The Berkeley Phonetics, Phonology and Psycholinguistics Forum ("Phorum") is a weekly talk and discussion series featuring presentations on all aspects of phonetics, phonology, and psycholinguistics. We meet on Fridays from 4(:10)-5pm (unless specified otherwise below), in Dwinelle 1229 (Zoom link shared upon request). Phorum is organized by Kai Schenck and Amber Galvano. Our emails are respectively "kai_schenck" and "amber_galvano" @berkeley.edu.
Schedules from previous semesters can be found here.
Fall 2024 Schedule
September 6
Introductions & round robin!
We'll share about our summers, then share any interesting puzzles or piece of data we've been working with. You are welcome to attend without presenting in the round robin.
September 12 (irregular time)
Martin Krämer (UiT, The Arctic University of Norway): Sonority, markedness and the OCP
In this talk, data from a wide range of languages as well as language acquisition are presented that cast serious doubt on the role of sonority and sonority sequencing in syllable phonotactics. These data show that cross-linguistic apparent sonority effects must be coincidental. The theoretical challenge is thus not how to incorporate a universal multi-level scale into a theory of phonology with otherwise binary categorical distinctions (features are generally assumed to be binary or privative, not scalar), but to explain the fuller empirical picture, including alleged sonority effects, without any phonetically motivated hierarchy. I argue here that some of the apparent sonority effects emerge from a more abstract principle of syntagmatic contrast maximization, which is at least a close relative of the Obligatory Contour Principle.
September 13
No regular meeting -- please check out the Phonological Domains workshop, hosted by the Linguistics department in Dwinelle 370.
September 20
Niko Schwarz-Acosta (UC Berkeley): TBA
September 27
Alexia Hernandez (Stanford PhD graduate): The role of experience on the cognitive underpinnings of linguistic bias: An interdisciplinary investigation of Miami-based Cuban American speech
In this talk, I’ll investigate the cognitive processes and architectures that underlie speech-based linguistic bias. Ultimately, I argue that linguistic and social experiences mediate category structure, and that differently structured categories modulate speech production, perception, and bias patterns.
Speech-based bias is associated with linguistic variation in production. Thus, I first inquire about the cognitive systems behind speech variation by analyzing the acoustic patterns of TRAM, TRAP, /l/, (DH), and rhythm realizations within the Cuban American community in Miami, FL. I show that social factors can reflect differences in experience, which shape individual speakers’ cognitive representations and make speech variation in production possible.
Building on these production patterns, I study how listeners use variation in Miami-based Cuban American speech for person construal. I find that listeners’ social and linguistic experiences structure their racial/ethnic perception of speakers. Both Miami-based Cuban American and General American listeners display a range of ethnic/racial perception, though they attend to different social and linguistic cues. Moreover, listeners’ perceptions were tied to linguistic patterns, not individual speakers, such that the same speakers were perceived variably across phrases.
Finally, I ask how two listener groups make stereotyped associations based on perceived speaker identity in a speeded association task. While both Miami-based Cuban Americans and Midwestern listeners exhibited a whiteness bias, quickly associating perceived non-Hispanic white speech with white stereotypes, Midwestern listeners exhibited more biased responses. This study again underscores that experience impacts the implicit biases listeners hold about speakers.
Across all three studies, the role of experience emerges as an important force in shaping language production, perception, and bias. The results support a cognitive architecture that integrates social information pre-comprehension via a socioacoustic memory. This architecture suggests that experience with diverse populations and their speech has the potential to decrease linguistic bias and discrimination.
October 4
Marko Drobnjak (Univeristy of Ljubljana): TBA
October 11
Kai Schenck (UC Berkeley): Yurok rhotic harmony domains
October 18
Richard Wang (UC Santa Cruz): TBA
October 25
TBA
November 1
Santiago Barreda (UC Davis): TBA
November 8
Yin Lin Tan (Stanford): TBA
November 15
TBA
November 22
Suyuan Liu (University of British Columbia): TBA
November 29
No meeting -- Academic and Administrative Holiday
December 6
Meg Cychosz (UCLA): TBA
December 13
TBA