News
Dynamics of speech production
From June 7 to June 11, at the The São Paulo Symposium on Advanced Studies in Articulatory Phonology, young researchers in Brazil and abroad will have a unique opportunity to engage in intense dialogue with some of the leading international experts in all aspects of speech production (photo: Eduardo Cesar/FAPESP)
By Fábio de Castro
Agência FAPESP – The transdisciplinary field known as “articulatory phonology” (dynamics of speech production) is a cutting-edge area of knowledge that brings together researchers from fields as diverse as linguistics, engineering and psychology. From June 7 to June 11, young researchers working in articulatory phonology in Brazil and abroad will have a unique opportunity to engage in intense dialogue with some of the leading international experts in all aspects of speech production.
The São Paulo Symposium on Advanced Studies in Articulatory Phonology is being organized by the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp, State University at Campinas) Institute of Language Studies (ILS), in partnership with the University of São Paulo (USP) Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS). The event will be held at the IAS, located in the city of São Paulo.
Approximately 50 graduate students and postdoctoral students—30 from Brazil and 20 from abroad—will be selected to participate in the scheduled events, which include seven short courses, five lectures and three round tables. The symposium is sponsored by the Escola São Paulo de Ciência Avançada (ESPCA, São Paulo State Advanced Science Research Fund), a FAPESP funding mechanism introduced in October of 2009 under the heading of Research Grants: Organization of Meetings in Science or Technology. To date, six proposals have been approved for ESPCA funding.
The goal of the ESPCA is to create opportunities for researchers in the state of São Paulo to organize seminars and courses that involve the participation of international experts and that attract students or young postdoctoral fellows from other countries and regions, promoting interaction with local students and researchers, as well as stimulating debate on advanced scientific issues.
According to the coordinator of the event, Eleonora Albano, a professor at the ILS Laboratory of Phonetics and Psycholinguistics, articulatory phonology is an area of research that is grounded in the dynamical systems theory. This mathematical theory, created to deal with physics problems, has been adopted for use in many other areas of knowledge, such as economics, ecology and linguistics.
“Articulatory phonology addresses the relationship between the cognitive and physical aspects of speech from the perspective of dynamics. Speech is transmitted via all of the senses, and each of the articulatory gestures that constitute the functional segments of a language has its own timing and pace. Speech, like so many other systems, is organized in time. A dynamical systems approach allows speech production to be studied in all its stages and provides the tools needed in order to explain various phonetic and phonological phenomena, as well as linguistic phenomena in general,” Albano told FAPESP News.
According to Albano, linguists working from the dynamical systems perspective, who are in the minority, deal with a cutting-edge field of knowledge. “There have been many advances in this area, and there is a repressed demand for such knowledge in Brazil. Many researchers already familiar with the approach long for an opportunity to further their studies. That is what motivated us to submit our proposal to the ESPCA,” she said.
Brazil, where there are more than 200 spoken languages (including indigenous languages), is considered fertile ground for the advancement of articulatory phonology. “We want to give our young researchers the opportunity to interact with the international community, and, at the same time, we would like to attract talent from abroad and form strong bonds with groups working in other countries,” said Albano.
Albano also stated that six Brazilian professors and five professors from abroad will present courses or seminars at the event, and that others will take part in round tables. “The postgraduate and postdoctoral students will be given an overview of what is being done in the area in Brazil. The 50 selected participants will receive travel and accommodation vouchers. It will be a highly select group, and the level of activity will be intense. There will be a total of 40 course hours,” she said.
The selection will be made on the basis of a two-page abstract in English. Successful candidates will present their work in one of two poster sessions. “We ask the candidates to address issues related to our research program. Although they need not go into the theoretical details, they should, at a minimum, illuminate the issue from the perspective of dynamics,” Albano said.
According to Albano, the main Brazilian institutions involved with articulatory phonology are Unicamp, USP and the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG, Federal University of Minas Gerais), all of which will be represented at the symposium. There will also researchers from the University of Brasilia and the Federal University of São Carlos. Among the international participants, one of the standouts is Iskarous Khalil, of the Haskins Laboratory at Yale University.
“The Haskins Laboratory is an international center for research in the area. Dr. Khalil will present a seven-hour course that will include practical sessions with an application designed to simulate the dynamics of speech in any language,” said Albano.
Other international lecturers include Ioana Chitoran, Professor in the Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences Program at Dartmouth College, John Kingston, of the University of Massachusetts Department of Linguistics, and Alice Turk, of the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. In addition to participants in language-related areas, there will be representatives from various other fields, including César Ades, Professor of Psychology at USP and director of the IAS, who will give a lecture entitled “The Evolution of Primate Language”.
Program highlights
Neuroscience is another area in which the study of articulatory phonology is increasingly important. “Neuroscientists make use of a number of models that employ the framework of the dynamical systems theory. Certain advances in neuroscience and genetics indicate that the dynamical systems approach will eventually shed light on the communication systems that led to the development of human language,” said Albano.
At the symposium, Hani Yehia, of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the UFMG School of Engineering, will present a seminar entitled “Current Challenges in the Science of Speech”. According to Professor Albano, “Electrical engineering has contributed much to the science of speech. Professor Yehia develops mathematical models of dynamical processes, such as how facial movements are involved in auditory and visual communication.”
Osvaldo Oliveira Jr., of the Interinstitutional Center for Computational Linguistics, at the Federal University of São Carlos Institute of Physics, will give the course “Natural Language Processing: Challenges and Applications”. “Professor Oliveira will not lecture specifically about the dynamics of speech but will address the dynamics at work in other areas of language,” Albano said.
Professor Albano herself will present the seminar “Challenges in the Phonology of Brazilian Portuguese”. Thaïs Cristófaro-Silva, professor at the UFMG School of Literature, will speak on the topic of “Emergence in Phonological Acquisition”. In addition, a seminar on the theme “Crosstalk Between the Field and the Laboratory: Data, Models and Theories” will be hosted by the co-organizer of the event, Demolin Didier, a researcher in the Phonology Laboratory at the Free University of Brussels and adjunct professor at USP.
Additional courses featured at the symposium include “Task Dynamics: Theory and Practice”, “Topics in Articulatory Phonology”, “Kinematics of Articulation and the Framework of the Larynx, Vocal Tract and Face”, “The Speaker, the Listener and Articulatory Control”, “How the Timing of Speech Works” and “The Collection and Analysis of Phonetic Data”.
The program will also include roundtables on the following themes: “A Gestural Perspective on the Nasality of Brazilian Portuguese”; “A Gestural Perspective on the Interlingual Relationship Between English and Brazilian Portuguese”; and “A Gestural Perspective on the Acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese”.
Further information: www.dinafon.iel.unicamp.br