Cross linguistic patterns and the timing of speech and co-speech gesture
Speech is very often accompanied by body movements known as co-speech gestures, which can play a variety of different roles in language use and in language acquisition. We are primarily concerned with how gestures interact with speech prosody, including rhythmic and tonal/intonational aspects of language. We study this relationship using video data and computational tools in computer vision. Our work spans a number of languages, most recently several Niger-Congo languages spoken in Cameroon and Nigeria.
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Speech articulation: rhythm, tone, and the timing of articulatory gestures
Speech is a highly complex motor activity involving intricate coordination between articulators such as the tongue, jaw, lips, and teeth. We are interested in understanding the kinematic properties of speech and how they relate to aspects of phonological structure. We are also investigating how speech articulation interacts with other aspects of body movement, as in the use of co-speech gestures.
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Cross linguistic rhythm in speech
There is longstanding debate about whether speech is rhythmic in nature in a way similar to music. We investigate cross-cultural parallels in linguistic and musical structure as a way of trying to understand structural and evolutionary relationships between these two cognitive domains.
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