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Phonetics Laboratory

 

The phonetics laboratory at the University of Cambridge was established by John Trim, lecturer in phonetics, in 1958. When the Department of Linguistics was born in the mid 1960s, with Trim appointed as its Director, the phonetics laboratory was incorporated into the department and based briefly in the centre of Cambridge before moving to the Sidgwick Site, just west of the city centre. Initially the lab, along with the rest of the department, was housed in a former sports pavilion, left over from the site's previous incarnation as a College playing field.

In 1993, after the pavilion was demolished to make way for the new Law Faculty building, the laboratory was moved to its present location in the Raised Faculty Building, making use of some space between offices and classrooms. Three offices for staff are enclosed within the laboratory space, as well as a suite of computers for use by students and lab members, and a sound-isolated room used for recording and perceptual testing. 

For more history, please consult Nolan (2007), which is published in the Phonetician 2007-I /No.95.

Past PhD Students

Name Thesis title Date Supervisor(s)

Kerri-Ann Butcher

The MOAN-MOWN and MOAN-GOOSE mergers in Lowestoft English: Perception and production

2023

Bert Vaux

Julia Schwarz

Sensitivity to (sub)lexical cues as a function of cognitive profile and language abilities

2023

Brechtje Post, Mirjana Bozic

Tim Lameris

Non-native perception, production, and lexical processing of tone

2022

Brechtje Post

Jasper Hong Sim

Phonological acquisition in a multidialectal and multicultural context: The case of bilingual preschoolers in Singapore

2022

Brechtje Post

Yixin Zhang

Neutral Tone in Mandarin: Representation and Interaction with Utterance-level Prosody

2021

Brechtje Post,  Elaine Schmidt

Kayeon Yoo

The production and perception of domain-initial strengthening in Seoul, Busan, and Ulsan Korean

2020

Francis Nolan

Geraldine Kwek

An analysis of /r/ variation in Singapore English

2018

Francis Nolan

Ricky Chan

Speaker variability in the realisation of lexical tones

2017

Francis Nolan

Yvonne Flory

The impact of head postures and body orientations on the acoustic speech signal

2014

Francis Nolan

Calbert Graham

Japanese and Spanish L1 adult speakers’ L2 acquisition of English prosody

2014

Brechtje Post

Aike Li

L2 rhythm development by Mandarin Chinese learners of English

2014

Brechtje Post

Elaine Schmidt

The acquisition of prosody in Spanish-English bilingual children

2014

Brechtje Post

Marco Aldo Piccolino Boniforti

A hybrid episodic-abstract computational model of human speech perception

2012

Sarah Hawkins

Spyros Armosti

The phonetics of plosive and affricate gemination in Cypriot Greek. 

2011

Francis Nolan

Katharine Barden

Perceptual adaptation to talker-specific characteristics.

2011

Sarah Hawkins

Hae-Sung Jeon

Prosodic phrasing in Seoul Korean: the role of pitch and timing cues. 

2011

Francis Nolan

Margaret Zellers

Prosodic detail and topic structure in discourse

2011

Brechtje Post

Eftychia Eftychiou

Lenition processes in Cypriot Greek. 

2009

Francis Nolan

Rachel Baker

The production and perception of morphologically and grammatically conditioned phonetic detail

2008

Rachel Smith

Eric Fixmer

Grouping of auditory and visual information in speech.

2008

Sarah Hawkins

Pik Ki Peggy Mok

Influences on vowel-to-vowel coarticulation.

2007

Sarah Hawkins

Lluisa Astruc

The intonation of sentence-external elements in Catalan and English. 

2005

Francis Nolan

Mark Jones

The phonetics and phonology of definite article reduction in Northern English dialects. 

2005

Francis Nolan

Kirsty McDougall

The role of formant dynamics in determining speaker identity. 

2005

Francis Nolan

Eva Liina Asu

The phonetics and phonology of Estonian intonation.

2004

Francis Nolan

Rachel Smith

Fine acoustic detail and context effects in spoken word recognition.

2004

Sarah Hawkins

Rachael-Anne Knight

Peaks and plateaux: The production and perception of intonational high targets in English.

2003

Sarah Hawkins, Francis Nolan

Margit Aufterbeck

Scottish English intonation: a phonetic analysis of a Fife dialect. 

2003

Francis Nolan

Keiko Masuda

A phonetic study of sound symbolism.

2002

Francis Nolan

Elinor Payne

Consonant gemination in Italian: evidence for a fortition continuum.

2000

Francis Nolan

Alison Tunley

Coarticulatory influences of liquids on vowels.

1999

Sarah Hawkins

Jonathan Rodgers

Vowel devoicing in English.  

1999

Sarah Hawkins

Ee Ling Low

Prosodic prominence in Singapore English.

1998

Francis Nolan

Sarah Barrett

Prototypes in speech perception.

1997

Sarah Hawkins

Ian Watson

The effects of bilingualism on the acquisition of the voicing contrast.

1997

Francis Nolan

Paul Foulkes

Theoretical implications of the /p/>/f/>/h/ change.

1994

Sarah Hawkins, April McMahon

Helen Pandeli

The articulation of lingual consonants: an EPG study. 

1993

Francis Nolan

Amalia Arvaniti

The phonetics of Modern Greek rhythm and its phonological implications.

1991

Sarah Hawkins

David Deterding

Speaker normalisation for automatic speaker recognition. 

1991

Francis Nolan

Paul Kerswill

A sociolinguistic study of rural immigrants in Bergen, Norway. 

1986

Francis Nolan

Jonathan Harrington

The phonetic analysis of stuttering. 

1986

Francis Nolan

Paul Warren

The temporal organisation and perception of speech. 

1985

Francis Nolan

Clive Grey

The word phonology of Welsh.

1983

Francis Nolan

Briony Williams

Stress in modern Welsh.

1983

Francis Nolan