MSc Projects with Jo Verhoeven

General research interests

My research interests are:

• Tone and intonation,
• Regional variation in the phonetic characteristics of Belgian Dutch 
• Speech production disorders with specific emphasis on the relationship between Foreign Accent Syndrome, Dysarthria and Apraxia of speech.
• Dysprosody and the phonetic description of dysarthric speech.
   

Suggested MSc projects

• The devoicing of fricatives in English
  The English language system contrasts voiced and voiceless fricatives. This project investigates the presence/absence of vocal fold vibration as a cue to voicing in the English fricatives in a sample group of 20 speakers.
• An electropalatography study of dysarthria
  This project aims to investigate the articulatory characteristics of a specific type of dysarthria by means of electropalatography. This techniques allows for an objective measurement of various aspects of articulation and may contribute to a better insight in the speech problems of the dysarthria type under investigation.
• The phonetic characteristics of Foreign Accent Syndrome
  Foreign Accent Syndrome is a rare motor speech disorder in which the pronunciation characteristics of the patient are changed in such a way that the patient’s speech is recognized as foreign. This project aims to describe the pronunciation and language features of one specific patient.

Keywords

English phonetics, speech pathology