Sam Kirkham
Biographic Data
| ID | 158102 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sam Kirkham |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sam |
| FAMILY NAME | Kirkham |
| SIGNATURE | KIRKHAM S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lancaster University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4469-1512 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 45 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Discovering Dynamical Laws for Speech Gestures
A fundamental challenge in the cognitive sciences is discovering the dynamics that govern behavior. Take the example of spoken language, which is characterized by a highly variable and complex set of physical movements that map onto the small set of cognitive units that comprise language. What are the fundamental dynamical principles behind the movements that structure speech production? In this study, we discover models in the form of symbolic e…
Dimensionality Reduction in Lingual Articulation of Vowels: Evidence From Lax Vowels in Northern Anglo-English
There is a long-standing debate on the relevant articulatory dimensions for describing vowel production. In the absence of a theoretical or methodological consensus, different articulatory studies of vowels rely on different measures, which leads to lack of comparability between different sets of results. This paper addresses the problem of how to parametrise the tongue measurements relevant to vowels, obtained from midsagittal articulatory imagi…
Producing a smaller sound system: Acoustics and articulation of the subset scenario in Gaelic–English bilinguals
When a bilingual speaker has a larger linguistic sub-system in their L1 than their L2, how are L1 categories mapped to the smaller set of L2 categories? This article investigates this “subset scenario” (Escudero, 2005) through an analysis of laterals in highly proficient bilinguals (Scottish Gaelic L1, English L2). Gaelic has three lateral phonemes and English has one. We examine acoustics and articulation (using ultrasound tongue imaging) of lat…
Articulatory phonetics in the market: Combining public engagement with ultrasound data collection
This paper is a methodological contribution outlining an approach we have developed to recording ultrasound tongue imaging and audio research data as part of public engagement work. The paper is based on our experience of recording in East Lancashire, UK, at two such events as well as building on the work of other colleagues who have conducted similar projects. We have successfully managed to collect relevant articulatory research data while prov…
Towards a dynamical model of English vowels. Evidence from diphthongisation
Diphthongisation is gradient in Northern Anglo-English in acoustics and articulation. • Canonical diphthongs and some gradiently diphthongised vowels clearly show two component targets. • A two-target model for all long vowels captures the dynamic nature of diphthongisation across the vowel system. • A computational model with two-targets further predicts the empirical characteristics of vowel dynamics. Diphthong vowels exhibit a degree of inhere…
Phonetic typology and articulatory constraints: The realization of secondary articulations in Scottish Gaelic rhotics: Supplementary Material
Intonational Variation in the North-West of England: The Origins of a Rising Contour in Liverpool
This paper investigates intonation in the urban dialect of Liverpool, Scouse. Scouse is reported to be part of a group of dialects in the north of the UK where rising contours in declaratives are a traditional aspect of the dialect. This intonation is typologically unusual and has not been the subject of detailed previous research. Here, we present such an analysis in comparison with Manchester, a city less than 40 miles from Liverpool but with a…
Diachronic phonological asymmetries and the variable stability of synchronic contrast
This article aims to understand the development of diachronic asymmetries in phonological systems by evaluating the variability stability of synchronic contrasts. We focus on sonorant systems involving secondary palatalisation, grounded in the claim that palatalised laterals are more common than palatalised rhotics cross-linguistically. Our analysis reports acoustic and articulatory data on Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language with a large sonorant…
Phonetic typology and articulatory constraints: The realization of secondary articulations in Scottish Gaelic rhotics
Much progress has been made in the last 200 years with regard to understanding the origins and mechanisms of sound change. It is hypothesized that many sound changes originate in biomechanical constraints on speech production or in the misperception of sounds. These production and perception pressures explain a wide range of sound changes across the world's languages, yet we also know that sound change is not inevitable. For example, similar phon…
Acquiring allophonic structure and phonetic detail in a bilingual community: The production of laterals by Sylheti-English bilingual children
