Phonetics
Phonetics at Cornell has a long history, connected in part with The Cornell Phonetics Lab (PLab), one of the first phonetics teaching and research labs in the US, which continues to thrive. Phonetics at Cornell has always been oriented towards linguistic phonetics, focusing on those aspects of the study of articulation, acoustics, and perception that inform the linguistic nature of human speech. More recently much of the experimental work being conducted could be characterized as laboratory phonology, that is, an experimental approach to advancing our understanding of human speech.
The PLab is organized as a shared teaching and research facility for anyone in linguistics or related fields with interests in phonetics or phonology. It is run by a rotating lab director in consultation with an executive committee. The experimental facilities include extensive resources for the acoustic analysis of language, perceptual experiments, and articulatory study (currently ultrasound, dynamic and still palatography, and pressure and oral and nasal airflow). Technical support is provided by a programmer/tech position.
We offer an undergraduate introduction to phonetics course, Ling 3301, which focuses on the description of possible speech sounds, basic acoustics and a brief introduction to a wide range of related topics, as well as a graduate level two-course phonetics sequence (Ling 4419-4420) which provides a solid grounds in the acoustics of human speech and experimental methodology. This is complemented by advanced courses including seminars in phonetics or phonology/phonetics and a course offered in alternate years on speech synthesis (Ling 6648).
In addition to regular departmental colloquia by phoneticians and interface researchers, the weekly meetings of Ph2, a research group of students and faculty in phonetics and phonology, is an important forum for sharing ideas about recent literature and presenting work in progress.
