Processor Implemented Systems and Methods for Measuring Syntactic Complexity on Spontaneous Non-Native Speech Data by Using Structural Event Detection

A computer-implemented system for providing a score for a spontaneous non-native speech response to a prompt, comprising:

• one or more data processors;
• a computer-readable medium encoded with instructions for commanding the one or more data processors to execute steps including:
• accessing a transcription of the spontaneous speech response;
• identifying structural events within the spontaneous speech response, said identifying comprising:
• identifying a plurality of clauses within the spontaneous speech response, wherein identifying a clause includes identifying a beginning boundary and an end boundary of the clause in the spontaneous speech response, and
• identifying a plurality of disfluencies in the spontaneous speech response;
• calculating one or more proficiency metrics based on the identified clauses and identified disfluencies;
• and
• generating a score for the spontaneous speech response based on the one or more proficiency metrics.

A computer-readable medium encoded with instructions for commanding one or more data processors to execute a method for providing a score for a spontaneous non-native speech response to a prompt, the method comprising:

• accessing a transcription of the spontaneous speech response;
• identifying structural events within the spontaneous speech response, said identifying comprising:
• identifying a plurality of clauses within the spontaneous speech response, wherein identifying a clause includes identifying a beginning boundary and an end boundary of the clause in the spontaneous speech response, and
• identifying a plurality of disfluencies in the spontaneous speech response;
• calculating one or more proficiency metrics based on the identified clauses and identified disfluencies;
• and
• generating a score for the spontaneous speech response based on the one or more proficiency metrics;
• wherein said accessing, identifying a plurality of clauses, identifying a plurality of disfluencies, calculating, and generating are performed using one or more data processors.