2010

PhD completions

Congratulations to Dr Joanne Cleland, Dr Rebecca Rodger and Dr Tanja Kocjančič! http://www.qmu.ac.uk/shs/pg/pgtheses.htm

Jobs, training and alumni news Congratulations for Dr Esther de Leeuw, who has started as a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London. See here on the Channel Four TV news: http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/display/playlistref/281010/clipid/281010_PRONUNCIATION_28. Also Dr Natasha Zharkova starts her new ESRC Research Grant here at QMU in October. Dr Rebecca Rodger starts a research post on a project led by our very own Dr Lucy Ellis using EPG to help speech therapy for cochlear implant speakers.

2009

PhD completion

Esther de Leeuw (2009) When your native language sounds foreign: a phonetic investigation into first language attrition. PhD, QMU.

Jobs, training and alumni news Congratulations for Dr Natalia Zharkova, who has been awarded an ESRC Research Grant (see awards) and continues to do research and teaching in Speech and Hearing Sciences.

Output and activities

Sylvia Mattl will be presenting a paper at this year's BACL Conference on 15th & 16th December in Reading, UK. The title of the paper is "Measuring complex syntax in adolescents with Specific Language Impairment". Co-authors are Dr Ann Clark, Prof James Law and Prof Jim Scobbie.

See the conference talks page and publications under SSRC research news for full details of these talks and papers.

• Quite a number already this year - check the output pages.

New Starts
Retrospective on 2008

Jobs, training and alumni news Congratulations to Dr Natalia Zharkova, who has been awarded an ESRC Research Grant (see awards) and continues to do research and teaching in Speech and Hearing Sciences.

<a busy year but no update on here yet>

Retrospective on 2007

PhD completion Lianne Carroll completed her PhD

Jobs, training and alumni news Following successful completion of her PhD, Dr Lianne Carroll is heading back to the USA in the summer of 2007 - congratulations to her! We hope to see her back in a couple of years. Dr Susanne Fuchs was awarded the 2007 Christian Benoît prize for young researchers by the Christian Benoît Association.

Output and activities.

See the conference talks page and publications under SSRC research news for full details of these talks and papers.

• Grichkovtsova, I. & Mennen, I. (2007) Child speech and emotions: a cross-linguistic perspective. In K. Izdebski (Ed.). Emotions and the human voice, vol.2, Plural Publishing.
• de Leeuw, Esther (2007). Hesitation Markers in English, German, and Dutch. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 19: 85-114.
• Esther de Leeuw presented at the 6th International Symposium on Bilingualism, and at ICPhS (published), and EuroSLA17, among others.
• Claire Timmins presented at The First QMU Annual Conference of PhD Research, and at UKLVC, Gatlinburg Conference on research & theory in intellectual & developmental disabilities, Afasic 4th International Symposium, Northern Englishes Workshopand others. A number are published.
• Chris DePlacido is co-author and co-presenter of a number of papers at 8th EFAS Congress 2007, ICPhS & Interspeech, a number of which are published.
• Liesbet Bormans presented at EuroSLA17.

Awards.

• Rebecca Rodgers, who is now a PhD student researching Down Syndrome speech, has been awarded the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists Student Research Prize 2006 for her undergraduate project here in SHS. More information [here].
• Sylvia Mattl was awarded a QMU PhD bursary under topic SM13. "Measures of complex syntax as an index of long term grammatical problems in young adults with specific language impairment" (Clark / Law)

New starts. Welcome to Sylvia Mattl, working with Dr Ann Clark on Specific Language Impairment and complex syntax.

Retrospective on 2006

Awards.

• Natalia Zharkova has been awarded a one year ESRC post-doctoral fellowship (PTA-026-27-1268: total funding under Full Economic Costing £74,108.50) for a study "Analysing Speech Variability with Ultrasound and EPG", which builds on her PhD research - cross-linguistic investigation of coarticulation with ultrasound (with Russian and British English data). Her mentor will be William Hardcastle. Natalia hopes to begin the fellowship at the end of 2006 after completing her PhD.
• Esther de Leuuw was awarded funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to fund a three month stay in Germany as part of her doctoral research programme.

