PATSY-I: A Corpus on Non-Native English Air Traffic Communication

Kaufhold C, Martindale C, Horndasch A, Reinhard K, Nöth E (2016)


Publication Language: English

Publication Type: Conference contribution, Conference Contribution

Publication year: 2016

Pages Range: 82-85

Conference Proceedings Title: Tagungsband der 12. Tagung Phonetik und Phonologie im deutschsprachigen Raum

Event location: Munich DE

URI: https://www5.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/Forschung/Publikationen/2016/Kaufhold16-PAC.pdf

DOI: 10.5282/ubm/epub.29405

Abstract

In many global tasks English is used as an international language. As a consequence, non-native speakers of the English language often communicate with other non-native speakers. An example is the Air Traffic Control (ATC) service which directs aircrafts on the ground and through controlled airspace. It is of course essential that there is a perfect understanding between the pilot and the ground-based controller to prevent collisions and to organize air traffic efficiently. Aviation English already accommodates non-native speakers of English by providing guidelines for wording and phraseology. To avoid confusion, for example, letters and numbers are spelled according to the international spelling alphabet provided by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). However, the ability to speak and understand English still has a high impact on communication success.

In this paper, we present a corpus that was recorded in the context of the ATC phraseology training system PATSY, the prototype of which was presented at the Show&Tell session at Interspeech 2015. The corpus consists of basic ATC utterances by speakers of 16 different mother tongues. Furthermore, "Please Call Stella" and part of "The Rainbow Passage" were recorded twice for every speaker with different biases. We plan on using this data to study the entrainment effect, which was observed for conversations by Levitan and Hirschberg. Preliminary results on basic ATC utterances show a moderate correlation between the speakers' self-assessment and the GoP (Goodness of Pronunciation) score.

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How to cite

APA:

Kaufhold, C., Martindale, C., Horndasch, A., Reinhard, K., & Nöth, E. (2016). PATSY-I: A Corpus on Non-Native English Air Traffic Communication. In Draxler, Christoph; Kleber, Felicitas (Eds.), Tagungsband der 12. Tagung Phonetik und Phonologie im deutschsprachigen Raum (pp. 82-85). Munich, DE.

MLA:

Kaufhold, Caroline, et al. "PATSY-I: A Corpus on Non-Native English Air Traffic Communication." Proceedings of the 12. Tagung Phonetik und Phonologie im deutschsprachigen Raum, Munich Ed. Draxler, Christoph; Kleber, Felicitas, 2016. 82-85.

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