TEXT TO SPEECH SYNTHESIZER WITH FACIAL CHARACTER READING ASSIGNMENT UNIT

There is provided a text analyzer for analyzing Japanese text data, a facial character reading assignment unit for assigning facial character readings to character string portions of text analysis results determined to correspond to facial characters, and a speech synthesizer for outputting synthesized speech based on the analysis results of the text analyzer. The facial character reading assignment unit is constituted by a facial character determining unit for determining whether or not a symbol is a symbol constituting a facial character using an outline symbol table, a characteristic extraction unit for extracting characteristic symbols used in facial characters from character strings determined to be facial characters, and a reading selection unit for outputting readings allotted to the extracted reading numbers. Here, readings are assigned to the facial character strings according to the number of times characteristic symbols appear in facial characters.