Men in Bradford and Wakefield – lend your voice to science!

YOUNG Yorkshiremen have an opportunity to lend their voices to the largest database of Northern speech patterns yet available.  The project is well underway, and researchers – based at the University of Huddersfield – are now seeking contributors from the Bradford and Wakefield areas.

Participants in the project named WYRED, which stands for West Yorkshire Regional English Database, need to be males aged 18-30, have English as their first and only language and to have been brought up and gone to school in West Yorkshire.  They take part in two recording sessions, have their travel costs reimbursed, and receive £25 in vouchers.

“People have enjoyed taking part, said that it was fun, and were surprised that they got paid £25!” said Kate Earnshaw who, along with Sula Ross, is one of the research assistants for WYRED.

The project began in 2016.  Headed by the forensic speech scientist Dr Erica Gold, it has received funding of £360,000 from the Economic and Social Research Council.  When WYRED is completed, during 2019, there will be public access to the online database of 180 recordings, representing over 200 hours of speech.

Transcriptions of the recordings will also be available, as well as certain background details such as the age of the speakers – although the identity of participants will be kept anonymous.

The searchable database will be used by anyone with an interest in dialect and regional speech, but will be of particular value to specialists in speech technology and forensic speech science.

The WYRED project will therefore enable forensic speech analysts to steep themselves in contemporary West Yorkshire speech patterns.  The focus has been on the Kirklees, Wakefield and Bradford districts and the differences between them.

Kirklees has now been represented fully, so the WYRED team is concentrating on Wakefield and Bradford and calling for volunteers to take part.

After expressing their interest online, participants are invited to the University of Huddersfield for an hour-long recording session in which they are set a variety of speech-based tasks, including some that allow for spontaneity and fun.

A second, shorter recording session takes place at least one week later.  This is to enable researchers to track variations in speech patterns at different times – important data for forensic speech analysis.