Phonetics and phonology
LALS research in phonetics and phonology features prosody and sociophonetics.
Phonetics and phonology
Research in phonetics and phonology looks at the nature of speech sounds and sound systems across the world’s languages. The School has a strong tradition in research in phonetics and phonology including descriptive work and sociophonetic research on New Zealand English (NZE) and on Oceanic Languages, with particular strengths in prosody research (see below).
Research projects in this area
- Modelling of vowel dynamics and interaction of quality and quantity contrasts in vowel systems, with an emphasis on New Zealand English
- Developing a research database of Spoken New Zealand English (NZSED)
In 2008, the School hosted the 11th international conference on Laboratory Phonology. In 2019, we co-hosted the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences in Melbourne.
Researchers able to supervise in this area
Prosody
Prosody and intonation, that is the rhythm, timing, and tune of speech, are an important part of spoken language. Prosody and intonation have a huge range of functions, including focusing attention on particular parts of a spoken message and organising discourse, signalling syntactic structure, and showing the attitudes and emotions of the speaker.
Research in this area
- Looking at how subconscious associations of pitch features in speech are affected by evolutionary ‘biological’ and social factors relating to the experiences of the listener
- A major survey of the forms, functions and attitudes to ‘uptalk’ (rising intonation in declarative utterances) across languages
- A Marsden funded project looking at how focus marking with prosodic and other cues affects speech processing across multiple languages in first and second language speakers
- Research on variation in intonational and prosodic systems, across and within languages, with emphases on typological classification and the processing consequences of intonational variation
- Descriptive work on the interaction of prosody and syntax in marking ‘information structure’, or how information is structured in Polynesian languages including Samoan and te reo Māori
- A project on the role of prosody in syntactic disambiguation in different varieties of English (SPOT)