Room number

IDEG056

Telephone number

• office: +43 316 873 - 4366

Position

Assistant Professor

Email

b.schuppler@tugraz.at

Research interests

Her research interests include the development of automatic tools for the study of prosody and pronunciation variation, the study of phonetic detail in spontaneous, conversational speech and the integration of phonetic and linguistic knowledge into ASR technology.

From 2000 onwards, Barbara Schuppler studied Physics and Spanish Philology at the Karl-Franzens University of Graz and at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. She pursued the experiments for her diploma thesis at the group ‘Magnetometry and Photonics’ (Department of Experimental Physics) and graduated in 2007. In that same year, she received a Marie Curie Grant for a PhD position at the Centre for Language and Speech Technology at the Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands). In 2009 and 2010, Barbara Schuppler spent several months as visiting researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Being part of the RTN Sound to Sense gave her the chance to receive and contribute to interdisciplinary training at and with fourteen project partners from eleven countries. After teaching Physics and Spanish at the Graz International Bilingual School, she received a FWF funded Hertha-Firnberg Grant entitled ‘Cross-layer pronunciation modeling for conversational speech’. Barbara Schuppler started to work on that project at the SPSC Laboratory in 2012. In 2013 and 2014 she spent several months as visiting researcher at the Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie, Paris. Since October 2018, Barbara Schuppler has been leading two FWF-funded follow up projects aiming at developing cross-layer models for conversational speech.

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Research Topics

• Language Technologies
• Speech Analysis
• Speech and Speaker Recognition

Research Projects

• Cross-layer language models for conversational speech (FWF Stand-Alone Project P 32700-N)
• TUNE-IN
• Cross-layer prosody models for conversational speech (FWF Elise Richter Grant V638-N33)
• KONDE - Kompetenznetzwerk Digitale Edition
• Cross-layer pronunciation modeling for conversational speech (FWF Hertha Firnberg Program T572)

Courses

• Visiting Lecture Course: Modelling time-varying features of speech: tools and methods
• Visiting Lecture Course: Experimental Methods in Phonetics
• TI-Bachelorseminar am SPSC
• Linguistic Foundations of Speech and Language Technology
• Masterseminar-TI / Toningenieur-Masterarbeiten am SPSC
• Spoken language in human and human-computer dialogue
• Privatissimum 2023/2024
• Toningenieur-Projekt am SPSC
• Verfassen wissenschaftlicher Arbeiten
• Visiting Lecture Course: Signal processing, phonetic analysis automation and Praat scripting

Student Projects

• Single-channel source separation for conversational speech in realistic environments
• Effects of Room Acoustics on Conversational Speech(open)
• Integration of prosodic features to ASR systems
• Modelling Backchannels for Human-Robot Interaction
• Furhat -- Interaction with a Social Robot(open)
• Classification of turn-taking and conversational dynamics(open)
• Furhat Communicates in Austrian German(open)
• Automatic Prosodic Annotation of Conversational German(open)
• Classification of Communicative Functions(open)
• Integration of Prosodic Features to Automatic Speech Recognition Systems
• Development of an automatic transcription system for the documentation of the endangered language Muyu(open)
• CNN-based Homophone Disambiguation for conversational speech
• Version control for speech corpora
• Machine Learning for Automatic F0 Contour Discrimination and Labelling
• Speaker interpolation based data augmentation for conversational speech recognition
• Homophone disambiguation for conversational Austrian German
• Classification of homophones in conversational Austrian German via Random Forest
• Homophone disambiguation for conversational Austrian German(open)
• Analyzing the different meanings of laughter in conversational speech
• Prosody-Based Speaking Style Detection
• Classifying the meaning of breathings in conversational speech
• Automatic Speech Segmentation using Kaldi
• Automatic detection of laughter in conversational speech
• Prosodische Prominenz. Berechnung von akustischen Merkmalen zur Erkennung von prosodischer Prominenz in gesprochener Sprache.
• Identifying relevant cues for uncertainty in dialogue
• Burst Detection in Plosives for ASR
• Creating a new combined confidence measure for ASR-errors on the word-level

PhD Theses

• The prosody of interactional and discursive strategies in Austrian conversational speech
• Contribution of prosodic information in ASR systems for read and spontaneous speech by integrating long-term and short-term acoustic features
• Contribution of prosodic features to language models in automatic speech recognition systems and human perception

