Wednesday 28 June 2017 – Lunchtime Seminar with Raj Ramachandran (Computing, SHU)
Speaker: Raj Ramachandran (C3RI PhD student and Associate Lecturer, Computing)
Title: ‘Exploring the Vedic concepts in determining requirements for a speech to text technology: The case of Tamil Brahmans’
Raj Ramachandran is in his final stages of PhD. His PhD research sets focus on the user acceptance of speech to text in Tamil. In this seminar, he aims to look into the relationship between the Vedas and accuracy of pronunciation, which is one of the three keys issues that is being investigated in the context of speech to text. The other two being the script complexity and code mixing factors.
Tamil Brahmins are relatively a small community, comprising about 1.4 million in Tamil Nadu whom Fuller and Narasimhan refer to as an ‘unusual social’ group in their ethnographic study on Tamil Brahmans. In their work, they unfold how this social group, “suffocated by tradition, not willing to let go of it either, these Brahmans, try to do a tightrope walk: remain traditional, yet modern, remain distinct and a middle-class and remain progressive even while harbouring prejudices”. While the ethnography brings out the essential aspects of lifestyle, culture, tradition and beliefs, it underscores the importance, culture and lifestyle play in dictating the requirements of a technology, at its inception or even at a conceptual level. This could inform and help shape the requirement and feasibility analysis, which is the first step in the software engineering lifecycle. The research work attempts to bring to surface subtle aspects of language, lifestyle, culture and tradition that could perhaps be determining factors of user acceptance of speech to text technology.
‘Veda’ in Sanskrit means knowledge. This seminar will explore the Vedic aspects relevant to the speech to text technology and explore the feasibility of emulating them in the context of computing, speech to text in particular.
1.00PM – 2.00PM
WEDNESDAY 28 JUNE 2017
CANTOR 9128
See here for details of other seminars in the series.
All SHU staff and students are welcome to attend the C3RI Lunchtime Research Seminars. If you are from outside of the University and would like to attend a seminar, please email C3RI Administrator to arrange entry.