Julian Vargo
PhD Student in Hispanic Linguistics
Department of Spanish & Portuguese
University of California, Berkeley
Embedded Files
I am a Hispanic Linguistics PhD student and researcher in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at the University of California, Berkeley.
I am currently serving as a graduate student researcher for the Multilingual Hispanic Speech in California Corpus, I'm the co-coordinator for UC Berkeley's Ladino/Judeo-Spanish Working Group, and I work independently as a college admissions consultant.
My research interests are in:
Phonetics
Phonetics-phonology interface
Sociolinguistics
Language Contact
Language Revitalization
A 3d spectrogram and moving spectral slice of my name!
Current Projects
Vargo, Julian (2025). Onset of Nasalization [Computer Program]
I am currently developing a program that automatically measures the onset of anticipatory vowel nasalization, based on the timing of maximum velopharyngeal velocity (Carignan 2021). The script utilizes cues as described in Styler (2017) and Pruthi & Espy-Wilson (2004 & 2007), amongst others. An abridged, fully-functional, draft version of the Praat script is available on my Github.
Current work includes improving the measurement accuracy of acoustical cues, implementing speaker-specific nasal-learning models to improve accuracy, and creating a Python-based GUI for a desktop program.
Multilingual Hispanic Speech in California Corpus
I am the lead graduate student researcher for the MuHSiC corpus. My work primarily involves streamlining corpus processing and managing undergraduate researchers. I've developed a number of programs, workflows, and guides to handle large amounts of speech and process it into useable data.
Data Visualization in R for Linguists
I am creating a copy-paste graphing guide in R, specifically tailored for linguistics research. No previous coding experience required.
Vowel Dispersion
Throughout the past year, I've been working on vowel dispersion and its relatedness to style shifting, focusing on analyzing the speech of a Southern Californian music critic and radio host.
Recent Work
Vargo, Julian (2025). Evidence for the Effect of Visual Input on L2-Learner Vowel Production [Conference Talk]
Linguistic Society of America Annual Conference - January 2025 - Paper Here
Vargo, Julian (2024). Kalaallisut Vowel Phonetics [Unpublished Manuscript]
December 2024 - Paper Here
Vargo, Julian (2024). Orthographic Variation of Ladino Vowels [Unpublished Manuscript]
May 2024 - Paper Here
Vargo, Julian (2024). Artificial Intelligence and its Relationship to Language Revitalization [Unpublished Manuscript]
May 2024 - Paper Here
Vargo, Julian (2024). Orthographic Effects on Vowel Contrast in Language Acquisition [Honors Thesis]
May 2024 - Paper Here
When I'm not working, I'm particularly drawn to the outdoors, and love to hike, mountain climb, camp, fish, and do distance running.
I've also become quite the expert at berry picking! I'm a connoisseur of anything that grows on a berry bush: wild huckleberries, thimbleberries, salmonberries, salal, or lemonade berries. I'm particularly good at picking and identifying berries anywhere on the North American West Coast, from San Diego to Vancouver.
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