Subject: cfp : workshop on spoken language generation and multimodal

information systems 2nd ` speak ! ' workshop : speech generation in multimodal information systems and practical applications 2nd - 3rd november 1995 gmd / ipsi , darmstadt , germany * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * call for contributions * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * this workshop aims to bring together researchers , developers , and potential producers and marketers of multimodal information systems in order to consider the role of * spoken language synthesis * in such systems . not only do we need to be able to produce spoken language appropriately - - - including effective control of intonation - - - but also we need to know in which practical contexts spoken language is most beneficial . this requires a dialogue between those providing spoken natural language technology and those considering the practical use of multimodal information systems . the workshop will consist of paper presentations and practical demonstrations , as well as a roundtable discussion on the best strategies for pursuing the practical application of spoken language synthesis technology in information systems . suggested topic areas / themes include , but are not limited to : * functional control of intonation in synthesized speech * use of speech in intelligent interfaces for information systems * integration of speech into automatic query systems * cooperative integration of speech with text generation for information systems * evaluation strategies for information systems involving speech synthesis * applications for information systems with spoken language output capabilities * practical requirements for information systems with spoken language capabilities . potential participants are invited to submit short statements of interest indicating whether they would be interested in presenting a paper , offering a system demonstration , participating in the round table discussion , or simply attending . statements of interest and extended abstracts ( max . 7 pages ) should be sent by 1st . october by e-mail to : ` bateman @ gmd . de ' or by post to : john a . bateman , gmd / ipsi , dolivostr . 15 , d-64293 darmstadt , germany . extended abstracts will be made available at the workshop . during the workshop current results and demonstrations of the eu copernicus program project ` speak ! ' will also be given ( see attachment ) . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - project information : the speak ! project : speech generation in multimodal information systems " speak ! " is a european union funded project ( copernicus ' 93 project no . 10393 ) whose aim is to embed spoken natural language synthesis technology with sophisticated user interfaces in order to improve access to information systems . multimedia technology and knowledge-based text processing enhance the development of new types of information systems which not only offer references or full-text documents to the user but also provide access to images , graphics , audio and video documents . this diversification of the in formation offered has to be supported by easy-to - use multimodal user interfaces , which are capable of presenting each type of information item in a way that it can be perceived and processed effectively by the user . users can easily process simultaneously the graphical medium of information presentation and the linguistic medium . the separation of mode is also quite appropriate for the different functionalities of the main graphical interaction and the supportive meta-dialogue carried out linguistically . we believe , therefore , that a substantial improvement in both functionality and user acceptance is to be achieved by the integration of spoken languages capabilities . however , text-to - speech devices commercially available today produce speech that sounds unnatural and that is hard to listen to . high quality synthesized speech that sounds acceptable to humans demands appropriate intonation patterns . the effective control of intonation requires synthesizing from meanings , rather than word sequences , and requires understanding of the functions of intonation . in the domain of sophisticated human-machine interfaces , we can make use of the increasing tendency to design such interfaces as independent agents that themselves engage in an interactive dialogue ( both graphical and linguistic ) with their users . such agents need to maintain models of their discourses , their users , and their communicative goals . the speak ! project , which was launched recently as a cooperation between the speech research technology laboratory of the technical university of budapest and the technical university of darmstadt ( in cooperation with gmd-ipsi ) , aims at developing such an interface for a multimedia retrieval system . at ipsi , the departments komet ( natural language generation ) and mind ( information retrieval dialogues ) contribute to this project . the project is to construct a proof-of - concept prototype of a multimodal information system combining graphical and spoken language output in a variety of languages . the work involves four supporting goals : first , to advance the state of the art in the domains of speech synthesis , spoken text generation , and graphical interface design ; second , to provide enabling technology for higher functionality information systems that are more appropriate for general public use ; third , to significantly improve the public and industrial acceptance of speech synthesis in general and the hungarian text-to - speech technology elaborated within the project in particular ; and , fourth , to act as a focusing point for speech work in hungary . contact points : gmd / ipsi , darmstadt : john bateman e-mail : bateman @ gmd . de fax : + 49 / 6151-869 - 818 tel : + 49 / 6151-869 - 826 tu - budapest : g ' eza n ' emeth e-mail : nemeth @ ttt - 202 . ttt . bme . hu fax : + 36 / 1-463 - 3107 tel : + 36 / 1-463 2401
