Epfl Press Speech and Language Engineering (Computer and Communication Sciences)

With the rapid growth of the language and speech industry, there is an increasing need for specialists able to work on multi-disciplinary projects combining elements of speech processing, natural language processing, and computer science. A unique text, Speech and Language Engineering builds the theoretical and practical background required for efficient teamwork in modern language and speech engineering. It provides an extensive introduction to the major areas of speech and language technology. Strengthening inter-disciplinary connections, it includes lectures on speech signal processing, speech and speaker recognition, and natural language processing, applications, and linguistic training for language and speech engineers. The authors move from acoustic signal processing to pragmatics, traversing all the important aspects of speech and language processing such as phonetics, morphology, syntax, and semantics. They have purposefully designed the book to integrate the common thread that runs through the general principles of engineering sciences. The volume exemplifies an emerging methodology that is a key issue in the rational design of efficient and robust language-based computer applications. While engineering rigor is guaranteed in all chapters, the authors highlight the intuitive aspects of technical details. The contributions from acknowledged experts in the relevant sub-disciplines make this book a synthesis and distillation of knowledge into a coherent presentation.