English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles.

Sam Passmore; Lila San Roque; Kirsty Gillespie; Saurabh Nath; Kira Davey; Keira Mullan; Tim Cawley; Jennifer Biggs; Rosey Billington; Bethwyn Evans; Nick Thieberger; Danielle Barth

doi:10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.1505

English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles.

Sam Passmore, Lila San Roque, Kirsty Gillespie, Saurabh Nath, Kira Davey, Keira Mullan, Tim Cawley, Jennifer Biggs, Rosey Billington, Bethwyn Evans, Nick Thieberger, Danielle Barth

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › peer-review

Abstract

Expanding the breadth languages used to study sociophonetic variation and change is an important step in the theoretical development of sociophonetics. As data archives grow, forced alignment can accelerate the study of sociophonetic variation in minority languages. This paper examines the application of English and custom-made acoustic models on the alignment of vowels in two Pacific Creoles, Tok Pisin (59 hours) and Bislama (38.5 hours). We find that English models perform acceptably well in both languages, and as well as humans in vowel environments described as ‘Highly Reliable’. Custom models performed better in Bislama than Tok Pisin. We end the paper with recommendations on the use of cross-linguistic acoustic models in the case of English-Based Creoles.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics
Editors	Wanxiang Che, Joyce Nabende, Ekaterina Shutova, Mohammad Taher Pilehvar
Place of Publication	Vienna, Austria
Publisher	Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL)
Pages	31172-31183
Number of pages	12
Volume	1: Long Papers
ISBN (Print)	979-8-89176-251-0
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.1505
Publication status	Published - Jul 2025
Event	63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025) - University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Duration: 28 Jul 2025 → 1 Aug 2025 Conference number: 63 https://2025.aclweb.org/ (Conference Website) https://aclanthology.org/volumes/2025.acl-long/ (Conference Proceedings)

Conference

Conference	63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025)
Abbreviated title	ACL 2025
Country/Territory	Austria
City	Vienna
Period	28/07/25 → 1/08/25
Internet address	https://2025.aclweb.org/ (Conference Website) https://aclanthology.org/volumes/2025.acl-long/ (Conference Proceedings)

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10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.1505Licence: CC BY

Cite this

Passmore, S., Roque, L. S., Gillespie, K., Nath, S., Davey, K., Mullan, K., Cawley, T., Biggs, J., Billington, R., Evans, B., Thieberger, N., & Barth, D. (2025). English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles. In W. Che, J. Nabende, E. Shutova, & M. T. Pilehvar (Eds.), Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Vol. 1: Long Papers, pp. 31172-31183). Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.1505

Passmore, Sam ; Roque, Lila San ; Gillespie, Kirsty et al. / English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles. Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. editor / Wanxiang Che ; Joyce Nabende ; Ekaterina Shutova ; Mohammad Taher Pilehvar. Vol. 1: Long Papers Vienna, Austria : Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), 2025. pp. 31172-31183

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title = "English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles.",

abstract = "Expanding the breadth languages used to study sociophonetic variation and change is an important step in the theoretical development of sociophonetics. As data archives grow, forced alignment can accelerate the study of sociophonetic variation in minority languages. This paper examines the application of English and custom-made acoustic models on the alignment of vowels in two Pacific Creoles, Tok Pisin (59 hours) and Bislama (38.5 hours). We find that English models perform acceptably well in both languages, and as well as humans in vowel environments described as {\textquoteleft}Highly Reliable{\textquoteright}. Custom models performed better in Bislama than Tok Pisin. We end the paper with recommendations on the use of cross-linguistic acoustic models in the case of English-Based Creoles.",

author = "Sam Passmore and Roque, \{Lila San\} and Kirsty Gillespie and Saurabh Nath and Kira Davey and Keira Mullan and Tim Cawley and Jennifer Biggs and Rosey Billington and Bethwyn Evans and Nick Thieberger and Danielle Barth",

note = "{\textcopyright}2025 Association for Computational Linguistics; 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025), ACL 2025 ; Conference date: 28-07-2025 Through 01-08-2025",

