METHOD AND SYSTEM USING A SPEECH RECOGNITION SYSTEM TO DICTATE A BODY OF TEXT IN RESPONSE TO AN AVAILABLE BODY OF TEXT

A system and method is delineated for dictating a body of text in response to an available body of text. In the preferred embodiment, the available body of text comprises only the textual body in plain format from a received E-mail message, while the responsive body of text preferably comprises a dictated E-mail response. Each word from the selected text of the received E-mail message is compared against the speech recognition system's vocabulary to determine whether any words are out-of-vocabulary. Out-of-vocabulary words and their pronunciations are added to the system vocabulary. Similarly, new context information is extracted from the selected text of the received E-mail message, and used to update the system's language model. Thereafter, the user more accurately and efficiently dictates the responsive E-mail, and the system removes the updates to the system vocabulary and language model.