Song Jiang and Alexei Kochetov Publish on Mandarin rhotics!

Attendees of the 13th International Seminar on Speech Production, ISSP.

Song Jiang (left), PhD candidate at the Uoft Phonetics Lab, and Alexei Kochetov, Professor of Linguistics (right), recently published their work, Variability in the articulation of Beijing Mandarin rhotic vowels. 

Rhotic vowels are modified by the consonant /r/ - think "heard" and "bird".

Noticing that the "contextual and/or inter-speaker variability" of North American English rhotic vowels such as /ɹ/ and [ɚ] was widely documented, and that that of the Mandarin rhotic vowels, such as [ɚ, u˞], was less so, they set out to conduct an "extensive ultrasound investigation" of these rhotic vowels in Beijing Mandarin.

In fact, they were able to indicate a "greater than previously reported variability in the articulation of Beijing Mandarin rhotic vowels" by examining variation in tongue configuration, (retroflex or bunched) vocalic contexts, and reported greater similarity between rhotic vowels to rhotic vowels, than in rhotic and non-rhotic vowels.

This publication was presented as a poster on Wednesday, May 15th at the 13th International Seminar on Speech Production, (ISSP 2024) held this year in Autrans, France.

We are so proud of this momentous accomplishment, and congratulate them on their hard work. 

(All quotes from the paper's abstract, found in the link above.)