RichardWrighthe or theyProfessor and Department Chairrawright@uw.edu(206) 616-2426GUG 414BOffice Hours: Winter 2021: Wednesdays 10-11 AM and by appointment (link available by email)Fields of Interest Acoustics and Psychoacoustics Austronesian Discourse Analysis Endangered Languages Machine Learning Perception and Cognition Phonetics Prosody Speech Speech Perception NeurophysiologyHearingBackground and ExperienceSummaryPhD 1996, University of California at Los AngelesProf. Wright is director of the Linguistic Phonetics Laboratory and Chair of the Department of Linguistics. His primary research interest is in understanding sources of systematic variation in the production and perception of language, and how it relates to language universals and language structure (i.e., Language), prosody, and discourse. As part of this research he is interested in describing the phonetics of endangered and under-described languages. His research contains translational components in speech technology and clinical applications related to hearing loss and perception under conditions of distortion. Websites: Bio on Phonetic Lab Website Research Selected: Projects and Grants Richard Wright, PI. Acoustic and Perceptual Effects of WDRC Amplification III - Adaptation to distortion Richard Wright, Mari Ostendorf, Co-PIs. Modeling Idiosyncrasies of Speech Prosody for Automatic Spoken Language Processing (Ongoing) Richard Wright, PI. Acoustic and Perceptual Effects of WDRC Amplification II Richard Wright, PI. Acoustic and Perceptual Effects of WDRC Amplification I Jeffrey Bilmes, Katrin Kirchhoff, Howard Chizeck, James Landay, Patrica Dowden, Richard Wright, Co-PIs. The Vocal Joystick. (Completed/published) Mari Ostendorf, Richard Wright, Gina Levow, Co-PIs. ATAROS Project: Automatic Tagging and Recognition of Stance. (Completed/published) Richard Wright, PI. PHOIBLE: Phonetics Information Base and Lexicon. (Completed/published) Selected: Publications, Journal Articles Souza, Pamela; Gallun, Frederick; Wright, Richard (2020). Contributions to speech-cue weighting in older adults with impaired hearing. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63, pp. 334–344. DOI:10.1044/2019_JSLHR-19-00176 Won Jong Ho, Tremblay Kelly, Clinard Christopher G., Wright Richard A., Sagi Elad, and Svirsky Mario (2016). The neural encoding of formant frequencies contributing to vowel identification in normal-hearing listeners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 139 (1), 1-11. DOI: 10.1121/1.4931909 Souza, P., Gehani, N., Wright, R., and McCloy, D. (2013). The advantage of knowing the talker, Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, Volume 24, Number 8, pp. 689-700. Selected: Publications Gina-Anne Levow, Valerie Freeman, Alena Hrynkevich, Mari Ostendorf, Richard Wright, Julian Chan, Yi Luan, Trang Tran. (2014) Recognition of Stance Strength and Polarity in Spontaneous Speech. In Proceedings of SLT-2014 (to appear). Research Advised: Undergraduate Honors Theses Li, Qiuyuan. "Prosodic Focus Shifting in Echo Questions Regarding Lexical Tones in Mandarin". Honors Thesis, U of Washington, 2017/2018. Castro, Lydia. "The Acoustics of Deceit". Honors Thesis, U of Washington, 2016/2017. Marina Oganyan. "Quantifying the Benefits of Infant Directed Speech." Honors Thesis, U of Washington, 2008/2009. Research Advised: Publications Freeman, Valerie (2014). Hyperarticulation as a signal of stance. Journal of Phonetics 45, 1-11. Research Advised: Graduate Dissertations McCloy, Daniel R. “Prosody, Intelligibility and Familiarity in Speech Perception.” Doctoral dissertation. University of Washington, 2013. Steven Moran. "Phonetics Information Base and Lexicon." Diss. U. of Washington, 2012. Kilanski, Kelley J. (2009). The Effects of Token Frequency and Phonological Neighborhood Density on Native and Non-Native English Speech Production. PhD Thesis. University of Washington Department of Linguistics. Seattle, WA, USA. Lesley Carmichael. "Situation-Based Intonation Pattern Distribution in a Corpus of American English." Diss. U of Washington, 2005. Setsuko, Shirai. "Lexical effects in Japanese vowel reduction." Diss. U of Washington, 2005. Research Advised: Graduate Masters Theses Valerie Freeman. "Using acoustic measures of hyperarticulation to quantify novelty and evaluation in a corpus of political talk shows." MA Thesis. U of Washington, 2010. Jessica Giesler. "A conflicting-cue study examining the relative strengths of consonant transition cues as affected by vowel, noise and position." MA Thesis. U of Washington, 2003/2004. (Completed/published) Sylvia Tur. "Perception of a non-native language contrast: voiced and voiceless stops as perceived by Tamil speakers." MA