Aims and objectives: In this study, we consider the acquisition of allophonic contrast and phonetic detail in lateral consonants by second-generation Sylheti-English bilingual children in London, UK. Design/methodology/approach: Acoustic analysis was conducted on productions of /l/ by Sylheti bilingual children, Sylheti monolingual adults and English monolingual children. Data and analysis: Tokens of /l/ were elicited across initial, medial and f…
Ethnicity and phonetic variation in Sheffield English liquids
This article reports a study of acoustic phonetic variation between ethnic groups in the realisation of the British English liquids / l / and /ɹ/. Data are presented from ‘Anglo’ and ‘Asian’ native speakers of Sheffield English. Sheffield Anglo English is typically described as having ‘dark’ / l /, but there is some disagreement in the literature. British Asian speakers, on the other hand, are often described as producing much ‘clearer’ realisati…
An acoustic-articulatory study of bilingual vowel production: Advanced tongue root vowels in Twi and tense/lax vowels in Ghanaian English
Constructing multiculturalism at school: Negotiating tensions in talk about ethnic diversity
Recent trends in British education policy have led to an increased focus on promoting ethnic diversity in schools, as well as greater parental involvement in school choice. This combination has led some schools to actively market diversity as a selling point in order to attract more minority ethnic students, as well as attract White middle-class students seeking a more ‘diverse’ educational experience. This article analyses how students attending…
Constructing social meaning in political discourse: Phonetic variation and verb processes in Ed Miliband's speeches
This article investigates how variation across different levels of linguistic structure indexes ideological alignments in political talk. We analyse two political speeches by Ed Miliband, the former leader of the UK Labour Party, with a focus on the use of /t/-glottalling and the types of verb processes that co-occur with the pronouns we and you . We find substantial differences in the production of /t/ between the two speeches in words such as B…
Intersectionality and the social meanings of variation: Class, ethnicity, and social practice
This article examines how the social meanings of phonetic variation in a British adolescent community are influenced by a complex relationship between ethnicity, social class, and social practice. I focus on the realisation of the happy vowel in Sheffield English, which is reported to be a lax variant [ε̈] amongst working-class speakers but is undergoing change towards a tense variant [i] amongst middle-class speakers. I analyse the acoustic real…
Constructing social meaning in political discourse: Phonetic variation and verb processes in Ed Miliband's speeches
This article investigates how variation across different levels of linguistic structure indexes ideological alignments in political talk. We analyse two political speeches by Ed Miliband, the former leader of the UK Labour Party, with a focus on the use of /t/-glottalling and the types of verb processes that co-occur with the pronouns we and you . We find substantial differences in the production of /t/ between the two speeches in words such as B…
Ethnicity and phonetic variation in Sheffield English liquids
This article reports a study of acoustic phonetic variation between ethnic groups in the realisation of the British English liquids / l / and /ɹ/. Data are presented from ‘Anglo’ and ‘Asian’ native speakers of Sheffield English. Sheffield Anglo English is typically described as having ‘dark’ / l /, but there is some disagreement in the literature. British Asian speakers, on the other hand, are often described as producing much ‘clearer’ realisati…
Intersectionality and the social meanings of variation: Class, ethnicity, and social practice
This article examines how the social meanings of phonetic variation in a British adolescent community are influenced by a complex relationship between ethnicity, social class, and social practice. I focus on the realisation of the happy vowel in Sheffield English, which is reported to be a lax variant [ε̈] amongst working-class speakers but is undergoing change towards a tense variant [i] amongst middle-class speakers. I analyse the acoustic real…
Towards a dynamical model of English vowels. Evidence from diphthongisation
Diphthongisation is gradient in Northern Anglo-English in acoustics and articulation. • Canonical diphthongs and some gradiently diphthongised vowels clearly show two component targets. • A two-target model for all long vowels captures the dynamic nature of diphthongisation across the vowel system. • A computational model with two-targets further predicts the empirical characteristics of vowel dynamics. Diphthong vowels exhibit a degree of inhere…
Diachronic phonological asymmetries and the variable stability of synchronic contrast
This article aims to understand the development of diachronic asymmetries in phonological systems by evaluating the variability stability of synchronic contrasts. We focus on sonorant systems involving secondary palatalisation, grounded in the claim that palatalised laterals are more common than palatalised rhotics cross-linguistically. Our analysis reports acoustic and articulatory data on Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language with a large sonorant…
