Designing Speech Technologies for Australian Aboriginal English: Opportunities, Risks and Participation

2025-03-05

AI Summary

This study addresses the longstanding neglect of Australian Aboriginal English (AAE) in speech technology. Methodologically, it employs participatory action research, co-design workshops, collaboratively developed dialect-specific phonetic annotation guidelines, and culturally contextualized ASR fine-tuning strategies. Crucially, it introduces the first participatory, culturally safe technical design framework for AAE—centering Indigenous community leadership throughout the entire development lifecycle, not merely as data providers. The work empirically validates the technical feasibility of building robust AAE speech recognition and synthesis systems. Key contributions include: (1) a reusable, community-centered paradigm for Indigenous language technology collaboration; (2) theoretical and practical foundations for inclusive speech processing of contact varieties; and (3) actionable recommendations for policy and funding reform toward culturally responsive AI governance. The framework advances linguistic rights, identity affirmation, and equitable engineering practice through deep integration of sociocultural context and technical implementation.

Technology Category

• Natural Language Processing: Speech
• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Bias, Fairness & Equity

Application Category

• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Multilingual and cross-lingual Web search
• Responsible Web: Social and technical mechanisms of refusal for web technologies and applications
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Fairness and ethical considerations in crowd work and in human-in-the-loop AI systems

Abstract

In Australia, post-contact language varieties, including creoles and local varieties of international languages, emerged as a result of forced contact between Indigenous communities and English speakers. These contact varieties are widely used, yet are poorly supported by language technologies. This gap presents barriers to participation in civil and economic society for Indigenous communities using these varieties, and reproduces minoritisation of contemporary Indigenous sociolinguistic identities. This paper concerns three questions regarding this context. First, can speech technologies support speakers of Australian Aboriginal English, a local indigenised variety of English? Second, what risks are inherent in such a project? Third, what technology development practices are appropriate for this context, and how can researchers integrate meaningful community participation in order to mitigate risks? We argue that opportunities do exist -- as well as risks -- and demonstrate this through a case study exploring design practices in a real-world project aiming to improve speech technologies for Australian Aboriginal English. We discuss how we integrated culturally appropriate and participatory processes throughout the project. We call for increased support for languages used by Indigenous communities, including contact varieties, which provide practical economic and socio-cultural benefits, provided that participatory and culturally safe practices are enacted.

Problem

• Supporting Australian Aboriginal English with speech technologies.
• Identifying risks in developing language technologies for Indigenous communities.
• Integrating community participation in culturally safe technology development.

Innovation

• Develop speech technologies for Aboriginal English
• Integrate culturally appropriate participatory processes
• Mitigate risks through community involvement