Research Overview
My Ph.D. training largely focused on theoretical phonology and since then, the scope of my research has expanded to include the interface of phonology and phonetics with sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. The research environment at the University of Toronto, with its strong tradition in theoretical phonology and sociolinguistics and its emerging strengths in phonetics and psycholinguistics, further nurtured my research interest at the interface over the years.
The common perspective that underlies multiple strands of my research is to view linguistic phenomena as, in essence, a learning problem. How do speakers come to exhibit attested linguistic patterns given the input available to them? What is the function that maps the learning input to the output the speakers actually exhibit? What are the structural constructs that mediate the mapping between the input and the output? Are there any innovations in the speakers’ output that are not straightforwardly derivable from the input and if so, what do those innovations tell us about the nature of the learning mechanism? Is there any evidence that the mapping function pays selective attention to certain aspects of the input data over others and if so, what is the source of such bias? Do extra-grammatical factors affect the mapping between the input and the output and if so, how?
In particular, I address these questions by examining what can be considered “non-traditional” sources of linguistic data, such as loanword adaptation, language change & dialectal variation, and heritage language. These are particularly fruitful areas for investigating the relationship between the input data and the learned output, since they all typically involve some type of innovation where the output does not exactly mirror the input. Loanword adaptation and change & variation in progress entail mismatches between the input and the output by definition. Heritage language speakers exhibit imperfect learning, which can be viewed as a type of innovation, presumably due to limited exposure to learning data compared to normal first language acquisition. As a result, we encounter more opportunities to test aspects of the mapping function that may remain hidden in traditional phonological data.
Phonetic variation in speech is also a fruitful area of research. For a long time, variability of speech was considered a problem to overcome in search of invariance but more recently, researchers have begun to recognize that highly structured variation, in fact, aids communication by providing cues to linguistic contexts and speaker identity. Listeners possess intricate knowledge of the structured variation of their language and can adjust their perception according to the context to decipher the intended speech target. My current research examines this variation through corpus and experimental studies and explores how and where such perceptual adaptation fails and how this may have implications for sound change.
In my research, I try to combine a strong theoretical grounding with rich data afforded by large-scale fieldwork and corpora. A detailed understanding of primary data is in itself a valuable and lasting contribution and it also allows one to sharpen hypotheses about the nature of the mapping function, which in turn feed into further empirical inquiries. Methodologically, I draw on various research methodologies including corpus, computational, statistical, and experimental methods.
Here are brief synopses of my current research areas.
Loanword phonology
My research explores diverse factors that condition loanword adaptation, including perceptual, phonological, historical, and sociolinguistic considerations. I draw on evidence from experimental studies (production and perception) and corpus and dictionary data, as well as elicited production data. I utilize computational and statistical tools to uncover and test empirical generalizations.
Sound change
I examine sound change in progress in Korean drawing on data from an apparent-time corpus and fieldwork data collected from multiple dialects of Korean. In addition to documenting sound change in Seoul and in less studied dialects of Korean, including Heritage Korean in Northern China and Canada and Hamkyoung Korean spoken by recent North Korean refugees, my research addresses theoretical issues such as (i) the word frequency effect in sound change and its implications for the nature of mental representation of speech sounds and the mechanism of sound change; (ii) the interaction of production and perception in sound change in progress and its implications for the mechanism of sound change.
Dialect variation and contact
I explore the phonological and phonetic variation as well as contact-induced changes in dialects of Korean. The data are drawn from a large-scale corpus (NIKL Dialect survey corpus) as well as fieldwork data collection. The dialects examined so far include Seoul Korean, two dialects of Chinese Korean, and Hamkyeong Korean spoken by North Korean refugees.
Heritage language phonetics and phonology
I explore the phonetics and phonological variation in Heritage Korean and Tagalog in Toronto. The research questions range from the role of phonological universals, inter-language interactions in the speech of bilinguals, and sound change in heritage language.
Hyperspeech as a diagnostics for mechanisms of sound change
This is one of the newest areas of my research. I am investigating how characteristics of hyper-articulated speech (in comparison to hypo-articulated speech) can shed light on the dynamic nature of the mental representation of speech sounds and how it can provide crucial evidence for the underlying mechanism of sound change in progress.
Speech rate and age
This is the newest of my research. I am interested in how the speech rate difference between younger and older speakers may be an impetus for sound change—younger speakers tend to speak faster than older speakers and fast speech tends to induce a reduction of durational and segmental contrasts.
The common perspective that underlies multiple strands of my research is to view linguistic phenomena as, in essence, a learning problem. How do speakers come to exhibit attested linguistic patterns given the input available to them? What is the function that maps the learning input to the output the speakers actually exhibit? What are the structural constructs that mediate the mapping between the input and the output? Are there any innovations in the speakers’ output that are not straightforwardly derivable from the input and if so, what do those innovations tell us about the nature of the learning mechanism? Is there any evidence that the mapping function pays selective attention to certain aspects of the input data over others and if so, what is the source of such bias? Do extra-grammatical factors affect the mapping between the input and the output and if so, how?