Constructing multiculturalism at school: Negotiating tensions in talk about ethnic diversity
Recent trends in British education policy have led to an increased focus on promoting ethnic diversity in schools, as well as greater parental involvement in school choice. This combination has led some schools to actively market diversity as a selling point in order to attract more minority ethnic students, as well as attract White middle-class students seeking a more ‘diverse’ educational experience. This article analyses how students attending…
Phonetic typology and articulatory constraints: The realization of secondary articulations in Scottish Gaelic rhotics
Much progress has been made in the last 200 years with regard to understanding the origins and mechanisms of sound change. It is hypothesized that many sound changes originate in biomechanical constraints on speech production or in the misperception of sounds. These production and perception pressures explain a wide range of sound changes across the world's languages, yet we also know that sound change is not inevitable. For example, similar phon…
An acoustic-articulatory study of bilingual vowel production: Advanced tongue root vowels in Twi and tense/lax vowels in Ghanaian English
Discovering Dynamical Laws for Speech Gestures
A fundamental challenge in the cognitive sciences is discovering the dynamics that govern behavior. Take the example of spoken language, which is characterized by a highly variable and complex set of physical movements that map onto the small set of cognitive units that comprise language. What are the fundamental dynamical principles behind the movements that structure speech production? In this study, we discover models in the form of symbolic e…
Dimensionality Reduction in Lingual Articulation of Vowels: Evidence From Lax Vowels in Northern Anglo-English
There is a long-standing debate on the relevant articulatory dimensions for describing vowel production. In the absence of a theoretical or methodological consensus, different articulatory studies of vowels rely on different measures, which leads to lack of comparability between different sets of results. This paper addresses the problem of how to parametrise the tongue measurements relevant to vowels, obtained from midsagittal articulatory imagi…
Intonational Variation in the North-West of England: The Origins of a Rising Contour in Liverpool
This paper investigates intonation in the urban dialect of Liverpool, Scouse. Scouse is reported to be part of a group of dialects in the north of the UK where rising contours in declaratives are a traditional aspect of the dialect. This intonation is typologically unusual and has not been the subject of detailed previous research. Here, we present such an analysis in comparison with Manchester, a city less than 40 miles from Liverpool but with a…
Intersectionality and the social meanings of variation: Class, ethnicity, and social practice
This article examines how the social meanings of phonetic variation in a British adolescent community are influenced by a complex relationship between ethnicity, social class, and social practice. I focus on the realisation of the happy vowel in Sheffield English, which is reported to be a lax variant [ε̈] amongst working-class speakers but is undergoing change towards a tense variant [i] amongst middle-class speakers. I analyse the acoustic real…
Constructing multiculturalism at school: Negotiating tensions in talk about ethnic diversity
Recent trends in British education policy have led to an increased focus on promoting ethnic diversity in schools, as well as greater parental involvement in school choice. This combination has led some schools to actively market diversity as a selling point in order to attract more minority ethnic students, as well as attract White middle-class students seeking a more ‘diverse’ educational experience. This article analyses how students attending…
Constructing social meaning in political discourse: Phonetic variation and verb processes in Ed Miliband's speeches
This article investigates how variation across different levels of linguistic structure indexes ideological alignments in political talk. We analyse two political speeches by Ed Miliband, the former leader of the UK Labour Party, with a focus on the use of /t/-glottalling and the types of verb processes that co-occur with the pronouns we and you . We find substantial differences in the production of /t/ between the two speeches in words such as B…
Ethnicity and phonetic variation in Sheffield English liquids
This article reports a study of acoustic phonetic variation between ethnic groups in the realisation of the British English liquids / l / and /ɹ/. Data are presented from ‘Anglo’ and ‘Asian’ native speakers of Sheffield English. Sheffield Anglo English is typically described as having ‘dark’ / l /, but there is some disagreement in the literature. British Asian speakers, on the other hand, are often described as producing much ‘clearer’ realisati…
An acoustic-articulatory study of bilingual vowel production: Advanced tongue root vowels in Twi and tense/lax vowels in Ghanaian English
