Charles B. Chang (Professor of Linguistics) is the director of the PAMLab. His research interests are in phonetics and phonology, language acquisition (especially L2 and L3/Ln learning), and the psycholinguistics of bilingualism and multilingualism.
Meixian (Vicky) Li is a second-year PhD student in Chinese and Bilingual Studies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is working on a Hong Kong GRF-funded project with Profs. Yao Yao and Charles Chang examining the social meanings of creaky voice in Mandarin Chinese.
Jupitara Ray is a sixth-year PhD student in Linguistics at Boston University, broadly interested in phonetics and phonology, sociolinguistics, bi/multi-lingualism in the diasporic community, etc. A research fellow in the lab in Spring 2024, she is currently working on her dissertation examining phonetic accommodation and drift of Indian English speakers in India and the US.
Excellent people have collaborated with us over the years.
Many (94 so far!) undergraduate students, postgraduate students, and interns have joined us over the years.
We have been able to welcome some external researchers as well.
Published in Proceedings of the Seoul International Conference on Linguistics, 2006
Are all meanings of a homograph accessed even when only one is appropriate in context? Priming data collected in this study suggest…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2006). On activation and suppression in the dual-route model of reading: bass the fish or bass the guitar? In Proceedings of SICOL 2006: The Seoul International Conference on Linguistics (pp. 521–530). Seoul, South Korea: Linguistic Society of Korea.
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Published in Proceedings of the University of Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research, 2006
The well-described laryngeal system of Korean has most often been analyzed as a typologically unique contrast among three…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2006). Tense consonants in Korean revisited: A crosslinguistic perceptual study. In C. Chang, E. Dugarova, I. Theodoropoulou, E. Vilar Beltrán, & E. Wilford (Eds.), CamLing 2006: Proceedings of the 4th University of Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research (pp. 35–42). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Institute of Language Research.
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Published in LSO Working Papers in Linguistics, 2007
This study reexamines the typologically unusual three-way laryngeal contrast in Korean among ‘lenis’, ‘fortis’, and ‘aspirated’…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2007). Perspectives on the Korean laryngeal contrast from cross-linguistic perceptual similarity. LSO Working Papers in Linguistics, 7, 55–69.
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Published in Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2007
Acoustic analyses of normal voiced and whispered Mandarin Chinese reveal significant differences in duration and intensity among…
Recommended citation: Chang, C., & Yao, Y. (2007). Tone production in whispered Mandarin. In J. Trouvain & W. J. Barry (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 1085–1088). Dudweiler, Germany: Pirrot.
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Published in Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics, 2008
This study examined the production of the two-way laryngeal contrast in Korean sibilant fricatives in two experiments covering…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2008). The acoustics of Korean fricatives revisited. Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics, 12, 137–150.
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Published in Selected Proceedings of the Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics, 2008
This study of palatal production in Argentina confirms that there are three types of speakers (voicers, devoicers, and…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2008). Variation in palatal production in Buenos Aires Spanish. In M. Westmoreland and J. A. Thomas (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 54–63). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
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Published in Current Issues in Unity and Diversity of Languages, 2009
In recent years, building web-accessible dictionaries has become a new way of organizing and publishing data from linguistic fieldwork…
Recommended citation: Yao, Y., Chang, C. B., Katseff, S., Lee-Goldman, R., & Piqueras-Brunet, M. (2009). A web-accessible dictionary of Southeastern Pomo. In M. Pak (Ed.), Current issues in unity and diversity of languages (pp. 2824–2835). Seoul, South Korea: Linguistic Society of Korea.
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Published in Current Issues in Unity and Diversity of Languages, 2009
Previous research on language attrition has distinguished between internally and externally motivated change and between convergent…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2009). Convergence and divergence in language obsolescence. In M. Pak (Ed.), Current issues in unity and diversity of languages (pp. 933–952). Seoul, South Korea: Linguistic Society of Korea.
