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The analysis of speech has undergone an enormous number of changes in the last few years. Advances in hardware and software technologies have brought speech analysis to the desktop, while complicated hardware solutions have taken a back seat.

Our phonetics, speech, and sociolinguitics research labs provide a variety of up-to-date hardware and software solutions that make the gathering and analysis of speech samples, video, and ultrasound data more accurate while remaining accessible to the student.

The Speech Research Laboratory was established in 2008 by Dr. Sonya Bird and Dr. John Esling for advanced research projects that often require very specialized equipment and acoustical environments. This lab is equipped with a laryngoscope, an ultrasound, an audiometer, a sound booth, large screen display, and six post-production workstations as well as other high quality video and audio equipment. More information is available here: http://web.uvic.ca/ling/speechresearch/

The Phonetics Laboratory was established by Jean-Paul Vinay and has operated in its present location since 1971 under the successive direction of Henry Warkentyne, Craig Dickson and John Esling. Undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty and visiting researchers work in the lab on a variety of speech production and perception projects. Students carry out class assignments and learn to use specialized equipment and a multitude of dedicated and web-based applications for observing, analyzing and processing the sounds of language. This lab houses a sound-treated recording room for students to make recordings using the latest equipment for studio-level recording. In addition, the lab has several state-of-the-art computerized analysis tools available for experimentation in Acoustic, Auditory and Articulatory Phonetics.

Currently, our Phonetics lab has 8 workstations available for student use. The analysis software available in our labs include:

  • Video Phonetics Database * - "provides the ability to display a video window in conjunction with acoustic data; the data are linked in time for synchronous real-time display or in-depth analysis via cursor movement along the waveform."
  • IPA Lab - an online application that teaches the sounds of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and develops both ear training and transcription skills.
  • Praat - a freeware application that can be used to record, synthesize, and analyze sound.
  • Audacity - a freeware application that can be used to record, synthesize, and edit sound. Provides some analysis and singnal processing functions also.
  • Sony Vegas - a professional-level video editing program that can be used to record, edit, and render video, pictures, and audio data.
  • Elan - a freeware application used to aid transcribing Linguistic data from audio, video, and text.
  • Sony Sound Forge - an industry standard audio editing program that can be used to record, edit, and render audio data and video linked to audio.
  • SPSS Statistics - statistical analysis package for organizing and presenting experiment and survey data.
  • MATLab - statistical analysis and computer modelling package for simulating, collecting, and presenting experiment and survey data.
  • E-Prime - a suite of applications for computerized experiments, this software provides an environment for computerized experiment design, data collection, and analysis, and provides millisecond precision timing to ensure the accuracy of your data.
  • The University of Victoria Phonetic Database (PDB) - a compilation of 57 world languages including sound files of each language's phonetic inventory as well as extensive supporting documentation.
  • Adobe Production Suite - includes Photoshop, Soundbooth, Illustrator, Premier Pro, and other popular Adobe titles used for processing Audio, Video, and Photography.

Many of these programs have been developed by Speech Technology Research Ltd (STR) in conjunction with KayPENTAX.

The Sociolinguistics Laboratory was established in Januarary 2010 by Dr. Alexendra D'Arcy. The SocioLinguistics Research Lab (SLRL) is located in Clearihue D228c. It currently hosts 2 iMac workstations and a third iMac used as a dedicated server. It also has free workspace for students with portable laptops. The lab hosts LaBB-CAT, a browser-based, digitally interactive database and search engine that enables researchers to search across (and interact with) sound files. More information is available here: http://web.uvic.ca/~adarcy/SLRL.htm.