Acquiring allophonic structure and phonetic detail in a bilingual community: The production of laterals by Sylheti-English bilingual children
Aims and objectives: In this study, we consider the acquisition of allophonic contrast and phonetic detail in lateral consonants by second-generation Sylheti-English bilingual children in London, UK. Design/methodology/approach: Acoustic analysis was conducted on productions of /l/ by Sylheti bilingual children, Sylheti monolingual adults and English monolingual children. Data and analysis: Tokens of /l/ were elicited across initial, medial and f…
Phonetic typology and articulatory constraints: The realization of secondary articulations in Scottish Gaelic rhotics: Supplementary Material
Intonational Variation in the North-West of England: The Origins of a Rising Contour in Liverpool
This paper investigates intonation in the urban dialect of Liverpool, Scouse. Scouse is reported to be part of a group of dialects in the north of the UK where rising contours in declaratives are a traditional aspect of the dialect. This intonation is typologically unusual and has not been the subject of detailed previous research. Here, we present such an analysis in comparison with Manchester, a city less than 40 miles from Liverpool but with a…
Diachronic phonological asymmetries and the variable stability of synchronic contrast
This article aims to understand the development of diachronic asymmetries in phonological systems by evaluating the variability stability of synchronic contrasts. We focus on sonorant systems involving secondary palatalisation, grounded in the claim that palatalised laterals are more common than palatalised rhotics cross-linguistically. Our analysis reports acoustic and articulatory data on Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language with a large sonorant…
Phonetic typology and articulatory constraints: The realization of secondary articulations in Scottish Gaelic rhotics
Much progress has been made in the last 200 years with regard to understanding the origins and mechanisms of sound change. It is hypothesized that many sound changes originate in biomechanical constraints on speech production or in the misperception of sounds. These production and perception pressures explain a wide range of sound changes across the world's languages, yet we also know that sound change is not inevitable. For example, similar phon…
Producing a smaller sound system: Acoustics and articulation of the subset scenario in Gaelic–English bilinguals
When a bilingual speaker has a larger linguistic sub-system in their L1 than their L2, how are L1 categories mapped to the smaller set of L2 categories? This article investigates this “subset scenario” (Escudero, 2005) through an analysis of laterals in highly proficient bilinguals (Scottish Gaelic L1, English L2). Gaelic has three lateral phonemes and English has one. We examine acoustics and articulation (using ultrasound tongue imaging) of lat…
Articulatory phonetics in the market: Combining public engagement with ultrasound data collection
This paper is a methodological contribution outlining an approach we have developed to recording ultrasound tongue imaging and audio research data as part of public engagement work. The paper is based on our experience of recording in East Lancashire, UK, at two such events as well as building on the work of other colleagues who have conducted similar projects. We have successfully managed to collect relevant articulatory research data while prov…
Towards a dynamical model of English vowels. Evidence from diphthongisation
Diphthongisation is gradient in Northern Anglo-English in acoustics and articulation. • Canonical diphthongs and some gradiently diphthongised vowels clearly show two component targets. • A two-target model for all long vowels captures the dynamic nature of diphthongisation across the vowel system. • A computational model with two-targets further predicts the empirical characteristics of vowel dynamics. Diphthong vowels exhibit a degree of inhere…
Discovering Dynamical Laws for Speech Gestures
A fundamental challenge in the cognitive sciences is discovering the dynamics that govern behavior. Take the example of spoken language, which is characterized by a highly variable and complex set of physical movements that map onto the small set of cognitive units that comprise language. What are the fundamental dynamical principles behind the movements that structure speech production? In this study, we discover models in the form of symbolic e…
Dimensionality Reduction in Lingual Articulation of Vowels: Evidence From Lax Vowels in Northern Anglo-English
There is a long-standing debate on the relevant articulatory dimensions for describing vowel production. In the absence of a theoretical or methodological consensus, different articulatory studies of vowels rely on different measures, which leads to lack of comparability between different sets of results. This paper addresses the problem of how to parametrise the tongue measurements relevant to vowels, obtained from midsagittal articulatory imagi…
Linguistic Variation and Morphology (13 works) · Linguistics (13 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Mathematics (7 works) · Speech recognition (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Sociology (5 works)