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Published in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 2009
This study investigated the production of five Mandarin and English sibilant fricatives by heritage speakers of Mandarin…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., Haynes, E. F., Yao, Y., & Rhodes, R. (2009). A tale of five fricatives: Consonantal contrast in heritage speakers of Mandarin. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 15(1), 37–43.
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Published in Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 2009
This paper provides a descriptive account of the main patterns found in the adaptation of English loanwords in Burmese…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2009). English loanword adaptation in Burmese. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 1, 77–94.
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Published in Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 2009
Previous research on language attrition has distinguished between internally and externally motivated change and between convergent…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2009). The status of voicing and aspiration as cues to Korean laryngeal contrast. In M. Elliott, J. Kirby, O. Sawada, E. Staraki, & S. Yoon (Eds.), Proceedings from the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society: The Main Session (pp. 31–45). Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.
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Published in Current Issues in Linguistic Interfaces, 2009
This paper investigates the nature and time course of phonetic drift in L1 by examining the very first weeks of…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2009). Short-term phonetic drift in an L2 immersion environment. In Y.-S. Kang, S.-W. Tang, C. Kim, J.-Y. Yoon, Y.-S. Kang, K.-A. Kim, H. Yoo, Y. Jang, & H.-K. Kang (Eds.), Current issues in linguistic interfaces, Volume 2 (pp. 31–46). Seoul, South Korea: Linguistic Society of Korea.
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Published in Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics, 2010
Research on how second-language (L2) learners acquire L2 laryngeal categories has focused on languages with “voiced” and “voiceless”…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2010). The implementation of laryngeal contrast in Korean as a Second Language. Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics, 13, 91–104.
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Published in Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 2010
In two experiments, we investigated the production of Mandarin and English by heritage speakers of Mandarin in comparison to native…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., Haynes, E. F., Yao, Y., & Rhodes, R. (2010). The phonetic space of phonological categories in heritage speakers of Mandarin. In M. Bane, J. Bueno, T. Grano, A. Grotberg, & Y. McNabb (Eds.), Proceedings from the 44th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society: The Main Session (pp. 31–45). Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.
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Published in Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech, 2010
Research on how second-language (L2) learners acquire L2 laryngeal categories has focused on languages with “voiced” and “voiceless”…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2010). Learning to produce a multidimensional laryngeal contrast. In K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, M. Wrembel, & M. Kul (Eds.), New Sounds 2010: Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech (pp. 89–94). Poznań, Poland: Adam Mickiewicz University.
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Published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2011
This study tested the hypothesis that heritage speakers of a minority language, due to their childhood experience with…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., Yao, Y., Haynes, E. F., & Rhodes, R. (2011). Production of phonetic and phonological contrast by heritage speakers of Mandarin. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 129(6), 3964–3980.
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Published in Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2011
Studies of proficient second-language (L2) learners have often noted phonetic drift of their native language (L1) vis-à-vis…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2011). Systemic drift of L1 vowels in novice L2 learners. In W.-S. Lee & E. Zee (Eds.), Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 428–431). Hong Kong, SAR: City University of Hong Kong.
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Published in Journal of Phonetics, 2012
Despite abundant evidence of malleability in speech production, previous studies of the effects of late second-language learning…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2012). Rapid and multifaceted effects of second-language learning on first-language speech production. Journal of Phonetics, 40(2), 249–268.
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Published in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2012
Following phonological and phonetic models of loanword adaptation, I present evidence from Burmese in favor of an intermediate model…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2012). Phonetics vs. phonology in loanword adaptation: Revisiting the role of the bilingual. In S. Berson, A. Bratkievich, D. Bruhn, A. Campbell, R. Escamilla, A. Giovine, L. Newbold, M. Perez, M. Piqueras-Brunet, & R. Rhomieux (Eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Information Structure (pp. 61–72). Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
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Published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2012
Phonological transfer from the native language is a common problem for non-native speakers that has repeatedly been shown to result…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., & Mishler, A. (2012). Evidence for language transfer leading to a perceptual advantage for non-native listeners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 132(4), 2700–2710.
