Plugin for automatisation of phonetic-phonological analysis and obtaining analytical feedback for Spanish learners

Abstract

[Abstract] We present in this article the Plugin for phonetic-phonological analysis in Spanish (PAFe), which consists of a series of scripts (a code written with a programming language (Python) that, implement three different intonation comparison algorithms of an ELE (Spanish as a foreign language) student and a native speaker of Spanish), allowing, in turn, three different types of analysis: global, tonal tendency and intersyllabic. In addition, PAFe has a database to keep a history of different types of data (user profile, pronunciation exercises and audios) and a graphical interface to include reports on pronunciation evolution in Praat, a tool for acoustic analysis. PAFe is a software solution that offers new functionalities of Praat and allows the following: (i) to perform a comparative analysis between the intonational patterns of an ELE student and a native speaker; (ii) to report the evolution of the acquisition of such patterns in Spanish thanks to the history of the stored data. In this way, automated feedback is provided to both students and teachers.