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Workshop 2: Prosody in Creole Languages: Acoustic Analyses and Typology (Dr Shelome Gooden et al)
The role of prosody in the formation of creole languages and the classifying of their prosodic systems is a relatively unexplored area of research. We know that there are creoles which have lexical tone, stress or a combination of both, but it is not clear how these features are distributed among the varieties since there are very few prosodic analyses available. The main goal of the workshop is to stimulate new research that includes acoustic-phonetic analyses and phonological data in order to shed light on the precise nature of the prosodic systems of Caribbean creoles. This will have the effect of broadening the number of analyses of prosodies of these languages as well as our understanding of the prosodic systems cross-linguistically. Students reading the Theory and Postgraduate courses should attend this workshop. Dates and times to be confirmed. Workshop space is limited. Please contact us at clli2008 (a) uwimona.edu.jm to indicate your interest and reserve a place.
| What | Creole prosodies |
|---|---|
| When |
July 19, 2008 05:00 AM
July 19, 2008 01:00 PM
July 19, 2008 from 09:00 am to 05:00 pm |
| Where | Ashcroft Computer Lab, Faculty of Humanities and Education (see below for directions) |
| Contact Name | Shelome Gooden |
| Contact Email | sgooden@pitt.edu |
| Attendees | Shelome Gooden (workshop convenor), Kathy-Ann Drayton (Trinidadian English Creole), Yolanda Rivera-Castillo (Papiamentu), Hubert Devonish (Berbice Dutch), students, academic staff, other researchers |
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The objectives of this workshop are to:
(1) review effective data collection methods for prosody research.
(2) equip researchers with basic phonetic skills needed to carry out acoustic phonetic analysis with the aid of computer software
(3) review challenges of working with spontaneous speech data as opposed to laboratory speech.
(4) introduce the Autosegmental Metrical framework of intonational phonology as a method of analysis of the intonation and prosodic constituent structure of spoken utterances.
The intellectual merit of this workshop lies in the exploration of speech data that will deepen our understanding of prosodic systems of Caribbean creoles and address issues related to their typology. The broader impact of this proposed workshop will result from extensions of prosodic analyses to new language data that will better facilitate comparisons across different creoles and with non-creole languages as well.
This task will be accomplished in three stages:
1) a pre-workshop effort to collect samples of spontaneous speech data and laboratory speech for use for hands-on training at the workshop
2) in the 3-day workshop participants will conduct mini analyses of speech samples, discuss the issues raised, and ratify proposed solutions where possible; and
3) a post-workshop summary of the analysis protocols and solutions to challenges.
While this is the very first such workshop for prosodic research in creole languages, similar workshops have been held for understudied or fieldwork languages. For example, one such workshop was a part of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS) meeting in Saarbrucken in August 2007. Similar to this workshop, the ICPhS workshop aimed to provide a forum for discussing the intonational phonology of languages whose prosodic systems have not been well studied.
PRE-WORKSHOP
SESSION 1
A. An overview of word prosodic systems (general)
B. Overview of word prosodic systems in Caribbean Creoles
SESSION 2
A. Towards typology: techniques and methodologies
B. Using Praat for Speech Analysis
SESSION 3
A. Data Analysis examples
B. Summary & moving forward
Websites
Praat
Workshop Convenor: Shelome Gooden
Shelome Gooden is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to this, she completed a BA in Linguistics at UWI, Mona and an MA and PhD at the Ohio State University. Her dissertation research was on the phonology and phonetics of Jamaican Creole reduplication. Her research currently focuses on the prosodic classification of Creole languages and intonational phonology of Afro-American varieties. Dr. Gooden has published on the phonological and phonetic properties of reduplication, stress in Jamaican Creole and on past tense marking in Belizean Creole.
Directions to Venue:
From the Library Car Park, go on to the footpath with the white picket fence and hedge. Facing away from KFC and Pages Restaurant, the Ashcroft Lab is housed in the first building on the left.
From the Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy, walk along the path towards the Library (not on the Library Spine), as if heading towards KFC and Pages. Ashcroft Lab is housed in the first building on the right, after the sculpture on the building on the right.