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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2016/2017

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences : Language Sciences

Postgraduate Course: Phonetics and Laboratory Phonology (LASC11125)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits10 ECTS Credits5
SummaryThe general area of this course is the relation between phonology (i.e., the system of sound contrasts, as well as their ordering, groupings, and relative prominence within a planned utterance), and phonetics (the realization of utterances in articulation and acoustics). We show that a great deal of phonetic variability can be explained through an understanding of phonological structure, and that
phonological questions can be answered using phonetic data. We explore these issues through topics such as: a) the phonetic realization of prosodic structure and suprasegmental contrasts, b) categorical vs. gradient assimilation processes.
Course description The goal is not just to offer insight in this topic area, but also to equip students with the skills and expertise to carry out research independently, for example in an MSc dissertation project.

In the MSc Introduction to Phonology & Phonetics course, students have learned about acoustic representations, and gotten a first experience with making measurements on these. That basic level expertise forms the foundation of the practical component of Intermediate Phonetics, where it will be developed in a number of ways. Students will explore issues of experimental design, they will make their own recordings, process them using Praat software, and learn to automate acoustic measurements, in part or in full, depending on the nature of the measurement. In the process, they will learn how to script within the Praat software environment. For many this will be their first experience with programming.

The knowledge gained in this course will form the foundation for more specialized professional training in speech technology, speech therapy, and forensic phonetics.

The course includes lectures, lab practicals, and readings.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Students MUST have passed:
Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements Students must have passed the following course, or its equivalent:
Introduction to Phonology & Phonetics (LASC11031), OR must be taking it simultaneously.
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2016/17, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  None
Course Start Semester 1
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 100 ( Lecture Hours 27, Feedback/Feedforward Hours 1, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 70 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) - Completion of weekly reading reports (5%)

- Lab reports (30%) 600 words each. PG students will take part in several practicals, and submit two lab reports based on them (approx. 600 words each). Only the best of the two will count towards the final mark.

- Project (65%) 3000 words maximum. Students will take part in, and write up, a laboratory experiment designed to show phonetic effects of prosodic structure and segmental context on phonetic parameters such as duration, fundamental frequency and formant frequencies.
Feedback Comments provided on submitted assessments
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. understand the relation between phonetics and phonology, and being able to engage critically with research articles in this area
  2. understand how to use instrumental data to answer research questions in phonology and phonetics, and understanding the pitfalls of phonetic transcription
  3. make a sound recording and process it for acoustic analysis
  4. create, modify, and use scripts to automate the analysis of several acoustic features, including duration, F0, spectral balance, and formant frequencies
  5. interpret articulatory records of speech, and understanding the advantages and disadvantages of articulatory vs. acoustic methods for answering research questions in phonology and phonetics
Reading List
Beckman, M. E., Hirschberg, J., & Shattuck-Hufnagel, S. (2005). The original ToBi system and the evolution of the ToBi framework. In S.-A. Jun (Ed.), Prosodic Typology: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing: Oxford University Press.

Browman, C. P., & Goldstein, L. (1992a). Articulatory phonology: an overview. Phonetica, 49, 155:180.

Dilley, L., Shattuck-Hufnagel, S., & Ostendorf, M. (1996). Glottalization of word-initial vowels as a function of prosodic structure. Journal of Phonetics, 24(4), 423-444.

Ellis, L., & Hardcastle,W. J. (2002). Categorical and gradient properties of assimilation in alveolar to velar sequences: evidence from EPG and EMA data. Journal of Phonetics, 30, 373:396.

Fougeron, C., & Keating, P. (1997). Articulatory strengthening at edges of prosodic domains. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 101, 3728-3740.

Grosjean, F. & M. Collins (1979). Breathing, pausing and reading, Phonetica 36(2), 98-114.

Gibbon, F. (1990). Lingual activity in two speech-disordered children's attempts to produce velar and alveolar stop consonants: evidence from electropalatographic (EPG) data. British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 25, 329:340.

Harrington, J. & Cassidy, S. (1999). Techniques in Speech Acoustics. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Chapter 5.

Ladd, D. R. (2008). Intonational Phonology (2nd ed.): Cambridge University Press.

Ladd, D. R., & Scobbie, J. (2003). External sandhi as gestural overlap counter-evidence from Sardinian. In J. Local, R. Ogden, & R.

Temple (Eds.), Phonetic Interpretation: Papers in Laboratory Phonology VI (pp. 162:180). Cambridge University Press.

Ladd, D.R. (2009). Phonetics in phonology. In J. Goldsmith, J. Riggle & A. Yu (Eds.). Handbook of Phonological Theory. Blackwell.

Ladefoged, P. (1996). Elements of acoustic phonetics (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.

Ladefoged, P. (2003). Phonetic data analysis: an introduction to fieldwork and instrumental techniques. Blackwell.

Nisbett, A. (1985). The use of microphones. Hastings House.

Nolan, F. (1992). The descriptive role of segments: evidence from assimilation. In G. J.Docherty & D. R. Ladd, (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology II: Gesture, Segment, Prosody. Cambridge University Press.

Scobbie, J., Gibbon, F., Hardcastle, W. J., & Fletcher, P. (2000). Covert contrast as a stage in the acquisition of phonetics and phonology. In M. Broe & J. B.Pierrehumbert (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology V: Language Acquisition. Cambridge University Press.

Shattuck-Hufnagel, S. & Turk, A. E. (1996). A prosody tutorial for investigators of auditory sentence processing, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 25(2), 193:247.
Shattuck-Hufnagel, S., Ostendorf, M., & Ross, K. (1994). Stress shift and early pitch accent placement in lexical items in American English. Journal of Phonetics, 22, 357-388.

Sluijter, A. M. C., & van Heuven, V. J. (1996). Spectral balance as an acoustic correlate of linguistic stress. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 100, 2471-2485.

Wightman, C. W., Shattuck-Hufnagel, S., Ostendorf, M., & Price, P. J. (1992). Segmental durations in the vicinity of prosodic phrase boundaries. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 91(3), 1707-1717.

Zsiga, E. C. (1995). An acoustic and electopalatographic study of lexical and postlexical palatalisation in American English. In B. Connell & A. Arvaniti (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology IV: Phonology and Phonetic Evidence (pp. 282:302). Cambridge University Press.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills The knowledge gained in this course will enable students to conduct their own research projects in phonetics, and form the foundation for more specialized professional training in speech technology, speech therapy, and forensic phonetics.

Transferable skills include skills relating to summarising research articles, project design, scripting, and writing.
Additional Class Delivery Information Attend all lectures and labs as scheduled
Keywordsphonetics,prosody,laboratory phonology,phonetic measurement,phonetic analysis
Contacts
Course organiserProf Alice Turk
Tel: (0131 6)50 3483
Email: a.turk@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Toni Noble
Tel: (0131 6)51 3188
Email: Toni.noble@ed.ac.uk
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