colin@pdn.UUCP (Colin Kendall) (12/09/87)
<Date: Wed, 2 Dec 87 11:16 EST
<From: Rick Wojcik <rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP<
<Subject: Re: Language Learning (a Turing test)
<
<
<In article <2314@homxc.UUCP< lewisd@homxc.UUCP (David Lewis) writes:
<<Has anyone heard about a test like this?
<<Take the pool of native speakers and subject them to this
<<test: to tell whether an arbitrary speaker of their language is a native
<<speaker or not.
<<The problem: sure, maybe they
<<can say that your wife is not a native speaker of Spanish or French. But
<<perhaps they'll also say that of other native speakers.
<<Only if they can tell native/nonnative with high accuracy should the group
<<be considered a valid test of fluency.
<<--
<<David B. Lewis {ihnp4,allegra,ulysses}!homxc!lewisd
<
<You are probably right up to a point. Many valid dialects of a language
<do sound like foreign accents. For the sake of argument, let us require
<that 'native speakers' and examiners be only those with command of the
<standard dialect of a language.
And who is to judge whether a given candidate has "command of the
standard dialect of a language?" Other "native speakers"? Who are
they? How do you find them? And what, by the way, is the
standard dialect of English?
You could say: "English as it is spoken by network news announcers in
the U.S." -- but then the standard dialect would be dependent on the
hiring and firing whims of their bosses.
I suspect that the only way to pin it down would be to plot the
frequency spectrum of each spoken sound, and judge an entity to
be speaking the standard dialect iff it does not deviate from
some standard for each spoken sound by more than a set amount and
if the speech rate does not deviate...etc. But I submit that
it would be conceivable to design a device that "speaks" within
the given limits which would not fool anybody; and vice versa.
--
Colin Kendall Paradyne Corporation
{gatech,akgua}!usfvax2!pdn!colin Mail stop LF-207
Phone: (813) 530-8697 8550 Ulmerton Road, PO Box 2826
Largo, FL 33294-2826grossi@csinn.uucp (Thomas Grossi) (12/14/87)
> I suspect that the only way to pin it down would be to plot the > frequency spectrum of each spoken sound, and judge an entity to > be speaking the standard dialect iff it does not deviate from > some standard for each spoken sound by more than a set amount and > if the speech rate does not deviate...etc. > -- > Colin Kendall Paradyne Corporation fine, but mastery of a language goes far beyond being able to pronounce all the sounds of a language. Intonation is extremely important, not only because if you don't get it right you'll sound "strange" but also because of its semantic content -- it's often impossible to tell when a "foreigner" is trying to sound sarcastic! Another aspect that I was completely unaware of until I came to live in a foreign country is that not only must you learn an entirely new vocabulary, you must also learn to say completely different things in the same circumstances. (for example, if someone steps on your foot and apologizes -- "Excuse me" -- an appropriate response in English would be "certainly" whereas in French you would say "Il n'y a pas de mal" -- "no harm done" in the closest translation) Thomas Grossi ...!mcvax!csinn!grossi Cap Sogeti Innovation Grenoble, France
cl@dlhpedg.co.uk (Charles Lambert) (12/18/87)
In article <733@csinn.UUCP> grossi@csinn.uucp (Thomas Grossi) writes: >(for example, if someone steps on your foot and apologizes -- "Excuse me" -- >an appropriate response in English would be "certainly" whereas in French Appropriate response varies within a language as well as between languages. For instance, the above apology would be appropriate in America, but in England "Excuse me" is often interpreted as "Get out of my way"; "Pardon me" or "I beg you pardon" would be safer (again, variant from American usage). ----------- Charles Lambert