@inproceedings{welby-etal-2024-treu,
    title = "{T} is for Treu, but how do you pronounce that? Using {C}-{LARA} to create phonetic texts for Kanak languages",
    author = "Welby, Pauline  and
      Wacalie, Fabrice  and
      Rayner, Manny",
    editor = "Moeller, Sarah  and
      Agyapong, Godfred  and
      Arppe, Antti  and
      Chaudhary, Aditi  and
      Rijhwani, Shruti  and
      Cox, Christopher  and
      Henke, Ryan  and
      Palmer, Alexis  and
      Rosenblum, Daisy  and
      Schwartz, Lane",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the Seventh Workshop on the Use of Computational Methods in the Study of Endangered Languages",
    month = mar,
    year = "2024",
    address = "St. Julians, Malta",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://preview.aclanthology.org/setup/2024.computel-1.4/",
    doi = "10.18653/v1/2024.computel-1.4",
    pages = "21--26",
    abstract = "In Drehu, a language of the indigenous Kanak people of New Caledonia, the word treu `moon' is pronounced [{\{}tSe.u{\}}]; but, even if they hear the word, the spelling pulls French speakers to a spurious pronunciation [tK{\{}o{\}}]. We implement a strategy to mitigate the influence of such orthographic conflicts, while retaining the benefits of written input on vocabulary learning. We present text in ``phonetized'' form, where words are broken down into components associated with mnemonically presented phonetic values, adapting features from the ``Comment {\c{c}}a se prononce{\textasciitilde}?'' multilingual phonetizer. We present an exploratory project where we used the ChatGPT-based Learning And Reading Assistant (C-LARA) to implement a version of the phonetizer strategy, outlining how the AI-engineered codebase and help from the AI made it easy to add the necessary extensions. We describe two proof-of-concept texts for learners produced using the platform, a Drehu alphabet book and a Drehu version of ``The (North) Wind and the Sun''; both texts include native-speaker recorded audio, pronunciation respellings based on French orthography, and AI-generated illustrations."
}