Publications

• Editorial Schuppler B., Adda-Decker M., Cucchiarini C. & Muhr R. (2024) An introduction to pluricentric languages in speech science and technology.. [more info] [doi]
• Journal article Pokorny F., Linke J., Seddiki N., Lohrmann S., Gerstenberger C., Haspl K., Feiner M., Hagmüller M., Schuppler B., Kubin G., Gugatschka M. & Eyben F. (2024) VocDoc, what happened to my voice? Towards automatically capturing vocal fatigue in the wild. in Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 88(B). [more info] [doi]
• Abstract Schuppler B., Kelterer A. & Hagmüller M. (2023) 10 Years of GRASS development: Experiences from annotating a large corpus of conversational Austrian German.. [more info]
• Conference paper Hagmüller M., Linke J., Lohrmann S., Pokorny F. & Schuppler B. (2023) An acoustic analysis of vowels to predict voice changes in a long reading task. in 13th International Workshop on Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications (pp. 23-26). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Kerle L., Pucher M. & Schuppler B. (2023) Speaker interpolation based data augmentation for automatic speech recognition. in 20th International Congress on Phonetic Sciences (pp. 3126-3130). [more info]
• Conference paper Kelterer A., Zellers M. & Schuppler B. (2023) (Dis)agreement and Preference Structure are Reflected in Matching Along Distinct Acoustic-prosodic Features. in 24th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association: INTERSPEECH 2023 (pp. 4768-4772). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Geiger B. & Schuppler B. (2023) Exploring Graph Theory Methods for the Analysis of Pronunciation Variation in Spontaneous Speech. in 24th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association: INTERSPEECH 2023 (pp. 596-600). [more info] [doi]
• Poster Linke J., Kadar M., Dosinszky G., Mihajlik P., Kubin G. & Schuppler B. (2023) What do self-supervised speech representations encode? An analysis of languages, varieties, speaking styles and speakers.. [more info] [doi]
• Preprint Linke J., Wepner S., Kubin G. & Schuppler B. (2023) Using Kaldi for Automatic Speech Recognition of Conversational Austrian German.. [more info] [doi]
• Review article Gabler P., Geiger B., Schuppler B. & Kern R. (2023) Reconsidering Read and Spontaneous Speech: Causal Perspectives on the Generation of Training Data for Automatic Speech Recognition.. [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Linke J., Kubin G. & Schuppler B. (2023) Using word-level features for prosodic prominence detection in conversational speech. in 20th International Congress on Phonetic Sciences (pp. 3101). [more info]
• Conference paper Kelterer A., Wepner S., Linke J. & Schuppler B. (2023) Points of maximum grammatical control – The prosody of a turn-holding practice. in 20th International Congress on Phonetic Sciences (pp. 3467). [more info]
• Conference paper Paierl M., Röck T., Wepner S., Kelterer A. & Schuppler B. (2023) Creapy: A Python-based tool for the detection of creak in conversational speech. in 20th International Congress on Phonetic Sciences (pp. 1716). [more info]
• Conference paper Schuppler B., Berger E., Kogler X. & Pernkopf F. (2022) Homophone Disambiguation Profits from Durational Information. in 23rd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (pp. 3198-3202). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Ludusan B. & Schuppler B. (2022) To laugh or not to laugh? The use of laughter to mark discourse structure. in 23rd Annual Meeting of the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue (pp. 76–82). [more info]
• Conference paper Kelterer A., Wepner S., Christian S., Schuppler B. & Zarka D. (2022) Prosodic cues to agreement and disagreement prefaces in Austrian German conversations. in 1st International Conference on Tone and Intonation (pp. 107-111). [more info] [doi]
• Journal article Ludusan B. & Schuppler B. (2022) An analysis of prosodic boundaries across speaking styles in two varieties of German. in Speech Communication, 141, p. 93-106. [more info]
• Conference paper Zarka D. & Schuppler B. (2022) A configurational approach to the prosody of topic and focus in Egyptian Arabic. Testing the importance of accent-based and utterance-based acoustic cues. in 1st International Conference on Tone and Intonation (pp. 21-25). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Linke J., Garner P., Kubin G. & Schuppler B. (2022) Conversational Speech Recognition Needs Data? Experiments with Austrian German. (pp. 4684–4691). [more info]
• Conference paper Wepner S., Schuppler B. & Kubin G. (2022) How prosody affects ASR performance in conversational Austrian German. in Speech Prosody 2022 (pp. 195-199). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Krusic L., Schuppler B., Hagmüller M. & Kopeinik S. (2021) Exploring Gender Bias in Austrian Education: Seeing What Students are Exposed to. in 19th STS Conference: Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies (pp. 243- 262). [more info] [doi]
