Dr. Allard Jongman

I am interested in understanding the processes involved in the comprehension of spoken language. I believe that this requires a thorough understanding of at least the following three areas: acoustic properties of speech sounds, the relation between phonetic representations and phonological organization, and the interpretation of the speech signal in perception. As a result, my research is inherently interdisciplinary: it involves the study of the physical characteristics of speech, the linguistic structure of language, and the perception of speech as it relates to the processing of speech and language as well as aspects of cognition in general. My research agenda critically seeks converging evidence from cross-linguistic studies and divergent populations.

While I work on a wide range of topics, much of my research seems to cluster around fricatives and lexical tone. I have extended my examination of both fricatives and tones to the domain of clear speech, that is, examining speech intelligibility under conditions involving enhanced (hyperarticulated or clarified) input resources.  I am currently extending my research on clear speech to the visual domain to determine if facial cues to either fricatives or tones are enhanced in clear speech as well.