Current & Recent Projects
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Remote Sociophonetic Data CollectionCurrent work, Sociophonetics Lab, Oklahoma State University
When the Covid-19 pandemic put a halt to in-person data collection, researchers shifted to collecting speech recordings through smartphones and video call apps like Zoom or Skype. In collaboration with Dr. Paul De Decker of Memorial University of Newfoundland, this project tested the suitability of such recordings for linguistic research. We have since expanded to workshops and panels on remote data collection methods.
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Deaf Experience, Deaf Expression (DXDX)Current work, Sociophonetics Lab, Oklahoma State University
This long-term project aims to better understand how social and linguistic experiences affect the social and emotional well-being of young people with hearing loss. The end goal will be to create a publicly-available audio-video collection of interviews and conversations with all types of people with hearing loss (all ages, speakers and signers, deaf and hard-of-hearing, with early or age-related hearing loss, who use cochlear implants or hearing aids - or not). I was awarded a seed grant to begin interviews with adults with early severe hearing loss, and then a community engagement grant to expand to teens and their parents. In addition to providing researchers with information and samples of deaf/HH communication, I hope the collection will be useful for parents and educators to have first-hand accounts of the possible outcomes of the tough decisions they have to make about deaf children's communication and education. Updates: 2023: We are now conducting Zoom interviews with adults and kids with hearing loss (age 10+), parents/siblings/friends of people with hearing loss, and related professionals (interpreters, audiologists, educators, social workers, etc.). Contact me if you're interested! Papers & Selected Presentations (*student author):
Funding (OSU College of Arts & Sciences):
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Judgments of Cochlear Implant Users' PersonalitiesOngoing work, Sociophonetics Lab, Oklahoma State University
Postdoctoral work, Speech Research Lab, Indiana University This ongoing project examines how speech intelligibility and 'deaf speech quality' affect typically-hearing peers' first impressions of CI users' personalities, particularly in areas that may affect their desire to make friends with the CI user. In the current phase, college students listen to speech samples without knowing that some talkers are deaf. In the first study, listeners rated CI users more negatively than typically-hearing talkers, with less-intelligible CI users rated more negatively than highly-intelligible CI users. In the second study, listeners with more positive attitudes toward deafness rated the less-intelligible CI users more positively. Future studies will extend the procedures to younger ages and examine the effects of education about deafness on listeners' attitudes and ratings.
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Speech Intelligibility of Cochlear Implant UsersPostdoctoral work, Speech Research Lab, Indiana University
In recent work, I investigated effects of speech intelligibility (how well one's speech is understood by others) on other linguistic and social aspects of life for deaf people with cochlear implants (CIs). In one study, children with CIs who were harder to understand had more trouble than hearing peers in areas of psychosocial functioning like adaptability, attention problems, withdrawal, and atypical behavior. In another study, speech rate-matching (rapid adjustment to an interlocutor's speech rate) was correlated with intelligibility among CI users from preschool through young adulthood.
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Oklahoma English and Country AccentsCurrent work, Sociophonetics Lab, Oklahoma State University
What is a country accent? Do Oklahomans sound Southern? Midwestern? This project investigates Oklahoma dialect features and how Oklahomans describe and relate to them. I'm currently looking at descriptions, imitations, and perceptions of "country" speech and how it compares to Southern accents. Data collection is ongoing, so check the lab website each semester for news. Contact me if you're an Oklahoman who'd like to participate!
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Prevelar Raising and Merger in Pacific Northwest English
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Phonetics of StanceDissertation & graduate work, University of Washington
My dissertation identified prosodic features (pitch, intensity, speaking rate) that signal certain types of stances (attitudes/opinions). For example, positive stances were delivered more slowly, encouragement more loudly, and agreement with a low, soft pitch. During this project, I worked with computational linguists to write an NSF grant called ATAROS (Automatic Tagging and Recognition of Stance, PIs Gina-Anne Levow, Richard Wright, Mari Ostendorf). For our data set, I recorded a corpus of dyads engaged in collaborative tasks that I designed to elicit different types of stances in a laboratory sound booth. My master's work examined stance-taking on a political talk show and found that stronger opinions were hyperarticulated (exaggerated in pronunciation).
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