The widespread availability of economical, digital technology is changing how society views machines and communication. In the future, work in speech recognition and analysis will be an essential component of person-machine interaction. Thus, in the coming years, successful phonetics scientists and engineers will need to understand and appreciate speech production and speech acoustics. Traditionally, engineers have had limited instruction in speech production, while those studying linguistics and speech production have had limited training in speech acoustics. This project addresses these needs by developing an undergraduate phonetics laboratory. The laboratory serves as the basis for three new courses: an introductory lecture course, an introductory laboratory course, and an upper-level undergraduate analysis course. A key feature of this project is the expansion of an existing collaboration with Haskell Indian Nations University. The Department of Speech-Language-Hearing has been operating the Native American Training Program (NATP) in collaboration with Haskell. This project builds on that collaboration by expanding instruction in basic science. In addition to cross-listing courses at both universities, this project is developing laboratory assignments that utilize both English and Native American language materials. These materials are being developed by NATP students working with faculty from the Department of Linguistics who have expertise in Native languages. This cross-cultural collaboration holds great promise for recruitment of Native American students into science-related careers.
