Researching

Philingk is a two-year lead agency project (2021-2023) carried out by the Institute of Romance Studies at the University of Zurich (Prof. Dr. Ursula Bähler) and the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Graz (Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hurch) and is funded by the SNF and FWF. 

The project is located at the interface between the traditional history of philological andlinguistic science and the new possibilities of digital humanities. The focus of the project is on the digital edition of the extensive and previously unpublished correspondence between Gaston Paris (1839-1903) and Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927) as well as its linking with existing databases (HSA, CorrespSearch). Novel methods of data modeling and research questions aim at representing and bringing to life the polyphonic discourse space which has decisively influenced the formation of knowledge. Thereby, new insights into processes of scientific discussion and differentiation will be made possible. A print edition will be created in addition to the digital edition. 

Under the overall direction of Barbara Schuppler (SPSC, TU Graz), this project aims to improve the automatic recognition of conversational speech, to expand our knowledge of conversational speech production and perception, to contribute to the study of spoken Austrian German and to make resources available for the study of Austrian German.

Based on German and Austrian language databases, we are developing "cross-layer" language models that use both acoustic information and the semantic context in decoding speech, just as human listeners do. In the project, quantitative phonetic studies are carried out, on the basis of which the language models are further developed and improved. In conducting these studies, (language) technological methods are also used both for the creation of automatic annotations and for the extraction of acoustic characteristics as well as for the statistical analysis of data. These improved models are then tested in a second step based on conversational speech material, which compares machine-language recognition with the results of perception studies with human listeners. Such an approach requires an interdisciplinary team (engineers and linguists) that works closely together.

As part of the overall project, the doctoral project of Anneliese Kelterer under the direction of Dina El Zarka (national partner) at the Institute of Linguistics deals with prosodic features and phonetic reduction phenomena in Austrian German conversational speech and their significance for the linguistic realisation of communicative functions. The acoustic analysis of conversational speech data is complemented by perception experiments that test the relevance of acoustic parameters for human perception. At the same time, the project should provide further insights into the prosodic realisation of interactional phenomena and discursive structures (turn-taking, thematic organisation etc.) as well as other semantic-pragmatic functions (speech acts, foregrounding, backgrounding etc.) in spontaneous conversations.