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Published in Korean Linguistics, 2013
This article presents new data on the contrast between the two voiceless coronal fricatives of Korean, variously described…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2013). The production and perception of coronal fricatives in Seoul Korean: The case for a fourth laryngeal category. Korean Linguistics, 15(1), 7–49.
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Published in Journal of Phonetics, 2013
Previous findings on adult second-language (L2) learners showed systematic phonetic changes in their production of the…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2013). A novelty effect in phonetic drift of the native language. Journal of Phonetics, 41(6), 520–533.
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Published in Journal of Educational Psychology, 2014
In previous studies of homework in core academic subjects, positive student attitudes toward homework were linked to higher…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., Wall, D., Tare, M., Golonka, E., & Vatz, K. (2014). Relationships of attitudes toward homework and time spent on homework to course outcomes: The case of foreign language learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(4), 1049–1065.
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Published in The Segment in Phonetics and Phonology, 2015
Although the general notion of “phonological similarity” has figured prominently in linguistic scholarship, the manner in which…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2015). Determining cross-linguistic phonological similarity between segments: The primacy of abstract aspects of similarity. In E. Raimy & C. E. Cairns (Eds.), The segment in phonetics and phonology (pp. 199–217). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Published in Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2015
Vowels tend to be reduced in words that are semantically predictable from context, an effect amenable to talker- or…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., & Fischer-Baum, S. (2015). The effect of semantic predictability on vowel production with pure word deafness. In The Scottish Consortium for ICPhS 2015 (Ed.), Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (paper number 0350). Glasgow, UK: University of Glasgow.
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Published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2015
Studies of lexical tone learning generally focus on monosyllabic contexts, while reports of phonetic learning benefits…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., & Bowles, A. R. (2015). Context effects on second-language learning of tonal contrasts. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 138(6), 3703–3716.
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Published in Language Learning, 2016
Tone languages such as Mandarin use voice pitch to signal lexical contrasts, presenting a challenge for second/foreign language…
Recommended citation: Bowles, A. R., Chang, C. B., & Karuzis, V. P. (2016). Pitch ability as an aptitude for tone learning. Language Learning, 66(4), 774–808.
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Published in Heritage Language Journal, 2016
In previous work examining heritage language phonology, heritage speakers have often patterned differently from native speakers…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., & Yao, Y. (2016). Toward an understanding of heritage prosody: Acoustic and perceptual properties of tone produced by heritage, native, and second language speakers of Mandarin. Heritage Language Journal, 13(2), 134–160.
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Published in Language, 2016
This study investigates the source and status of a recent sound change in Shanghainese (Wu, Sinitic) that has been…
Recommended citation: Yao, Y., & Chang, C. B. (2016). On the cognitive basis of contact-induced sound change: Vowel merger reversal in Shanghainese. Language, 92(2), 433–467.
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Published in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2016
Research on the linguistic knowledge of heritage speakers has been concerned primarily with the advantages conferred by…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2016). Bilingual perceptual benefits of experience with a heritage language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19(4), 791–809.
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Published in Language Learning, 2017
This study investigated how bilinguals’ perception of their first language (L1) differs according to…
Recommended citation: Ahn, S., Chang, C. B., DeKeyser, R., & Lee-Ellis, S. (2017). Age effects in first language attrition: Speech perception by Korean-English bilinguals. Language Learning, 67(3), 694–733.
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Published in Journal of Phonetics, 2018
One’s native language (L1) is known to influence the development of a nonnative language (L2) at multiple levels, but…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2018). Perceptual attention as the locus of transfer to nonnative speech perception. Journal of Phonetics, 68, 85–102.