New starts. Welcome to Tanja Kocjančič, who has her main registration here as part of the EdSST scheme joint with the Centre for SPeech Technology Research at Edinburgh University, funded by Marie Curie. Welcome to Rebecca Rodger, a graduate of the QM SLT programme, whose PhD is funded by the Down's Syndrome Society. Welcome also to Karen Williamson, who is registered for a Professional Doctorate in Health and Social Sciences. Claire Timmins, who is researching in the department on the MRC Down Syndrome & EPG project, has registered for PhD.

PhD Theses Natalia Zharkova and Ioulia Grichkovtsova both completed their PhDs this year. See the theses link for full titles and links to online versions (shortly).

Jobs, training and alumni news Dr Olga Gordeeva has taken a post in industry in Belgium. Dr Ben Matthews has been appointed as lecturer. Dr Cassie Mayo announces the birth of Harvey - congratulations!

Output and activities.

See the conference talks page under SSRC research news for full details of these talks.

• Esther de Leeuw presented at the 4th Annual Graduate Workshop on First Language Attrition, Amsterdam, in January.
• Ioulia Grichkovtsova presented “Child affective prosody in Scottish English and French” at BAAP, Edinburgh, in April.
• Lianne Carroll presented "Prosodic Skill Development Over Time in Children
  with High-Functioning Autism" at the Conference of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy, Belfast in May. Also "Prosodic Skill Development Over Time in Children with High-Functioning Autism" at the International Meeting for Autism Research(IMFAR), Montreal, Canada, in June. Also at the The Fourth Language at Edinburgh Lunch, University of Edinburgh, in September.
• Claire Timmins presented: Claire Timmins, Willaim J. Hardcastle, Jennifer Wishart, Sara Wood, Joanne McCann "Post-Aveolar Sibilant Errors in Young People with Down's Syndrome" at Making New Connections 2, City University, London, in September.
• Chris de Placido presented "Comparison of Screening Methods Used for Identifying Hearing Loss in School Age Children in Scotland" at the British Academy of Audiology Conference, Telford, in November.

Retrospective on 2005

Awards. Lianne has been awarding funding to cover her overseas PhD fees by Friends of the Sick Kids Hospital in Edinburgh, to support her research into Autism and Theory of Mind. That's over £20,000 of support from them into Autism research. She also received $300 to let her attend the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) in Boston, and a travel grant from ASHA ($500) to attend the conference in San Diego - she will have Dr Rhea Paul from the Yale Child Study center as a mentor at the conference.

New starts. Liesbet Borman and Esther de Leeuw join us in September as new PhD students, so a warm welcome to them. Both are funded by QMUC research studentships.

PhD Theses Olga Gordeeva, Helen McGrane and Susanne Fuchs all completed their PhDs this year. See the theses link for full titles and links to online versions.

Jobs, training and alumni news Olga Gordeeva took up her ESRC post-doctoral fellowship here at QM but is living in Belgium. Ben Matthews returns to SHS as a temporary lecturer. Fay Windsor has been appointed as a full-time lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. Cassie Mayo is working on an EPSRC-funded project at University of Edinburgh.

Cassie Mayo's PhD research (completed 2000) was reported in "The influence of phonemic awareness development on acoustic cue weighting strategies in children's speech perception", a paper which has been awarded the 2003 ASHA (http://www.asha.org) Editor's Award for the Hearing section of the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. This award is given annually for the most outstanding article published in the calendar year. The paper appeared in theJournal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. 46: 1184-1196. Since graduation, Cassie has been cemented her reputation in perception research with grant awards and further publications at the University of Edinburgh.

Output and activities. Coming up... Ioulia is presenting at a number of conferences on her research: 14th General Meeting of the European Association of Experimental and Social Psychology. (Würzburg, Germany, 19-23 July, 2005), Xth International Congress for the Study of Child Language (Berlin, July 25-29, 2005.), 3rd Conference on Experimental Phonetics, (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 24-26 October, 2005) and 5th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research (Wageningen, The Netherlands, 30 August - 2 september 2005). See the conference talks pages.

Lianne is presenting her work in Boston, USA, in May at the International Meeting for Autism Research, and at ASHA (San Diego) in November.

