Recent news
PAMLab at Northwestern
This week, Prof. Chang is giving a colloquium at Northwestern University. The presentation, scheduled for April 12, is entitled "Integration, change, and stability in bilingual speech perception".
Chapter in Routledge Handbook of Phonetics
A review chapter entitled "The phonetics of second language learning and bilingualism" (Chang, 2019) has been published in The Routledge Handbook of Phonetics, edited by Profs. William Katz and Peter Assmann.
Abstract: This chapter provides an overview of major theories and findings in the field of second language (L2) phonetics and phonology. Four main conceptual frameworks are discussed and compared: the Perceptual Assimilation Model-L2, the Native Language Magnet Theory, the Automatic Selective Perception Model, and the Speech Learning Model. These frameworks differ in terms of their empirical focus, including the type of learner (e.g., beginner vs. advanced) and target modality (e.g., perception vs. production), and in terms of their theoretical assumptions, such as the basic unit or window of analysis that is relevant (e.g., articulatory gestures, position-specific allophones). Despite the divergences among these theories, three recurring themes emerge from the literature reviewed. First, the learning of a target L2 structure (segment, prosodic pattern, etc.) is influenced by phonetic and/or phonological similarity to structures in the native language (L1). In particular, L1-L2 similarity exists at multiple levels and does not necessarily benefit L2 outcomes. Second, the role played by certain factors, such as acoustic phonetic similarity between close L1 and L2 sounds, changes over the course of learning, such that advanced learners may differ from novice learners with respect to the effect of a specific variable on observed L2 behavior. Third, the connection between L2 perception and production (insofar as the two are hypothesized to be linked) differs significantly from the perception-production links observed in L1 acquisition. In service of elucidating the predictive differences among these theories, this contribution discusses studies that have investigated L2 perception and/or production primarily at a segmental level. In addition to summarizing the areas in which there is broad consensus, the chapter points out a number of questions which remain a source of debate in the field today.
PAMLab at Harvard
This week, Prof. Chang is giving an invited talk at his alma mater, Harvard University, in the Universals Workshop series. The presentation, scheduled for March 29, is entitled "Crosslinguistic overlap in bilingualism: The view from speech perception".
PAMLab in Poznań
Prof. Chang is in Poznań this week to give an invited talk in the Distinguished Professors' Lecture Series at Adam Mickiewicz University. The presentation, scheduled for March 21, is entitled "Integration and dynamicity in bilingual speech perception".
Welcome to this spring’s labbies!
Welcome to the new Linguistics student joining the lab this semester to work on research:
- Jiangnan (Michael) Fang is a sophomore double-majoring in Linguistics and Mathematics and minoring in Music. His interests are in second language acquisition, speech production, the perception of nonnative vs. native speakers, and the relationship of speech perception to prosodic features such as vowel length and stress.
And a warm welcome back to Aspen, Dom, and Leslie!
PAMLab at LSA 2019
Prof. Chang is in New York this week to present results on L2 perceptual learning of Korean (from collaborative work with Dr. Sungmi Kwon) in the Saturday afternoon 'Phonetics II' session at this week's Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. The title of the presentation is "The contributions of crosslinguistic influence and individual differences to nonnative speech perception".
Welcome to Dr. Yao!
Welcome to Dr. Yao Yao, who will be a Visiting Researcher in the lab for Spring 2019. Dr. Yao's areas of specialty are phonetics, psycholinguistics, and corpus linguistics. She completed her PhD in Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and is on sabbatical from her position as Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. During her visit, she will be working on research projects investigating phonological neighborhood density effects and the phonetics of heritage languages.
Congrats to UROP recipient Aspen Bombardo
Congratulations to Aspen Bombardo, who was awarded a second Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant to continue working on research in Spring 2019! Below is a brief description of the project she will be working on:
- Aspen Bombardo: “Variation in the production of English consonant clusters by Asian American bilinguals”
Aspen will be working on a sociophonetic research project examining features of English and heritage languages spoken by Asian Americans, across a range of ethnicities and life histories in the U.S. In Spring 2019, Aspen will analyze speech recordings from interviews with Vietnamese Americans and Chinese Americans who learned English as a second language, with a focus on variation in the production of /sC/ consonant clusters.
PAMLab at JK 26
Prof. Chang is in Los Angeles this week to present results on sound change in Korean fricatives (from collaborative work with Dr. Hae-Sung Jeon) in the Friday afternoon poster session at this week's Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference. The title of the presentation is "The role of speaker gender in diachronic change of Korean fricatives".
Welcome to this fall’s labbies!
Welcome to the recent Linguistics graduate who will be joining the lab this semester to work on research projects:
- Leslie Fink graduated with a Linguistics major from Dartmouth College in 2016. Her interests are in adult language acquisition, experimental design, quantitative methods, and materials development.
And a warm welcome back to Aspen!