Research
My research program focuses on understanding how phonetic detail is represented by the cognitive system through the study of variations in fine-grained pronunciations of speech sounds. Ultimately, my questions aim to address how phonetic & phonological patterns are abstracted, evolve and are used, functionally and pragmatically, in language communication.
My research program focuses on understanding how phonetic detail is represented by the cognitive system through the study of variations in fine-grained pronunciations of speech sounds. Ultimately, my questions aim to address how phonetic & phonological patterns are abstracted, evolve and are used, functionally and pragmatically, in language communication.
To this end, my approach is three-pronged:
To this end, my approach is three-pronged:
Applied/Clinical/Developmental: exploring the role of phonetic detail and abstraction in speech processing in language development for neurotypical and atypical populations, in particular, those diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Applied/Clinical/Developmental: exploring the role of phonetic detail and abstraction in speech processing in language development for neurotypical and atypical populations, in particular, those diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Experimental/ Laboratory & Corpus: investigating systematic within-language phonetic variations to uncover the relationship between structures in the speech signal and higher-order linguistic structures, such as phonemes and words.
Experimental/ Laboratory & Corpus: investigating systematic within-language phonetic variations to uncover the relationship between structures in the speech signal and higher-order linguistic structures, such as phonemes and words.
Fieldwork/Documentary: documenting production & perception patterns of understudied languages (for example, Moroccan Arabic & Tigrinya) in order to make cross-linguistic generalizations of speech processing.
Fieldwork/Documentary: documenting production & perception patterns of understudied languages (for example, Moroccan Arabic & Tigrinya) in order to make cross-linguistic generalizations of speech processing.