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RESEARCH

"ᨸᩣ᩠ᨠᨯᩣ᩠ᨿᪧᩈᩥ᩠ᨷᨣᩣᩴᨪᩣ᩠ᩅᨣᩣᩴ ᨷᩢᨴᩮᩢ᩵ᩤᩉ᩠ᨾᩣ᩠ᨿᨶᩣᩴ᩶ᩉ᩠ᨾᩧᨠᨯᩣᩴᨲ᩠ᩅᩫ᪑" *

Alif Silpachai

Me analyzing speech sounds in September 2019. Photo by Yasin Karatay.

 

I do pronunciation and phonetic research. Within pronunciation, I try to find the most efficient way to help learners improve their perception of second-language segments and prosody using highly variable stimuli. My target second languages are primarily English, Mandarin, Thai, and Lao. Within phonetics, I investigate how linguistic context modulates consonant-induced pitch perturbation effects at vowel onset in a tone language.

* A Tai Lue (and Tai Khün?) proverb meaning "spoken words even if there are ten words or twenty words are not the same as one ink mark" (lit: speak-only-ten-word-twenty-word NEG-equal-mark-ink-black-CLF-one; Thai cognates: ปากดาย ๆ สิบคำซาวคำ บ่เท่าหมายน้ำหมึกดำตัว ๑). Notice how คำ rhymes with ดำ.

My interpretation from the perspective of a researcher: This is a warning to people who have amazing ideas but do not publish them. There probably have been many geniuses whose unpublished ideas we will never hear about.