LSURC 25' - 2nd Place in Poster Presentation Q&A

Language Sciences is pleased to have supported the 8th Annual Language Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference (LSURC) that happened on February 28 and 1 March, 2025, lending a dynamic space for undergraduates to present their research and learn from each other. As the conference came to a fruitful close, we spoke with winners from different categories about their experiences.

This year's 2nd place for poster presentation went to Maddy Walter and Sabrina Luk who presented on The Effect of Musical Genre Expectations on Sung Accent Perception.

1. I’m curious to hear more about your research project. What inspired you to pursue this topic, and what have been some of your key findings?
    
   1. We were inspired to pursue this topic by our love for music and curiosity in why we hear many artists speak with a different accent than the one we perceive while they’re singing. This is a common question, but the existing literature focused on the production side of things, such as accent style-shifting, as well as the difficulty in perception of foreign accents in song. Therefore, to contribute to the existing literature, we asked: what type of information are we actually relying on when we perceive a singer’s accent in a song: phonetic speech information or musical genre cues? Across two phases of this investigation, we found that people are significantly more certain and accurate in their identification of a singer’s accent in the presence of musical cues. When we listen to a song and perceive a singer’s accent, we are not only listening to the sounds of their speech, but are also shaping our perception from our expectations of dialect based on the musical genre.  
       
2. I would love to know your thoughts on the LSURC experience. How did you find the event, and what do you think it means for undergraduate research at UBC?
    
   1. We found the LSURC experience to be valuable for both our research and our presentation skills. Our audience was broad, and we were able to receive varied, constructive feedback on our work. We made connections with members of the department and students at other schools researching similar topics. We think that having a conference like LSURC available to undergraduate students creates a fantastic opportunity to showcase their hard work and encourage their involvement in research. This is especially important for students who are preparing to present their work at other conferences.
       
3. Looking ahead, where do you see your research taking you in the next year or two?
    
   1. For all three undergraduate researchers on the current team for this project [Maddy Walter, Sydney Norris, and Sabrina Luk], our involvement began as a way to improve our graduate school applications, but it has also grown into a genuine passion for research. Looking ahead, we plan to publish our work as a manuscript in an accessible journal. We hope that others will continue to investigate the many further questions generated by our research while we begin our master’s programs
       
4. How do you think UBC can better support undergraduate research initiatives?
    
   1. While we recognize that this may not be feasible in all cases, we think that UBC could allocate more funding towards undergraduate research initiatives. The Linguistics Department at UBC could benefit from more funding to encourage undergraduate involvement in labs and to send students to conferences. 

Congratulations again to Maddy and Walter. To read our Q&As with other winners, please follow the links below:

1st place oral presentation: "Assessing Intuitions about Obviation in Learners of Anishinaabemowin" presented by Hope Trischuk 

Best poster presentation: "Laughing Ultrasound: Speech-like or it’s Own Behaviour?" presented by Victor Wong, Dayeon Choi, and Ragul Loganathan