III. Formant Spaces of Accents
The acoustics of accent are due to the differences in the configurations, positioning, tension and movement of laryngeal and supra-laryngeal anatomical parameters. For example, in [10] Arslan and Hansen point out that generally non-native speakers do not produce the same tongue movement as native speakers, but produce accented sounds based on learned habits of tongue movements of their native language, which implies that their formants move with native language pronunciation. The difference in pitch and pitch trajectories in British and American English accents are analysed and presented in [7]. Recently, Harrington and Watson [2,3] explored the differences of formants between subclasses of Australian English: Broad Australian English, General Australian English and Cultivated Australian English and between New Zealand and Australian English.
The focus of this section is on the mapping and synthesis of the formant space of British, American and Broad Australian accents. The synthesis of accents based on formant models provides a method of assessing the influence of each formant and its trajectory in conveying accent The databases employed are ANDOSL for Australian English, WSJCAM0 for British English and WSJ for American English.
3.2 Formant Spaces Comparison across accents