Adopting StudyIntonation CAPT Tools to Tonal Languages Through the Example of Vietnamese

Abstract

In tonal languages, tones are associated with both and phonological and lexical domains. Accurate tone articulation is required in order to convey the correct meaning. Learning tones at both word and phrase levels is often challenging for L2 learners with non-tonal language background, because of possible subtle difference between the close tones. In this paper, we discuss an adoption of StudyIntonation CAPT tools to the case of Vietnamese language being a good example of register tonal language with a complex system of tones comprising such features as tone pitch, its length, contour melody, intensity and phonation. The particular focus of this contribution is to assess the adoption of StudyIntonation course toolkit and its pitch processing and visualization algorithms in order to evaluate how the combined use of audio and visual perception mechanisms supported by StudyIntonation may help learners to improve the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation with respect to tonal languages.

An Open CAPT System for Prosody Practice: Practical Steps towards Multilingual Setup

“…Though even in non-tonal languages one can find occasional uses of short-term pitch change, in the overwhelming majority of cases, differences in pitches do not have as much impact on meaning disambiguation or speech recognition as in tonal languages. Van et al (2021) discuss the required steps for adopting the CAPT interface for both tone and phrasal intonation in a pilot study using StudyIntonation for Vietnamese. With regard to the user interface and course organization, for mastery of independent tones (for example, for the tones shown in Figure 5), the system did not need significant adjustments: users can practice the tones using the independent exercises.…”