New paper out w/ Pat Strycharczuk & @samkirkham.bsky.social! Does the individuality of formant dynamics have a basis in articulatory strategy? Forensic phonetics says yes, we went looking for evidence in English I-diphthongs. Link: doi.org/10.1121/10.0... PDF: justinjhlo.github.io/publication/...

Congratulations, Dr Fairclough! Lois passed her viva with minor revisions earlier this week. Lois’ thesis is on “Evaluating sources of variability in formant-based speaker discrimination”. Her examiners were Kirsty McDougall (Cambridge) and @justinjhlo.bsky.social.

Our own Prof Claire Nance of @lancslinguistics.bsky.social was on BBC Breakfast this morning talking about changes to local accents, including here in Lancaster 🗣️💬 Watch the segment now from 1hr 50m, or look out for her on BBC North West Tonight this evening!

Breakfast - 14/04/2026

The latest news, sport, business and weather from the BBC's Breakfast team.

bbc.co.uk

We’re looking for a new colleague!

theconversation.com/amanda-seyfr... A really good piece here from Danielle Turton on recreation of historical accents and why the choices of accents and features matter, especially when they're 'regional' rather than RP.

Amanda Seyfried nails bits of the 1700s Manchester accent in The Testament of Ann Lee – a linguist explains how we know

The accent has been distracting for some because it sounds different to modern Mancunians.

theconversation.com

Last week @clrnance.bsky.social was on BBC Radio Lancashire and Radio Cumbria talking about rhoticity and accent change. If you’re in the UK, you can still catch up on the segment! Link on: phoneticslab.github.io/general/2026...

Journal of Sociolinguistics@jslx.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Fancy some weekend reading on historical sociolinguistics? Check out our latest #earlyview paper by Claire Nance and Malika Mahamdi on accent change and derhoticisation in post-Industrial Revolution Lancashire 🏭! 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New @phoneticslab.bsky.social paper from @clrnance.bsky.social!

Journal of Sociolinguistics@jslx.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Fancy some weekend reading on historical sociolinguistics? Check out our latest #earlyview paper by Claire Nance and Malika Mahamdi on accent change and derhoticisation in post-Industrial Revolution Lancashire 🏭! 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Plotting your spectral slices in R will soon be a lot easier!

Needed to take my daughter into work for a short time today so while there our amazing @phoneticslab.bsky.social let her ultrasound her tongue! She thought it was very, very cool.

We are very excited that Samuel Schmück has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship for a great project on speech analytics and under-represented language varieties in speech technology. Many congratulations Sam! @samschmueck.bsky.social @leverhulme.ac.uk

Sam Schmück awarded Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship - Lancaster University

Congratulations to Sam Schmück for being awarded a highly prestigious Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship!

lancaster.ac.uk

We're looking forward to INTERSPEECH 2025!! @interspeech.bsky.social #Interspeech2025

New exciting tongue contour modelling methods of ultrasound data! stefanocoretta.github.io/mv_uti/

As part of the #ViTraLiP transnational course, our virtual guest was @samkirkham.bsky.social from Lancaster University. During our exchange in #Paris, we were able to attend his talk at the #SRPP colloquium. Thanks to @lppparis.bsky.social for inviting us! Read more here: tinyurl.com/vitralip.

2. Nosey: Open-source hardware for acoustic nasalance - led by PhD student Maya Dewhurst, with Jack Collins, Roy Alderton & Sam Kirkham (psst there's 3D printing in there)

We've got 2 papers accepted to #Interspeech2025 (although you'll only see my collaborators and not me at Rotterdam 🥲): 1. Articulatory strategy in vowel production as a basis for speaker discrimination - with Pat Strycharczuk & Sam Kirkham @phoneticslab.bsky.social @lancslinguistics.bsky.social

Hot off the press! My tutorial on ultrasound data collection & analysis is now out. Open Access. Part of a special issue in the Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan, with lots of other cool studies. Articulatory phonetics is going strong in Japan! www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/onse...

Quantifying Between-Speaker Variation in Ultrasound Tongue Imaging Data

This article outlines a quantitative, between-group comparison of tongue shapes using ultrasound tongue imaging, one of the vocal tract imaging techni …

jstage.jst.go.jp

We had a great time at Campus in the City last week, where hundreds of people engaged with our activities on beatboxing ultrasound, language escape rooms, gender representation in animated films, Lancashire accent quiz, nasal visualisation, and more!

Sam Kirkham Discovering dynamical laws for speech gestures https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.04849

We had a brilliant time at Lancaster University's public engagement festival, Campus in the City, yesterday! We engaged with 260 people in Morecambe with ultrasound, nasalance, accent quizzes, gender and language, and a grammar escape room! @lancslinguistics.bsky.social @phoneticslab.bsky.social

Great SRPP (@lppparis.bsky.social) talk on speech modelling by @samkirkham.bsky.social (@phoneticslab.bsky.social) 👅 A very clear overview of why we should care about modelling and the considerations that need to be made when creating new models. 🧠

New open access paper in Speech Communication on “nasal coarticulation in Lombard speech”: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... I argue that, in Lombard speech, coarticulatory vowel nasality falls amid a compressed range of nasalisation, but coarticulation is maintained @phoneticslab.bsky.social

Nasal coarticulation in Lombard speech

Speaking in noisy environments entails a multitude of adaptations to speech production. Such modifications are expected to reduce gestural overlap bet…

sciencedirect.com

It was my great privilege to give a talk yesterday at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, hosted by the Language Documentation Centre, Department of General and Indo-European Linguistics. @lancslinguistics.bsky.social @phoneticslab.bsky.social