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Research Interests:



Sociophonetics, acoustic and auditory phonetics, perception and production, speech motor control, phonotactic learning, psycholinguistics, social psychology...



Current Projects:

Vowel production effects on L2 intelligibility

This project investigates what aspects of the vowel production of non-native speakers of English make them more difficult to be understood by native English listeners. I compare the English vowel inventory of native Mandarin speakers to that of native English speakers and look for effects of accuracy and consistency of production on the intelligibility of the Mandarin speakers as judged by native English listeners.



Effects of acoustic variability on phonotactic learning

Previous research has found that type frequency is preferred to token frequency for the acquisition of novel gradient phonotactics. However, when phonetically relevant acoustic variability (manipulation of stimulus duration) is introduced, this type frequency preference disappears. This project is investigating the relative preference for type or token frequency by introducing phonetically irrelevant acoustic variability (manipulation of stimulus amplitude).