Natasha is presenting her thesis work in Tucson, USA at the 3rd workshop on ultrasound tongue imaging in April, and also at the prestigious UCLA phonetics lab.

More: Both Olga and Ioulia are presenting in a special session at the International Symposium on Bilingualism, Barcelona, March. Ioulia has been invited to present at PIXAR Animation Studios, a Conference on Voice Quality and Emotions at PIXAR Animations Studios, Emeryville, California, in March.

See the conference talks page under SSRC research news for full details of these talks.

Retrospective on 2004

Awards. Olga was awarded an ESRC post-doctoral fellowship (approximately £25,000 for salary, costs and equipment) for a one-year study "Sound Structure Learning in Bilingual and Monolingual Language Acquisition", which will build on her PhD research into what happens to phonetic detail of when children learn two languages which differ in the way the sounds are organised and sound (in Russian and Scottish English). More details on the post-doc scheme can be found here and for more details of the project, go to REGARD and search for details.

Jobs and training. Ioulia and Olga were funded to attend the PhD student conference on Multidisciplinary Approaches to Bilingualism, June 28-July 2 2004 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands and presented their work (see below). Rose, Natasha, Lianne and Ioulia attended the NWCL meeting and Ioulia presented her work (see below). Lianne took up a part-time post as research assistant on the ESRC Asperger's project on 1st November 2004 while continuing her studies full time.

PhD Thesis. Richard Mullooly's thesis was completed and is available online. See theses.

Output and activities. In addition to dept seminars and talks, students presented at a number of international conferences and workshops in the UK, the Netherlands, Canada.

Publication

• Zharkova, Natalia (2004) Strategies in the acquisition of segments and syllables in Russian-speaking children. In Marina Tzakosta, Claartje Levelt & Jeroen van de Weijer (eds.), Developmental Paths in Phonological Acquisition. Special issue of Leiden Papers in Linguistics 2.1. ISSN 1574-4728. [pdf at http://www.ulcl.leidenuniv.nl/content_docs/workingpapers/paths/zharkova.pdf]

Conference Presentations by students

Colloquium of the British Association of Academic Phoneticians, University of Cambridge, 24-26 March 2004.

• Olga Gordeeva and James M. Scobbie "Non-normative preaspiration of voiceless fricatives in Scottish English: a comparison with Swedish preaspiration" [powerpoint, 1MB]
• Richard Mullooly "An EMA analysis of [r]-insertion in English"

Ultrapolooza (Ultrasound Round Table) The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 22nd-23rd April 2004.

• Yolanda Vazquez Alvarez, Nigel Hewlett and Natalia Zharkova "The 'trough effect': an ultrasound study" [pdf]

The 12th Annual Manchester Phonology Meeting Manchester, England, 22nd-24th May 2004.

• Susanne Fuchs, James M. Scobbie, Pascal Perrier and Alan A Wrench "Final obstruent devoicing and neutralisation in German: an articulatory perspective" [poster as a powerpoint page]

"Multidisciplinary approaches to bilingualism" Tutorials in behavioural and brain sciences for PhD students, Max Plank Institute for Psycholinguistics, Ehzerworld, Netherlands, 28 June-02 July, 2004.

• Ioulia Grichkovtsova and Ineke Mennen "Affective prosody of bilingual children". (Poster).
• Olga Gordeeva "The role of language input and structural linguistic differences in simultaneous bilingual acquisition of sound structure: Russian-Scottish English case studies". (Poster)

North Western Centre for Linguistics --- Research Training for Postgraduate Linguistics Students, Manchester, England, 6th-10th September 2004.

• Ioulia Grichkovtsova and Ineke Mennen "Affective prosody of bilingual children" (poster)

Developmental Paths in Phonological Acquisition, The University of Leiden Centre for Linguistics (ULCL), The Netherlands, 16th-18th September 2004. (http://www.ulcl.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3?c=39)

• Natalia Zharkova "Strategies in the acquisition of segments and syllables in Russian-speaking children"

Thesis completions

• Richard Mullooly (2004) An Electromagnetic-Articulograph Study of Alternating [r] and the Effects of Emphatic Stress on the Articulation of Rhotic Consonants. PhD, QMUC.