This course will examine on salient and often still emerging features of American dialects, with a focus on vowel differences. Drawing on such data, we will examine patterns of variation and cross-generational change in pronunciation. The course will include hands-on experience in acoustic analysis and examination of dialectal differences (and cross-generational and gender differences) in formant patterns, vowel space area, speech rate, and prosody. Labs will include Matlab programming in spectral analysis (FFT and LPC analyses) and vowel space analyses.

Instructors include:

Robert A. Fox, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Speech and Hearing Science, The Ohio State University
Ewa Jacewicz, PhD, Research Scientist, Department of Speech and Hearing Science, The Ohio State University
Joseph Salmons, PhD, Professor, Department of German, University of Wisconsin-Madison