lublin - Poland), Technical University of Timisoara (Romania), and Western Partners
  (Barry, Koreman, Saarbrücken; Lamel, LIMSI, Paris; Marasek, Stuttgart; Wells and Fourcin., UCL London; funded by EU, 1995-1998)
• Sphere
  
  Tho role of dynamic signal properties in human and automatic processing of speech.
  (Barry, Koreman; funded by EU, 1994-1996)
• Logox
  
  German and English text-to-speech synthesis on the basis of microsegment concatenation.
  (Barry, Benzmüller, Brinckmann; funded by G DATA, 1993-1994 and 1997-2004)
• German Dialects in Lothringen
  
  Perceptual and instrumental-phonetic analysis of German dialects spoken by three generations in three regions of Lothringen.
  (Barry, Pützer; funded by DFG, 1993-1997)