Seminar | Levels of variation in coarticulation: From within the individual to across languages

Seminars / Lectures / Workshops

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Date

22 Apr 2026
Organiser

Department of English and Communication
Time

17:00 - 18:00
Venue

Online via Zoom

Speaker

Prof. Justin Lo

Summary

In speech, articulatory gestures of neighbouring sounds overlap and interact with one another. These coarticulatory effects, and how they are perceived by listeners, are fundamental to many models of sound change. Such accounts link cross-linguistic variation to coarticulatory variability on the level of individual speakers, although the precise role of coarticulation remains debated. A deeper understanding of the factors that govern the use of coarticulation will provide us with important insights into synchronic and diachronic variation of language and speech. In this talk, I present a series of studies that investigate how structural and environmental forces shape the production of nasal coarticulation on different levels. I first consider cross-linguistic variation of coarticulation in three languages (American English, German and French) and the role of phonological nasal–oral vowel contrast, before focusing on the case of English to examine dialectal variation and the implications for sound change. Finally, I take a closer look at variation within individual speakers, in a study that probes the effects of noise adaptation in Lombard speech on the production of nasal coarticulation.

Keynote Speaker

Prof. Justin Lo

Assistant Professor, Lancaster University, United Kingdom

Justin Lo is a Lecturer in Security and Protection Science based in Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University. He completed his PhD in Linguistics at the University of York and, before joining Lancaster, was a Research Fellow at University College London. He works at the intersection of phonetics, sociolinguistics, and forensic speech science, and has a broad interest in speech variation on the levels of languages, communities, and individuals. His work in forensic speech science has focused on questions related to multilingualism and voice identity, and now, an Academic co-Lead of the theme “Boundaries of Being” at Security Lancaster, he is particularly interested in exploring the interdisciplinary links between emerging technologies and voice identity.

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