23 February: fyi -- phonetics, WA

Index of February 2001 | Index of year: 2001 | Full index


Conversay
Speech for a World in Motion

Conversay is fundamentally changing the way people worldwide access
their online data. We help them talk to it. No mouse. No keyboard.

We're a Redmond-based company dedicated to enabling interactive voice
access to Internet-based information, using natural spoken language:
anywhere, anytime, on any device, from any network. Today. It's a
tech revolution waiting to happen. Come be a part of it.

We are team-oriented, resourceful, reliable, and believe in taking
qrisks. We offer excellent benefits, including pre-IPO stock options,
fully paid health insurance for entire family, and a casual work
environment where successes both great and small are celebrated.


Computational Linguist - Phonetic Lexicographer

Job Description

The successful candidate will be responsible for phonetic
transcription work in several languages. Duties include: research and
analysis to determine specifications for phonetic processing modules,
research and purchase of lexical resources, creation and maintenance
of lexicons, and analysis of speech and text corpora. The ongoing
results of this work will be used in the development of Conversay's
proprietary speech recognition and synthesis engines.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (including education):

- Ph.D. in Linguistics with focus on empirical phonetic study
- Experience with data and corpus analysis
- Familiarity with Perl or other scripting/programming languages a
strong plus
- Familiarity with use of relational databases a strong plus
- Native (or near-native) speaker of Japanese or Korean a strong
plus

Principal Duties and Responsibilities:

- Determine phone sets and transcription standards for lexicons in
several languages
- Determine lexical entries for various application-specific
lexicons
- Maintain and update existing lexicons
- Identify issues and requirements for evaluating phonetic output
- Other areas of speech/text collection, analysis, and evaluation as
needed

Supervision:

- Position does not involve supervision duties

Decision Making:

- Must be able to work with limited supervision
- Must be independent, self-motivated, and responsible

Interaction:

- Must be able to interact with linguists, programmers, speech
scientists, and native speakers

Equipment:

- No special knowledge required

Physical Requirements:

- Sustain movements of the fingers, wrists, hands or arms (keyboard
work)
- Must have the ability to receive detailed information through oral
and written communication, to express or exchange information by means
of oral and written

Additional Information:

Must be willing to relocate to the Seattle/Bellevue/Redmond (WA) area


Computational Linguist - Prosody

Job Description:

The successful candidate will assist in the creation and extension of
prosodic components for multiple languages used by Conversay's
proprietary text-to-speech and automatic speech recognition engine.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (including education):

- Thorough understanding of prosody and phonology.
- C programming.
- Advanced degree in linguistics or computer science (Ph.D. a strong
plus).
- Knowledge of other areas of linguistics and natural language
processing a strong plus.
- Knowledge of multiple languages a strong plus (especially
Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, German, Korean, Japanese,
Mandarin or Cantonese Chinese).
- Previous experience with speech applications a plus.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities:

- Extend existing prosody module of engine in order to adapt it to
different languages.
- Create, extend and maintain new prosody module(s).
- Perform any other duties which may be assigned or necessary.

Supervision:

- Position does not involve supervision duties.

Decision Making:

- Must be able to work with limited supervision.
- Must be independent, self-motivated and responsible.

Interaction:

- Must be able to interact with linguists, programmers and speech
scientists.

Equipment:

- Position does not require knowledge of any specific equipment.

Physical Requirements:

- Sustain movements of the fingers, wrists, hands or arms (keyboard
work).

- Must have the ability to receive detailed information through oral
and written communication, to express or exchange information by means
of oral and written.

Additional Information:

- Must be willing to relocate to the Seattle/Bellevue/Redmond (WA)
area.


Help the world kick its keyboard dependence habit!

Email us at: SpeechTechnologistsCareers@conversay.com
Please be sure to specify the job title of interest.

Visit us on the web at: http://www.conversay.com/careers

Index of February 2001 | Index of year: 2001 | Full index