https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/116628 2026-05-07T05:21:49Z 2026-05-07T05:21:49Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/117454 2024-01-17T09:58:19Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Foreign accent and automated speech recognition : error analysis of automated transcription of the English of Hebrew speakers Abstract: This dissertation examines the possible effects a speaker’s foreign accent (namely, Hebrew) may have on the automatic transcription of their speech in English. To assess such a possible effect, automatically generated transcriptions (created by YouTube) of English speech uttered by Hebrew native speakers and English native speakers were evaluated. Comparison and examination of the transcription errors found in the transcriptions of both groups of speakers have given rise to the conclusion that the Hebrew accent does not seem to be a significant factor interfering with the accuracy of automatic transcriptions. Nonetheless, some transcription errors found in the automatic transcriptions of speech of Hebrew native speakers may be attributed to their accents (e.g., errors related to pronunciation, which are less frequent in the transcriptions of speech of native English speakers). Additionally, a language model was utilized in this dissertation with the aim to find a method to predict where transcription errors are likely to occur. Due to confinements to data in the form of written text, such predictions cannot be made presently in this study. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.)

2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/117452 2024-01-17T09:57:50Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Reviewing the opinions on abortion : corpus-assisted ideological discourse analysis of social media discourse in Malta Abstract: This dissertation employs a corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis to explore the opinions and narratives surrounding the contentious topic of abortion in Malta. By exploring the social media discourse in both Maltese and English, the research sheds light on some of the lexical choices and discursive strategies employed by both sides of the abortion debate: pro-life and pro-choice. Through a systematic analysis using both corpus and CDA methods, the main findings were found between the argumentation and justification strategies of the pro-life and pro-choice groups. The study also revealed that there were some distinct lexical choices between English and Maltese. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.)

2023-01-01T00:00:00Z