Dr Tamara Rathcke from the Department of English Language & Linguistics has just published a research article in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, co-authored with Rachel H Smith from the University of Glasgow.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America is the leading source of theoretical and experimental research in the interdisciplinary study of sound. The journal was established when the Society formed in 1929, remaining in continuous publication.

The paper is titled ‘Speech Timing and Linguistic Rhythm: On the Acoustic Bases of Rhythm Typologies’.

The temporal properties of segments, syllables and rhythm were examined in two accents of British English, a ‘stress-timed’ variety from Leeds, and a ‘syllable-timed’ variety spoken by Panjabi-English bilingual speakers from Bradford. Rhythm metrics were calculated. A perception study confirmed that the speakers of the two varieties differed in their perceived rhythm. The results reveal that both typologies are informative in that, to a certain degree, they predict temporal patterns of the two varieties.

For further details of the article, and the full abstract, please see the page here: http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/137/5/10.1121/1.4919322