Thesis. U of Washington, 2003/2004. (Completed/published) Courses Taught Spring 2021 LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Winter 2021 LING 453 A: Experimental Phonetics LING 553 A: Experimental Phonetics LING 553 B: Experimental Phonetics LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Autumn 2020 LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Spring 2020 LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Winter 2020 LING 453 A: Experimental Phonetics - Course Website LING 553 A: Experimental Phonetics - Course Website LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Autumn 2019 LING 580 A: Problems in Linguistics LING 580 B: Problems in Linguistics LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Spring 2019 LING 200 A: Introduction to Linguistics LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Winter 2019 LING 453 A: Experimental Phonetics LING 553 A: Experimental Phonetics LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Autumn 2018 LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Spring 2018 LING 580 E: Problems in Linguistics LING 580 F: Problems in Linguistics LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Winter 2018 LING 453 A: Experimental Phonetics LING 553 A: Experimental Phonetics LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Autumn 2017 LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Spring 2017 LING 453 A: Experimental Phonetics - Course Website LING 553 A: Experimental Phonetics - Course Website LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Winter 2017 LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Autumn 2016 LING 580 E: Problems In Linguistics - Course Website LING 580 F: Problems In Linguistics - Course Website LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Spring 2016 LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium LING 599 B: Linguistics Colloquium Winter 2016 LING 453 A: Experimental Phonetics - Course Website LING 553 A: Experimental Phonetics LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Autumn 2015 LING 599 A: Linguistics Colloquium Winter 2015 LING 450 A: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 453 A: Experimental Phonetics - Course Website LING 550 A: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 553 A: Experimental Phonetics - Course Website Autumn 2014 LING 450 A: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 550 A: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 550 B: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 550 C: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 580 E: Problems In Linguistics - Course Website LING 580 F: Problems In Linguistics - Course Website Winter 2014 LING 450 A: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 453 A: Experimental Phonetics - Course Website LING 550 A: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 550 B: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 553 A: Experimental Phonetics - Course Website Autumn 2013 LING 450 A: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 550 A: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 550 B: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 550 C: Introduction To Linguistic Phonetics - Course Website LING 580 A: Problems In Linguistics - Course Website LING 580 B: Problems In Linguistics - Course Website Related News Related News Featured Alumnus: Steve Moran - Feb 19, 2021 Faculty News - Feb 19, 2021 Message from Chair Richard Wright - Oct 2, 2020 PhD Candidate Laura Panfili defends her dissertation - May 19, 2018 Esther Le Grézause Defends Dissertation Entitled "Um and Uh, and the Expression of Stance in Conversational Speech" - Aug 15, 2017 Congratulations Linguistics PhD Graduate Rachael Tatman! - Aug 10, 2017 The 24th Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA) - Oct 8, 2016 Colloquium in Honor of Prof. Ellen Kaisse on May 6 in Petersen Room - Apr 25, 2016 Tibusungu Vayayana and Richard Wright present talk on Tsou language of Taiwan at "Language Shift in the Sinophone World" Workshop - Nov 13, 2015 Julia Herschensohn completes 15-year term as Chair of Linguistics on June 30th - Jun 24, 2015 Alicia Beckford Wassink gives Invited Plenary Address at Linguistics Society of America's annual meeting in Portland - Dec 15, 2014 UW Linguistics PhD candidate's poster featured in ASA, AIP press release - Dec 4, 2014 AffiliationsAffiliated Departments: Arts & SciencesHumanitiesLinguisticsSpeech & Hearing SciencesProfessional Affiliations: Acoustical Society of America, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Association for Laboratory Phonology, International Phonetic Association, Linguistic Society of America Share: Print PDF