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doi = "10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.1505",

language = "English",

isbn = "979-8-89176-251-0",

volume = "1: Long Papers",

pages = "31172--31183",

editor = "Wanxiang Che and Joyce Nabende and Ekaterina Shutova and Pilehvar, \{Mohammad Taher\}",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics",

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Passmore, S , Roque, LS , Gillespie, K , Nath, S, Davey, K, Mullan, K, Cawley, T, Biggs, J, Billington, R , Evans, B, Thieberger, N & Barth, D 2025, English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles. in W Che, J Nabende, E Shutova & MT Pilehvar (eds), Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. vol. 1: Long Papers, Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), Vienna, Austria, pp. 31172-31183, 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025), Vienna, Austria, 28/07/25. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.1505

English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles. / Passmore, Sam ; Roque, Lila San ; Gillespie, Kirsty et al.
Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. ed. / Wanxiang Che; Joyce Nabende; Ekaterina Shutova; Mohammad Taher Pilehvar. Vol. 1: Long Papers Vienna, Austria: Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), 2025. p. 31172-31183.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles.

AU - Passmore, Sam

AU - Roque, Lila San

AU - Gillespie, Kirsty

AU - Nath, Saurabh

AU - Davey, Kira

AU - Mullan, Keira

AU - Cawley, Tim

AU - Biggs, Jennifer

AU - Billington, Rosey

AU - Evans, Bethwyn

AU - Thieberger, Nick

AU - Barth, Danielle

N1 - Conference code: 63

PY - 2025/7

Y1 - 2025/7

N2 - Expanding the breadth languages used to study sociophonetic variation and change is an important step in the theoretical development of sociophonetics. As data archives grow, forced alignment can accelerate the study of sociophonetic variation in minority languages. This paper examines the application of English and custom-made acoustic models on the alignment of vowels in two Pacific Creoles, Tok Pisin (59 hours) and Bislama (38.5 hours). We find that English models perform acceptably well in both languages, and as well as humans in vowel environments described as ‘Highly Reliable’. Custom models performed better in Bislama than Tok Pisin. We end the paper with recommendations on the use of cross-linguistic acoustic models in the case of English-Based Creoles.

AB - Expanding the breadth languages used to study sociophonetic variation and change is an important step in the theoretical development of sociophonetics. As data archives grow, forced alignment can accelerate the study of sociophonetic variation in minority languages. This paper examines the application of English and custom-made acoustic models on the alignment of vowels in two Pacific Creoles, Tok Pisin (59 hours) and Bislama (38.5 hours). We find that English models perform acceptably well in both languages, and as well as humans in vowel environments described as ‘Highly Reliable’. Custom models performed better in Bislama than Tok Pisin. We end the paper with recommendations on the use of cross-linguistic acoustic models in the case of English-Based Creoles.

UR - https://dblp.org/rec/conf/acl/PassmoreRGNDMCB25

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105021063544

U2 - 10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.1505

DO - 10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.1505

M3 - Conference Paper

SN - 979-8-89176-251-0

VL - 1: Long Papers

SP - 31172

EP - 31183

BT - Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics

A2 - Che, Wanxiang

A2 - Nabende, Joyce

A2 - Shutova, Ekaterina

A2 - Pilehvar, Mohammad Taher

PB - Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL)

CY - Vienna, Austria

T2 - 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025)

Y2 - 28 July 2025 through 1 August 2025

ER -

Passmore S , Roque LS , Gillespie K , Nath S, Davey K, Mullan K et al. English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles. In Che W, Nabende J, Shutova E, Pilehvar MT, editors, Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. Vol. 1: Long Papers. Vienna, Austria: Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). 2025. p. 31172-31183 doi: 10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.1505

English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles.

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Modelling Pacific Creole Languages

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English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles.

Abstract

Conference

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Modelling Pacific Creole Languages

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