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Published in Proceedings of the Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 2018
Research in second language acquisition suggests that objective performance-based assessments may provide more reliable and…
Recommended citation: Chan, I. L., & Chang, C. B. (2018). LEXTALE_CH: A quick, character-based proficiency test for Mandarin Chinese. In A. B. Bertolini & M. J. Kaplan (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 114–130). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
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Published in The Routledge Handbook of Phonetics, 2019
This chapter provides an overview of major theories and findings in the field of second language (L2) phonetics and…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2019). The phonetics of second language learning and bilingualism. In W. F. Katz & P. F. Assmann (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of phonetics (pp. 427–447). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
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Published in Journal of Phonetics, 2019
Linguistic studies focusing on monolinguals have often examined individuals with considerable experience using another…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2019). Language change and linguistic inquiry in a world of multicompetence: Sustained phonetic drift and its implications for behavioral linguistic research. Journal of Phonetics, 74, 96–113.
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Published in Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2019
This study examined the properties of neutral tone (T0) in Mandarin as produced by three groups…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., & Yao, Y. (2019). Production of neutral tone in Mandarin by heritage, native, and second language speakers. In S. Calhoun, P. Escudero, M. Tabain, & P. Warren (Eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 2291–2295). Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc.
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Published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2019
This study examined the role of acquisition order and crosslinguistic similarity in influencing transfer…
Recommended citation: Chan, I. L., & Chang, C. B. (2019). Perception of nonnative tonal contrasts by Mandarin-English and English-Mandarin sequential bilinguals. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 146(2), 956–972.
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Published in The Oxford Handbook of Language Attrition, 2019
This chapter provides an overview of research on the phonetic changes that occur in one’s native language (L1) due to…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2019). Phonetic drift. In M. S. Schmid & B. Köpke (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of language attrition (pp. 191–203). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
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Published in Languages, 2020
Perception of a nonnative language (L2) is known to be affected by crosslinguistic transfer from a listener’s native…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., & Kwon, S. (2020). The contributions of crosslinguistic influence and individual differences to nonnative speech perception. Languages, 5(4), 49.
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Published in The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, 2021
This chapter provides an overview of research on heritage language (HL) sound systems, with a focus on areas of…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B. (2021). Phonetics and phonology of heritage languages. In S. Montrul & M. Polinsky (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of heritage languages and linguistics (pp. 581–612). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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Published in PLoS ONE, 2021
Directional response biases due to a conceptual link between space and number, such as a left-to-right hand bias for…
Recommended citation: Lopiccolo, D., & Chang, C. B. (2021). Cultural factors weaken but do not reverse left-to-right spatial biases in numerosity processing: Data from Arabic and English monoliterates and Arabic-English biliterates. PLoS ONE, 16(12), e0261146.
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Published in Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 2022
The present study examined sociophonetic variation in a small sample of Asian Americans in Boston, Massachusetts…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., & Dionne, D. (2022). Unity and diversity in Asian American language variation: Data from Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese Americans. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 46, 060002.
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Published in JASA Express Letters, 2022
Alcohol intoxication is known to affect pitch variability in non-tonal languages. In this study…
Recommended citation: Tang, K., Chang, C. B., Green, S., Bao, K. X., Hindley, M., Kim, Y. S., & Nevins, A. (2022). Intoxication and pitch control in tonal and non-tonal language speakers. JASA Express Letters, 2(6), 065202.
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Published in Applied Linguistics, 2022
The lexicon of emotion words is fundamental to interpersonal communication…
Recommended citation: Ahn, S., & Chang, C. B. (2022). Emotion word development in bilingual children living in majority and minority contexts. Applied Linguistics, 43(5), 845–866.
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Published in Languages, 2023
In this paper, we follow up on previous findings concerning first language (L1) perceptual attrition to examine the role…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., & Ahn, S. (2023). Examining the role of phoneme frequency in first language perceptual attrition. Languages, 8(1), 53.
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Published in Languages, 2023
In this paper, we follow up on previous findings concerning first language (L1) perceptual attrition to examine the role…
Recommended citation: Kellogg, J., & Chang, C. B. (2023). Exploring the onset of phonetic drift in voice onset time perception. Languages, 8(1), 78.
