Static palatography (L) and ultrasound imaging (R) with Year 7 students at The King's School in Macclesfield.
The students wrote about their experience for the school's blog.
Most students in secondary schools who are planning their University careers know very little about the field of linguistics or the scientific study of language. I'm interested in changing that, and I enjoy doing outreach work in schools to introduce students to some of the things that linguists are interested in.
If you are a teacher in a 6th form school in or near the Greater Manchester area, and you would like for me to come speak to your class, send me an email! The following are lectures I have already prepared and ready to go, but I'm happy to work with you to customise the format or content to the needs of your students. I can also do hands-on demonstrations of ultrasound tongue imaging, static palatography, and other aspects of phonetic science.
What do we know when we know a language? This a central question in the study of languages and linguistics. In this lecture, we'll look at what we know about the sounds of our languages, and how that knowledge can result in perceptual illusions --- including hearing vowels that aren't there!
Our knowledge of the languages we speak does't just surface in ordinary writing and speech --- some of the games we play with language can also be very revealing! In this lecture, we'll discuss diddly-infixation, which is characteristic of the speech of Ned Flanders (from The Simpsons), and what it can tell us about English speakers' knowledge of possible and impossible words.