A New Experimental Phonetics Laboratory

Abstract

WITH the advent of the talking film, the recording of speech has recently received considerable attention, but, as at the time of the invention of the phonograph, more interest is shown in commercial circles in the entertainment possibilities of the new electrical methods of speech recording and reproduction. In experimental phonetics the older mechanical methods still predominate. At Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with the support of Prof. W. E. Curtis and Prof. W. L. Renwick, an investigation was undertaken by Mr. R. O. L. Curry, Noble Memorial Scholar, of the available methods of speech-recording, with the object of seeing how far these were suitable for classifying speech sounds, particularly those of local dialects. The work of making and testing different types of apparatus has been so successful that the Council of the College, mindful of the importance of the investigation, has granted space in a newly-acquired building for a phonetics laboratory to house the apparatus, and in which records may be taken under conditions free from noise and vibration.