LING 210 Science 2021 – Syllabus

Time and Location: MW 2:35 - 3:55 PM (see Zoom URL on myCourses) Instructor: Francisco Torreira [email protected] Office Hours: Tuesdays 3 - 5 PM or by appointment (see Zoom URL on myCourses)

This course introduces to speech science broadly construed—while there is considerable focus on phonetics and phonology, we will also includes lectures on lexical access, speech segmentation, and language and the . This course is new at McGill since Winter 2016, and was originally conceived of jointly by Meghan Clayards and Michael Wagner.

The Speech Chain:

Figure 1: speech chain

Image Source: Gick, Wilson & Harris 2013.

The course differs from higher-level and more specialized introductions to Speech Science taught at some other universities (or in the Speech Pathology program here at McGill) in being intended for students who have no prior knowledge of linguistics, so it is more introductory and much less technical. While the content is different, once source of inspiration for the course was Mark Huckvale’s nice Introduction to Speech Science at UCL, which I recommend to explore as well.

1 Course Description The course covers key concepts of speech science, including phonetics (, speech and production), fundamentals in the study of speech processing, speech development, and speech disorders, and introduces some basic methodologies of the field. Course Goals • Provide a basic introduction to and • Introduce some basic instrumental methods for analysis of speech • Introduce how experimental methods are used to study to a range of phenomena in speech communication • Illustrate some basics about how phonetic cues facilitate the segmentation of speech into words, and the segmentation of words into syntactic constituents (“parsing”) • Illustrate some basics about how language develops, and how language can “break down”" in various speech disorders. Learning Outcomes • Understanding terminology and concepts used in the phonetic description of speech • Familiarity with Concepts and methods used in the quantitative analysis of speech sounds • Elementary knowledge about speech and language disorders • Elementary knowledge of how speech varies across speakers, accents, & emotions Transferable Skills • Ability to make simplified phonetic transcriptions • Ability to make audio recordings of speech and visualize speech with and spectrograms • Ability to make some basic measurements in acoustic files • Ability to reason about linguistic analysis based on various types of evidence

Evaluation Assignments (40%): • There will be four Assignments. You will have to submit certain things for each assignment (e.g., recorded files), and the homeworks will also prepare you for the online quizzes. Quizzes (40%): • There will be four online Quizzes. These will consist of multiple choice questions testing knowledge from the course, and your ability to solve problems based on the corresponding assignment. • Each quiz/homework will be worth 15% (how much will be based on homework submission and how much based on in-class quiz will vary each time) Final project (20%): • This will be a short final project, which will require you to submit a 500 word ‘expert answer’ to a question of your choice • The final project will be due at the end of the day April 19, 2021. • You are encouraged to work in groups of up to three people on the project. • Instructions for the final project will be pposted on myCourses. • Your grade will be based on your presentation (5%) and your final submission (15%)

2 Course Logistics Website: The main portal for this course is the McGill myCourses site. Remote delivery • All lectures will be taught live via Zoom. Lectures will be recorded live, and posted on MyCourses. They will remain available throughout the semester. All Zoom links will be posted on myCourses. • All assignments and quizzes will be posted on myCourses. In order to accommodate students in different time zones, we will keep online quizzes open for 48 hours. • All course materials (e.g. lecture slides, conference handouts, supplementary readings) will be posted on myCourses as early as possible, and will remain available throughout the semester. • Instructor office hours will be held weekly online, and can be scheduled by appointment. Readings: We will not use a textbook in this class. Supplementary readings will be provided on myCourses. The quizzes in this class will be based on the readings as well as the lecture notes. Software: Everyone has to install the (free) speech analysis software Praat. Please install it on your computer as soon as possible. We will have a brief introductory tutorial in the early part of the class, but you are expected to familiarize yourself with the program more and figure out any problems you run into with the help function provided in the program.

McGill Policy Statements Course Work in French: In accord with McGill University’s Charter of Students’ Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be graded. Integrity: McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see http://www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/ for more information). Copyright: Instructor generated course materials (e.g., handouts, notes, summaries, exam questions, etc.) are protected by law and may not be copied or distributed in any form or in any medium without explicit permission of the instructor. Note that infringements of copyright can be subject to follow up by the University under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures.

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