• Abstract Krusic L., Schuppler B., Hagmüller M. & Kopeinik S. (2021) Gender representation in Austrian EFL schoolbooks and university viewbooks.. [more info]
• Conference paper Schuppler B. & Kelterer A. (2021) Developing an Annotation System for Communicative Functions for a Cross-Layer ASR System. in DiscAnn 2021: Integrating Perspectives on Discourse Annotation (pp. 14-18). [more info]
• Journal article Žgank A. & Schuppler B. (2020) Towards Building a Cross-Lingual Speech Recognition System for Slovenian and Austrian German. in The Phonetician, 117(Spec. Iss.), p. 19-33. [more info]
• Conference paper Zarka D., Kelterer A. & Schuppler B. (2020) An analysis of prosodic prominence cues to information structure in Egyptian Arabic. in 21st Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (pp. 1883-1887). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Zellers M. & Schuppler B. (2020) Microprosodic variability in plosives in German and Austrian German. in 21st Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (pp. 656-660). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Schuppler B. & Ludusan B. (2020) An analysis of prosodic boundary detection in German and Austrian German read speech. (pp. 990- 994). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Linke J., Kelterer A., Dabrowski M., Zarka D. & Schuppler B. (2020) Towards automatic annotation of prosodic prominence levels in Austrian German. in 10th International Conference on Speech Prosody (pp. 1000 - 1004). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Zahrer A., Žgank A. & Schuppler B. (2020) Towards Building an Automatic Transcription System for Language Documentation: Experiences from Muyu. in LREC 2020 (pp. 2893-2900). [more info]
• Journal article Kelterer A. & Schuppler B. (2020) Phonation type contrasts and tone in Chichimec. in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 147(4), p. 3043-3059. [more info] [doi]
• Abstract Kelterer A. & Schuppler B. (2019) Phonationstypen im Chichimeco: akustische Korrelate und Herausforderungen.. [more info]
• Abstract Ludusan B. & Schuppler B. (2019) Automatic detection of prosodic boundaries in two varieties of German.. [more info]
• Conference paper Kelterer A. & Schuppler B. (2019) Acoustic Correlates of Phonation Type in Chichimec. in 20th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association: Crossroads of Speech and Language (pp. 1981-1985). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Zarka D., Schuppler B. & Cangemi F. (2019) Acoustic Cues to Topic and Narrow Focus in Egyptian Arabic. in 20th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association: Crossroads of Speech and Language (pp. 1771-1775). [more info]
• Conference paper Schuppler B. & Zellers M. (2019) Prosodic Effects on Plosive Duration in German and Austrian German. in 20th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association: Crossroads of Speech and Language (pp. 1736-1740). [more info]
• Book Cangemi F., Clayards M., Niebuhr O., Schuppler B. & Zellers M. (2018) Rethinking Reduction. 306 p. ({"formatted"=>true, "value"=>"Phonetics and Phonology"}). [more info]
• Journal article Zarka D. & Schuppler B. (2018) On the interplay of pragmatic and formal factors in the prosodic realization of themes in Egyptian Arabic. in Grazer Linguistische Studien, 90, p. 33-106. [more info]
• Journal article Schuppler B. & Schrank T. (2018) On the use of acoustic features for automatic disambiguation of homophones in spontaneous German. in Computer Speech and Language , 52, p. 209-224. [more info]
• Chapter Zellers M., Schuppler B. & Clayards M. (2018) Introduction, or: why rethink reduction?. ({"formatted"=>true, "value"=>"Phonology and Phonetics"}). [more info]
• Journal article Schuppler B. (2017) Rethinking classification results based on read speech, or: why improvements do not always transfer to other speaking styles. in International Journal of Speech Technology, 20(3), p. 699-713. [more info] [doi]
• Journal article Schuppler B., Hagmüller M. & Zahrer A. (2017) A corpus of read and conversational Austrian German. in Speech Communication, 94, p. 62-74. [more info] [doi]
• Chapter Zarka D., Schuppler B., Lozo C., Eibler W. & Wurzwallner P. (2017) Acoustic correlates of stress and accent in Standard Austrian German. 44 p.. [more info]
• Abstract Zarka D. & Schuppler B. (2016) The prosody of themes in Egyptian Arabic.. [more info]
• Poster Schuppler B. & Schrank T. (2016) Automatic disambiguation of homophones in spontaneous speech.. [more info]
• Conference paper Schrank T. & Schuppler B. (2015) Automatic detection of uncertainty in spontaneous German dialogue. (pp. 1972-1976). [more info]
• Chapter Insam M. & Schuppler B. (2015) Evaluating the Effects of Pronunciation Training on Non-native Speech - A Case Study Report. 1 ed.. [more info]