In particular, I address these questions by examining what can be considered “non-traditional” sources of linguistic data, such as loanword adaptation, language change & dialectal variation, and heritage language. These are particularly fruitful areas for investigating the relationship between the input data and the learned output, since they all typically involve some type of innovation where the output does not exactly mirror the input. Loanword adaptation and change & variation in progress entail mismatches between the input and the output by definition. Heritage language speakers exhibit imperfect learning, which can be viewed as a type of innovation, presumably due to limited exposure to learning data compared to normal first language acquisition. As a result, we encounter more opportunities to test aspects of the mapping function that may remain hidden in traditional phonological data.
Phonetic variation in speech is also a fruitful area of research. For a long time, variability of speech was considered a problem to overcome in search of invariance but more recently, researchers have begun to recognize that highly structured variation, in fact, aids communication by providing cues to linguistic contexts and speaker identity. Listeners possess intricate knowledge of the structured variation of their language and can adjust their perception according to the context to decipher the intended speech target. My current research examines this variation through corpus and experimental studies and explores how and where such perceptual adaptation fails and how this may have implications for sound change.
In my research, I try to combine a strong theoretical grounding with rich data afforded by large-scale fieldwork and corpora. A detailed understanding of primary data is in itself a valuable and lasting contribution and it also allows one to sharpen hypotheses about the nature of the mapping function, which in turn feed into further empirical inquiries. Methodologically, I draw on various research methodologies including corpus, computational, statistical, and experimental methods.
Here are brief synopses of my current research areas.
Loanword phonology
My research explores diverse factors that condition loanword adaptation, including perceptual, phonological, historical, and sociolinguistic considerations. I draw on evidence from experimental studies (production and perception) and corpus and dictionary data, as well as elicited production data. I utilize computational and statistical tools to uncover and test empirical generalizations.
Sound change
I examine sound change in progress in Korean drawing on data from an apparent-time corpus and fieldwork data collected from multiple dialects of Korean. In addition to documenting sound change in Seoul and in less studied dialects of Korean, including Heritage Korean in Northern China and Canada and Hamkyoung Korean spoken by recent North Korean refugees, my research addresses theoretical issues such as (i) the word frequency effect in sound change and its implications for the nature of mental representation of speech sounds and the mechanism of sound change; (ii) the interaction of production and perception in sound change in progress and its implications for the mechanism of sound change.
Dialect variation and contact
I explore the phonological and phonetic variation as well as contact-induced changes in dialects of Korean. The data are drawn from a large-scale corpus (NIKL Dialect survey corpus) as well as fieldwork data collection. The dialects examined so far include Seoul Korean, two dialects of Chinese Korean, and Hamkyeong Korean spoken by North Korean refugees.
Heritage language phonetics and phonology
I explore the phonetics and phonological variation in Heritage Korean and Tagalog in Toronto. The research questions range from the role of phonological universals, inter-language interactions in the speech of bilinguals, and sound change in heritage language.
Hyperspeech as a diagnostics for mechanisms of sound change
This is one of the newest areas of my research. I am investigating how characteristics of hyper-articulated speech (in comparison to hypo-articulated speech) can shed light on the dynamic nature of the mental representation of speech sounds and how it can provide crucial evidence for the underlying mechanism of sound change in progress.
Speech rate and age
This is the newest of my research. I am interested in how the speech rate difference between younger and older speakers may be an impetus for sound change—younger speakers tend to speak faster than older speakers and fast speech tends to induce a reduction of durational and segmental contrasts.
Collaborators
Adam Albright (MIT)
Hye-Young Bang (McGill University)
Ellen Broselow (Stony Brook University)
Meghan Clayards (McGill University)
Sungwoo Han (Inha University)
Chiyuki Ito (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
Michael Kenstowicz (MIT)
Alexei Kochetov (University of Toronto)
Eunjong Kong (Korea Aerospace University)
Naomi Nagy (University of Toronto)
Andrea Hòa Phạm (University of Florida)
Keren Rice (University of Toronto)
Morgan Sonderegger (McGill University)
Benjamin Storme (CNRS)
Tae-Jin Yoon (Sungshin Women's University)
Suyeon Yun (Ehwa Womans University)
Hye-Young Bang (McGill University)
Ellen Broselow (Stony Brook University)
Meghan Clayards (McGill University)
Sungwoo Han (Inha University)
Chiyuki Ito (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
Michael Kenstowicz (MIT)
Alexei Kochetov (University of Toronto)
Eunjong Kong (Korea Aerospace University)
Naomi Nagy (University of Toronto)
Andrea Hòa Phạm (University of Florida)
Keren Rice (University of Toronto)
Morgan Sonderegger (McGill University)
Benjamin Storme (CNRS)
Tae-Jin Yoon (Sungshin Women's University)
Suyeon Yun (Ehwa Womans University)