L541: Introductory Phonetics (Spring 2004)
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WaveSurfer Guide for L541

Part 10: Labeling

[Index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11]

Preparation: Use the sound file snd4wsman10.wav for your practice. Open the file with the Transcription configuration.

• You can label the sound in the WaveSurfer. The best way is to start with the Transcription configuration especially under version 1.5.7. If you want to use IPA symbols, start with IPA Transcription configuration.
• Adding a transcription pane also helps saving data semiautomatic way.
• A pane for labeling is called a transcription pane. When you open with the transcription configuration, the transcription pane appears between WaveBar and Time pane.

1. Click the transcription pane
2. Move the cursor at the point you want to label and type the label. For example, to label [s], select the starting point of [s], move the cursor to the selected point and type 'w' (since this is the word initial). Then, select the end point of [s]. Move the cursor to the end point of [s] and type 's'.
3. When the label doesn't lined up with the target point, you can move the label by dragging the label.
4. If you want to delete the label, right-click on the lable while pressing the Shift key. Select "Delete Label" from the options.
5. To save the transcription, right-click to select 'Save Transcription As'. Select the location to save the label file and click 'Save'. The file will be saved as a text file, but the extension for a label file is *.lab. In this example, stored filename is 'snd4wsman10.lab'. Stored file looks like this:

   0.0000000 0.0762946 w
   0.0762946 0.1645570 s
   

   1st column: Time at the previous label (e.g. 0.0762946)
   2nd column: Time point at the label (e.g. 0.1645570)
   3rd column: Label (e.g. s)

   In this example, total duration of [s] is also calculated by column2 - column1. See the data saving in the next page.

Useful options

Transcription Properties can be personalized. Right click on the transcription pane, and select 'Properties'.

In the Trans 1 tab,

• Check 'Extend boundaries into wavefor and spectrogram panes'.
• Check 'Lock transcription' when you finished labeling.

  In the Trans 2 tab,

• Label menu pane: you can store frequently used labels.
• For example change 'lab1' to 'sentenceinitial' and 'lab2' to 'sentencefinal', and click 'update'.
• You can see these options when you right-click with a Shift key.
• Labels are different when you start with IPA configuration. IPA symbols are indicated by Unicode. Information about the Unicodes for IPA symbols (pdf).