• Conference paper Schuppler B. (2014) How extra-linguistic factors affect pronunciation variation in different speaking styles. (pp. 31-32). [more info]
• Conference paper Schuppler B., Hagmüller M., Cordovilla J. & Pessentheiner H. (2014) GRASS: The Graz Corpus of Read and Spontaneous Speech. in International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (pp. 1465-1470). [more info]
• Conference paper Zarka D. & Schuppler B. (2014) Spectral balance and spectral emphasis in accented, stressed and unstressed syllables in standard Austrian German read speech.. in Leiden Conference on Word Stress and Accent. [more info]
• Conference paper Schuppler B., Adda-Decker M. & Cordovilla J. (2014) Pronunciation variation in read and conversational Austrian German.. in International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (pp. 1453-1457). [more info]
• Conference paper Schuppler B., Grill S., Menrath A. & Cordovilla J. (2014) Automatic phonetic transcription in two steps: forced alignment and burst detection. in International Conference on Statistical Language and Speech Processing (SLSP) (pp. 132-143). [more info]
• Conference paper Jackschina A., Schuppler B. & Muhr R. (2014) Where /aR/ the /R/s in Standard Austrian German?. in International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (pp. 1698-1702). [more info]
• Journal article Schuppler B. (2014) Wie Österreichisch auch für Software verständlicher wird. in Der Standard, p. 17-17. [more info]
• (Old data) Lecture or Presentation Adda-Decker M., Schuppler B., Lamel L., Morales-Cordovilla J. & Adda G. (2013) What we can learn from ASR errors about low-resourced languages: A case-study of Luxembourgish and Austrian.. [more info]
• Conference paper Schuppler B., Doremalen J., Scharenborg O., Cranen B. & Boves L. (2013) The challenge of manner classification in conversational speech. (pp. 1-5). [more info]
• Journal article Hanique I., Ernestus M. & Schuppler B. (2013) Informal speech processes can be categorical in nature, even if they affect many different words. in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 133(3), p. 1644-1655. [more info]
• Poster Insam M., Pfandl-Buchegger I. & Schuppler B. (2013) Evaluating non-native pronunciation: Acoustic measurements vs. perceived foreign accentedness.. [more info]
• Poster Insam M., Schuppler B. & Resnik P. (2013) Evaluating the Effect of Pronunciation Training on L2 Reading Performance.. [more info]
• Journal article Schuppler B. (2012) Damit der PC die Alltagssprache versteht. in Der Standard, p. 18-18. [more info]
• Journal article Schuppler B., Dommelen W., Koreman J. & Ernestus M. (2012) How linguistic and probabilistic properties of a word affect the realization of its final /t/: Studies at the phonemic and sub-phonemic level. in Journal of Phonetics, 40, p. 595-607. [more info] [doi]
• Doctoral Thesis Schuppler B. (2011) Automatic Analysis of Acoustic Reduction in Spontaneous Speech.. [more info]
• Journal article Schuppler B., Ernestus M., Scharenborg O. & Boves L. (2011) Acoustic reduction in conversational Dutch: A quantitative analysis based on automatically generated segmental transcriptions. in Journal of Phonetics, 39(1), p. 96-109. [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Schuppler B., Ernestus M., Dommelen W. & Koreman J. (2010) Predicting human perception and ASR classification of word-final [t] by its acoustic sub-segmental properties. (pp. 2466-2469). [more info]
• Conference paper Hanique I., Schuppler B. & Ernestus M. (2010) Morphological and predictability effects on schwa reduction: The case of Dutch word-initial syllables. (pp. 933-936). [more info]
• Journal article Wiget L., White L., Schuppler B., Grenon I., Rauch O. & Mattys S. (2010) How stable are acoustic metrics of contrastive speech rhythm?. in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 127(3), p. 1559-1569. [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Schuppler B., Doremalen J., Scharenborg O., Cranen B. & Boves L. (2009) Using Temporal Information for Improving Articulatory-Acoustic Feature Classification. in IEEE Workshop on Automatic Speech Recognition & Understanding (pp. 70-75). [more info] [doi]
• Conference paper Schuppler B., Dommelen W., Koreman J. & Ernestus M. (2009) Word-final [t]-deletion: An analysis on the segmental and sub-segmental level. (pp. 2275-2278). [more info]
• Conference paper Gubian M., Schuppler B., Doremalen J., Sanders E. & Boves L. (2009) Novelty Detection as a Tool for Automatic Detection of Orthographic Transcription Errors. (pp. 509-514). [more info]
• Conference paper Schuppler B., Ernestus M., Scharenborg O. & Boves L. (2008) Preparing a Corpus of Dutch Spontaneous Dialogues for Automatic Phonetic Analysis. (pp. 1638-1641). [more info]
• Diploma Thesis Schuppler B. (2007) Integrating Piezoelectric Sensors for Thermoacoustic Computertomography.. [more info]