Björn Köhnlein, Associate Professor of Linguistics, studies sound systems in languages. He and host David Staley discuss how speech melodies and intonational patterns distinguish between statements and questions and the challenges of historical linguistic studies. Köhnlein shares his journey into linguistics, his fascination with generative grammar, and his current research projects, including the surprisingly complex rules that govern how curse words can be embedded into other words.
Michael White, Professor of Linguistics, researches how to enable computers to usefully converse with people in natural language. He’s seen the ability of predictive text become so good that it’s created concerns about the ethical uses of it. He discusses this and more with David Staley on this week’s Voices of Excellence
Andrea Sims, Associate Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, studies theoretical morphology, meaning what kinds of words and structures can exist in a particular language. She explores what speakers know, often unconsciously, about what is possible in their language.
Brian Joseph, Distinguished University Professor of Linguistics and the Kenneth E. Naylor Professor of South Slavic Languages and Linguistics, studies historical linguistics, the history of the Greek language, language contact, Greek, Albanian, and Balkan linguistics, and Sanskrit. He’s especially interested in the way that the similar experiences that cultures have with language influence how their language develops.
Cynthia Clopper, Professor and Chair of the Department of Linguistics, researches speech sounds: how we produce them, their acoustic characteristics, and their perception by listeners. She says that every time we say a word, like “cat,” it’s subtly different.
Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics, researches sociolinguistic variation, small differences in pronunciation, word choice, and syntactic structures that listeners use to form an impression of a speaker. She also discusses her “See Your Speech” linguistics project, an interactive website that gives users visual displays based on acoustic analysis of their own speech.