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Published in Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 2023
The current study examined the auditory identifiability of Asian American ethnoracial identity, including the role of…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., & Fraser, K. (2023). On the auditory identifiability of Asian American identity in speech: The role of listener background, sociolinguistic awareness, and language ideologies. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 8(1), 5558.
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Published in Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2023
Alcohol intoxication facilitates inhibition of one’s first language (L1) ego, which may lead to reduced individual differences…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., Tang, K., & Nevins, A. (2023). Individual differences in vowel compactness persist under intoxication across first and second languages. In R. Skarnitzl & J. Volín (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 1182–1186). Prague, Czechia: Guarant International.
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Published in L3 Development After the Initial State, 2023
While previous work on multilingual speech rhythm has found evidence of progressive cross-linguistic influence…
Recommended citation: Brown-Bousfield, M. M., & Chang, C. B. (2023). Regressive cross-linguistic influence in multilingual speech rhythm: The role of language similarity. In M. M. Brown-Bousfield, S. Flynn, & É. Fernández-Berkes (Eds.), L3 development after the initial state (pp. 49–71). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing.
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Published in The Phonetics and Phonology of Heritage Languages, 2024
This chapter takes an individual-differences perspective on the dual sound systems of American heritage speakers (HSs) of…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., & Yao, Y. (2024). An individual-differences perspective on variation in heritage Mandarin speakers. In R. Rao (Ed.), The phonetics and phonology of heritage languages (pp. 208–236). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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Published in Proceedings of the International Conference on Speech Prosody, 2024
While there is a growing literature on the social meanings of nonmodal voice qualities, most of the existing studies…
Recommended citation: Yao, Y., Li, M., Li, S., & Chang, C. B. (2024). Perceiving the social meanings of creaky voice in Mandarin Chinese. In Y. Chen, A. Chen & A. Arvaniti (Eds.), Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Speech Prosody (Speech Prosody 2024) (pp. 652–656). Leiden, The Netherlands: International Speech Communication Association.
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Published in Formal Approaches to Complexity in Heritage Language Grammars, 2024
Twi (Akan) and English can both express diminutive meaning using a morphological strategy (diminutive suffix) or…
Recommended citation: Kpogo, F., Kohut, A., & Chang, C. B. (2024). Expressing diminutive meaning in heritage Twi: The role of complexity and language-specific preferences. In M. Polinsky & M. T. Putnam (Eds.), Formal approaches to complexity in heritage language grammars (pp. 15–41). Berlin, Germany: Language Science Press.
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Published in The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology, 2024
This contribution presents an overview of what is currently known about phonetic and phonological first language (L1)…
Recommended citation: de Leeuw, E., & Chang, C. B. (2024). Phonetic and phonological L1 attrition and drift in bilingual speech. In M. Amengual (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of bilingual phonetics and phonology (pp. 721–745). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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Published in Journal of Phonetics, 2025
Achieving adult-like coarticulation, which relies on precise gestural coordination, is known to be…
Recommended citation: Kpogo, F., & Chang, C. B. (2025). Coarticulation and coordination in phonological development: Insights from children's and adults' production of complex–simplex stop contrasts in Gã. Journal of Phonetics, 108, 101378.
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Published in Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2025
Research in Heritage Speaker Bilingualism unites diverse methodological perspectives on heritage language research…
Recommended citation: Tseng, A., Chang, C. B., Leal, T., Lee, J. S., & López, B. G. (2025). Research in heritage speaker bilingualism: Theories, methods, and designs. New York, NY: Routledge.
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Published in TBA, 2025
To facilitate objective measures of proficiency for language users of diverse backgrounds, recent research in second language…
Recommended citation: Chang, C. B., Ahn, S., & Kim, Y. (under review). LexKO: A quick, reliable lexical test of Korean language proficiency.
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Listening study, Indiana University, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, 2025
Recruiting Mandarin Chinese learners for a listening study!
Listening study, Indiana University, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, 2025
Recruiting Chinese Americans (Mandarin heritage speakers) for a listening study!