Teaching phonetics to undergraduates at the University of Washington

Abstract

In 1993, the Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement Program of the National Science Foundation awarded $23,960 to the University of Washington (who provided matching funds) for phonetics facilities for undergraduate education. In accordance with NSF guidelines, a summary of the progress to date is presented here. Funds were used to purchase a DOS machine and a Macintosh, which run software including programs for signal processing, speech synthesis, statistics, word processing, and graphics. Also purchased were analog and digital tape recorders, a mixer, microphones, and other speech analysis equipment including a nasometer and an airflow meter. A sound-treated booth in which to do recordings and perception experiments has been built. This laboratory has enabled us to offer a comprehensive course in Linguistic Phonetics at the undergraduate level, and has allowed us to supplement the offerings of other courses. For example, undergraduates in the Dept. of Asian Studies learned about pronunciation in Japanese, students in the English Phonology and Morphology course learned about individual differences in the implementation of phonology, and students in the Language Acquisition course learned about the phonetic characteristics of ‘‘motherese.’’ There are plans for additional equipment which will enable us to teach students about speech perception as well.