Towards Building an Emotional Speech Corpus of Algerian Dialect: Criteria and Preliminary Assessment Results

This paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing project whose mission is to build the first acted Emotional Speech Corpus of Algerian Dialect named ESCAD. The corpus is being recorded by nonprofessional native speakers to simulate four emotional states, namely: (i) neutral, (ii) angry, (iii) happy, and (iv) disgust. We introduce the first version of the corpus that is limited to angry and neutral states. A group of 53 male and female speakers participated in the recording of the first version of the corpus. The purpose of this contribution consists of (i) outlining the criteria for building acted corpora, (ii) introducing the framework of ESCAD, and (iii) identifying unskilled speakers. The recorded corpus has been assessed using subjective test lead by 11 referees. An objective test for data separability has also been conducted. The obtained results are exploited thereafter to identify unskilled speakers among the initial volunteers. These speakers will not be requested to participate in the recording of the remaining emotions. The recorded data can be shared upon request.