Dr Tamara Rathcke, Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Language and Linguistics, has published an article in the journal ScienceDirect titled ‘Dialectal phonology constrains the phonetics of prominence’.
Tamara’s study explores whether and how certain phonetic ingredients of speech, such as traditionally “prosodic” and traditionally “segmental” parameters, combine differently in different dialects of English according to their specific segmental and intonational phonological constraints. The answer to this question may help to understand the balance of universal and specific factors in how prominence is controlled, and how prominence is perceived despite variation in production.
Tamara says: “This work is quite old (relates to a project on which I worked as a Post-Doc back at Glasgow) – it is also relevant for my research on linguistic rhythm and timing.”