Chandan R. Narayan Assistant Professor of Linguistics University of Toronto Scarborough and University of Toronto, St. George     Center for French and Linguistics 1265 Military Trail, Rm. SW427G Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4   Department of Linguistics Sidney Smith Hall, 4th Floor, 100 St. George Street Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3   chandan dot narayan at utoronto dot ca

Research interests: 

• Acoustics of infant-directed speech in less-studied languages
• Speech perception and its role in the shape of phonological inventories and the directions of sound change
• Development of speech perception in infants and its intersection with emergent phonology
• Young children's contribution to sound change
• Linguistic effects on speaker discrimination (with Molly Babel)

Academic history:

Grants & Awards: 

• SSHRC Standard Research Grant (2009-2013, #410092742): "Contrast and enhancement in the Cross-linguistic Corpus of Infant-directed Speech (CCIDS)"
• Department of Humanities Startup Grant, University of Toronto Scarborough (2008)
• Horace H. Rackham Distinguished Dissertation Award, University of Michigan (2007)

Write me for a full copy of my CV

---

Some publications, manuscripts, and presentations:

1) "Developmental perspectives on phonological typology and sound change," (2013), In Origins of Sound Patterns, ed. A.C.L.Yu (Oxford University Press).

2) "Pitch affects voice onset time (VOT): A cross-lingusitic study" ICA/ASA 2013 (with Mary Bowden): Why the high pitches of infant-directed speech might result in short VOTs in long-lag stops

3) "Linguistic effects on talker discrimination: The effect of semantic cohesion" Talk at LabPhon13, Stuttgart, Germany.(with Molly Babel)

4) "Modeling laryngeal contrasts in Korean infant- and adult-directed speech," Talk at Acoustics Week in Canada, 2011.(with Tae-Jin Yoon and Derek Denis)

5) "Phonetic category cues in adult-directed speech: Evidence from three languages with distinct vowel characteristics"(2012). Psicologia, 33, 2, 175-207.(with Ferran Pons, Laurel Fais, and Janet Werker)

6) Talk at the Cognitive Science Speakers Series, York University, February 2011.

7) "Intersections between language acquisition and historical linguistics" Talk at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, January 2011.

8) "The fine-grained phonetics of mothers' speech" Talk at University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, Speech and Language Pathology, October 2010.

9) "The interaction between acoustic salience and language experience in developmental speech perception: Evidence from nasal place discrimination" (2010) Developmental Science, 13, 3, 407-420 (with Janet Werker and Pam Beddor)

10) "What language development in infants tells us about sound systems and change" Talk at University of Chicago, Linguistics, February 2010.

11) "Developmental perspectives on typology and sound change: Insights from infant speech perception and infant directed speech" Talk at SUNY-Buffalo, Linguistics, March 2009.

12) "The acoustics of [voice] in infant-directed speech and implications for phonological learning" Presented at the BUCLD33, November 1, 2008.

13) "Word-initial [voice] in infant- and adult-directed speech: Voice onset time and fundamental frequency" (under review)     

14) "Infant-directed speech, developmental speech perception and a window of opportunity for sound change" at the Department of Linguistics, Swarthmore College (April 2008)

15) "What babies teach us about language: The intersections of infant speech perception, phonological typology, and historical phonology," Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto (February 2008)

16) "The microprosody of [voice] in infant- and adult-directed speech" (with Kyle Gorman and Dan Swingley) at the symposium "Attention to cues and phonological categorization" (LSA 2008, Chicago)

17) "The acoustic-perceptual salience of nasal place contrasts" (2008) Journal of Phonetics, 36, (1), 191-217

18) "Applying perceptual methods to the study of phonetic variation and sound change," (2007, with Pam Beddor and Anthony Brasher), In Experimental Approaches to Phonology, eds. M.J. Solé, P.S. Beddor, and M. Ohala (Oxford University Press)

Current projects:

•  Phonetic characteristics of voicing in infant-directed English from large corpora
• The Cross-linguistic Corpus of Infant-Directed Speech: High-quality, longitudinal recordings of IDS in Tamil, Korean, and Filipino (SSHRC SRG)
•  Does conceptual development facilitate speech perception in infancy?

Teaching:

Fall 2008 - UTSC

1. LINA01 - General Linguistics I : Undergraduate lecture course. An introduction to the various methods and theories of analyzing speech sounds, words, sentences and meanings, both in particular languages and language in general.
2. PLIC24 - Developmental Psycholinguistics: Undergraduate upper division course. Descriptions of children's pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar at various stages of learning their first language. Theories of the linguistic knowledge and cognitive processes that underlie and develop along with language learning.

Winter 2009 - UTStG & UTSC

1. PLIC15 - Introduction to Speech Perception (new course!): Undergraduate upper division course. An examination of the acoustics and perception of human speech. By looking at the acoustic properties of a variety of languages (including Tamil, Tagalog and First Nations languages), we will explore how people learn the peculiarities of their sound system and what this reveals about the nature of human speech perception.
2. LIN1250 - Topics in Speech Perception (new course!): Graduate seminar. This course is a seminar addressing the role of speech processing and misperception in historical sound change. The essential literature on the topic will be reviewed and discussed. Students will propose and write an introduction and outline basic methods for an experiment addressing a sound change and experimental approaches to its explanation.

Summer 2009 - UTStG

1. JLP315H1 - Language Acquisition : Undergraduate lecture course. Infants’ abilities at birth, prelinguistic development, the first words, phonological, syntactic and semantic development. Social variables influencing development of language, bilingualism, models of development, language play. (Given by the Departments of Linguistics and Psychology)

Summer 2010 - UTStG

1. LIN322 - Phonological Theory : Third year phonology course with an introduction to Optimality Theory.

Fall 2010 - UTSC

1. LINA01
2. PLIC24
3. PSYB20

---

Music | BibTeX | Multilevel modeling at Penn