Fundamental to all linguistic analysis is the actual phonetic data of the spoken language. With the advent of the sound spectrograph and "visible speech", "ear phonetics" has become a thing of the past; the quantification of pitch, timbre, amplitude, and their variation over time is made possible by a variety of devices, some of which can also be employed to synthesize a speech signal. Undergraduates in linguistics need to acquire a facility with such devices, beginning with their earliest attempts to collect and interpret linguistic data. Core courses in which use of a speech analyzer will be heavy include elementary and acoustic phonetics, sociolinguistics, phonology, and linguistic field methods. In addition, the P.I. will be working with students on research in the analysis of how speakers of various languages encode sarcasm through intonational and other sub-phonemic means; the relative accessability and intrinsic interest of the project provide a unique and nearly ideal entry for the investigation of some fundamental issues, where relative novices can be expected to make original contributions to knowledge. The college will contribute an amount equal to the award.
