Phonetics and phonology

Speech sounds that fall into the ‘l’ and ‘r’ family of consonants (‘liquids’) are amongst the most difficult to master, both for children and for second language learners.

Liquids are complex consonants, requiring finely tuned, and language-specific, coordination of articulatory gestures, but the details of this complexity remain poorly understood.

Using state-of-the-art articulatory methods, we are examining liquid production and perception in four typologically-distinct languages, to shed more light on the phonological properties of this class of sounds.

We are examining the phonological structure of the Australian language Kaytetye, a member of the Arandic language family.

Arandic languages have previously been analysed as having unusual (VC) syllable structures, raising important questions for phonological theory.

Through careful documentation and phonetic analysis of Kaytetye word and sentence structure, we aim to shed more light on its phonological organization, and implications for general theories of phonology and universals in language.

Every time we say something, the speech signal carries two different types of information: linguistic and indexical. The linguistic information conveys the meaning of the message (what was said), while the indexical information provides details about the speaker (who said it).

Indexical/sociophonetic information includes the speaker’s age, sex, social class, regional and ethnic background, etc. Results from our psycholinguistic experiments suggest that sociophonetic information is simultaneously activated in a bilingual’s two languages during speech perception.

In particular, we investigate the activation of ethnicity in Māori-English bilingual New Zealanders, and the activation of speaker sex – and its effect on the processing of grammatical gender – in Italian-English bilinguals living in Australia.

This parallel activation has implications for models of the bilingual cognitive architecture, which need to take indexical information into account.

Infant-directed speech is the register that almost all caregivers cross-linguistically automatically adopt when speaking to young infants and children.

Our research is aimed at better understanding the diversity as well as the consistency in the phonetic characteristics of infant-directed speech across languages (eg Nepali or Dutch rather than English) and across speakers (eg fathers rather than mothers).

Our collaborations with child development experts across disciplines highlight the role that infant-directed speech can play in the development of the parent-infant bond and the early stages of healthy emotional development.

Speakers of different dialects sound different. Often this is due to segmental variation ie differences in the pronunciation of particular vowels and consonants.

We are investigating how speakers of different ethnic varieties of English use suprasegmentals such as speech rhythm, voice quality, and pitch. Our research draws on data from:

• Māori English in New Zealand
• Multicultural London English in the UK
• Lebanese English in Australia.

Through production and perception experiments we examine how speakers index their ethnic identity with regard to prosody, and whether listeners can rely on suprasegmental cues to correctly identify a speaker’s ethnicity.

Australia is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. Yet the complex relationship between speech production and cultural diversity is largely unknown in 21st century multicultural Australia.

This project aims to generate an integrated and inclusive model of Australian English, through meticulous phonetic analysis of the spoken language used by Sydney adolescents from a range of ethnic backgrounds.

The history of excellence in Australian English phonetic studies and state-of-the-art facilities make Macquarie University the optimal location for this research.

Project outcomes are expected to inform sociophonetic theories of variation, ethnicity, and identity, and provide a framework for supporting sociocultural cohesion in Australia.

The Australian Voices project aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of phonetics and phonology of English in Australia to explore aspects of origins, evolution and variation.

We aim to investigate the nature of the Australian accent today and how has it evolved in response to the rapidly changing society in which we live.

Unprecedented cultural change has led to increased linguistic variation in the community necessitating a re-evaluation of ideas about Australian English and its various forms. In particular, we aim to advance our understanding of the wide range of ethnocultural and indigenous varieties and to provide a detailed account of social and regional variation.

The proportion of the Australian population born overseas is currently at its highest level in 120 years so it is timely to examine how the accent originated, how it has evolved and, in particular, to consider the impact of sociocultural variation on language change.

These students are directly supervised by Felicity, Michael, Anita or Titia.

• Anwar Alkhudidi
  • MRes thesis title: An acoustic investigation of children’s early production of English articles
  • Supervisors: Dr Titia Benders and Professor Katherine Demuth
• Jidde Jacobi
  • PhD thesis title: Speech deterioration in Parkinson’s disease
  • Supervisors: Dr Michael Proctor (Macquarie), Professor Martijn Wieling (Groningen), Professor Ben Maassen (Groningen), Dr Roel Jonkers (Groningen)
• Louise Ratko
  • PhD thesis title: A systematic investigation of vowel length contrasts in Australian English
  • Supervisors: Dr Michael Proctor and Professor Felicity Cox
• Tim Shea
  • MRes thesis title: Attitudes of Australian English speakers to Fricated /t/: a perception study
  • Supervisors: Professor Felicity Cox and Dr Anita Szakay
• Hannah White
  • MPhil thesis title: Voice quality variation in multicultural Sydney
  • Supervisors: Professor Felicity Cox and Dr Anita Szakay

Note that many of the students in the Child Language Lab are also affiliated with the Phonetics and Phonology Lab. The students listed here are primarily affiliated with the Phonetics and Phonology Lab.

• Michaela Cha
• Kyara Chandrasekare
• Jessica Leong
• Leanne Trinh