Prof. Gerard Docherty
Professor of Phonetics & Dean of Research
- Email: g.j.docherty@ncl.ac.uk
- Telephone: 0191 222 5844
- Fax: 0191 222 6518
- Address: 1.6 KGVI
Research Interests
A common strand through all of my research work has been a focus on quantitative acoustic analysis of aspects of speech with a view to enhancing understanding of the nature of phonetic variability and its implications for phonetic theory. In particular, I am interested in determining how the phonetic performance of speakers is shaped by the various dimensions (physical, linguistic, cognitive and social) of spoken communication, with a view to developing theories which account for the systematic properties of speech in its social context. While much of my work has been focused on normal adult speakers, it is also the case that important theoretical insights can be achieved by investigation of the acquisition of speech sound patterning in children and by studying the nature of speech in populations of speakers with impaired speech production, and both of these areas have also had a significant presence in my research activity over the years.
Current Work
I have a number of projects under way or recently completed:
- Ineke Mennen , Felix Schaeffler, and I have recently completed a a project entitled “Cross-language differences in pitch range” funded by the UK Economic & Social Research Council. More details can be found on the project website. We're now writing up the results of this project for publication and preparing a follow-up grant application.
- Christian Langstrof, Paul Foulkes and I are developing a line of experimental work on the perceptual evaluation of sociophonetic variability (reported in our paper at the March 2008 BAAP Colloquium in Sheffield and in a poster at the July 2008 Labphon meeting in Wellington, NZ). We presented a paper on this work at the "Production, Perception, Attitude" Workshop which recently took place in Leuven (2-3 April 2009).
- I'm working with Dom Watt and Carmen Llamas on a new project entitled "Linguistic variation and national identities on the Scottish/English border". This project kicked off in January '08 and is funded by ESRC for three years. More details can be found on the project website.
- In 2006 I had an all-too-short two-month visit to the Linguistics Department at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand where I worked with and learned a lot from the staff and students based there who are working on sociophonetic variation in NZ English. I'm now doing some follow-on work with Jen Hay and Alex D'Arcy.
- I'm doing some pilot work exploring the role of prosodic factors in determining patterns of sociophonetic variation. I presented some of the initial findings at the 2007 ICPhS meeting in Saarbruecken.
With my colleagues Ghada Khattab, Isa Buchstaller and Karen Corrigan, I am co-organiser of the 2009 UK Language Variation & Change Conference which we are hosting here in Newcastle in September 2009.
Selected Publications
- Docherty, G.J. Speech in its natural habitat: accounting for social factors in phonetic variability. In: Jennifer Cole, Jose Ignacio Hualde, ed. Laboratory Phonology, IX. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007, pp. 1-35.
- Docherty, G.J, Foulkes, P, Tillotson, J. & Watt, D.J.L. (in press). On the scope of phonological learning : issues arising from socially-structured variation. In: Louis Goldstein, D. H. Whalen, Catherine T. Best, ed. Laboratory Phonology 8. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006, pp. 393-421.
- Foulkes, P. & Docherty, G.J. The social life of phonetics and phonology. Journal of Phonetics 2006, 34(4), 409-438.
- Docherty, G.J. & Foulkes, P. Glottal variants of /t/ in the Tyneside variety of English. In: William J. Hardcastle, Janet Mackenzie Beck, ed. A Figure of Speech : A Festschrift for John Laver. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc,US, 2005, pp. 173-199.
- Foulkes, P, Docherty, G.J. & Watt, D.J.L. PHONOLOGICAL VARIATION IN CHILD-DIRECTED SPEECH. Language 2005, 81(1), 177-206.
- Docherty, G.J. Commentary on papers by Remez, Goldinger/Azuma, and Local. Journal of Phonetics 2003, 31(3-4), 341-344.
Projects
- Phonological acquisition in multilingual settings: the case of Lebanese Arabic
Project Leaders: Ghada Khattab
This is a 3-year ESRC-funded research project under the First Grant Scheme
Research Roles
From 1999-2007 I was Editor of the Journal of Phonetics.
Postgraduate Supervision
I currently supervise the following graduate students:
Alison Tickle,
Shahidi Hamid,
Mirjana Sokolovic,
Isao Hara,
Aslyn Wan,
John Atkinson.
My former graduate students are Anja Lowit-Leuschel,
Fernando Jarabo-Lorenzo, Paul Carding,
Dom Watt.
Roles and Responsibilities
Professor of Phonetics
Dean of Research, Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences