Douglas N. Honorof

Senior Scientist, Haskins Laboratories
300 George Street, Ste. 900
New Haven, CT 06511

Phone: (203) 865-6163 x254
Fax: (203) 865-8963
Email: honorof @ haskins.yale.edu

Research

Theories of second language acquisition and second language learning tend to focus on guided, environmental or developmental processes largely internal to the learner. Sometimes such theories examine second language development in terms of linguistic structures themselves, evidencing learning by comparing learner behaviors to those of the ideal native speaker-hearer as a representative member of the idealized speech community. These approaches proceed from the assumption that language is an object with definable properties, and that linguistic performance is at best a window on linguistic competence.
            My research on acquisition of non-native sound systems explores an alternate view based in memories of stored identities. Rather than embracing the assumption of a competence-performance dichotomy, I posit coordinated patterns of speech behavior that are at once internally learned and externally performed masks which expose to the public both (fluid) group membership and (shifting) identity. This approach shares an important perspective with theories that attribute social value to linguistic units, but focuses less on the contrastive function of a linguistic form or its social value, and more on the process whereby the non-native speaker learns to play the role of an insider, most often without sacrificing his or her status as an outsider. The research program also addresses learnability and trainability issues as a function of the base state of the learner at the outset of learning.
            In pursuing this work, which is theoretically driven but subject to experimental falsification, I explore A2 acquisition by actors as a control group in order to isolate most confounding factors that have been shown to impede performance in acquisition of phonology (motivation, lexical access, bilingual grammatical interference, etc.). Findings are extended to the acquisition of L2 phonology.

Primary Languages Investigated

doctoral dissertation

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Honorof, D. N., & D. H. Whalen (2010) Identification of speaker sex from one vowel across a range of fundamental frequencies. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 128, pp. 3095–3104.[doi:10.1121/1.3488347] [Download]

Honorof, D. N. & L. B. Feldman (2006) The Chinese character in psycholinguistic research: Form, structure and the reader. In P. Li, L. H. Tan, E. Bates, & O. J. L. Tzeng, eds., The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics, Vol. 1: Chinese, pp. 195-208. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. [doi:10.2277/0521833337] [PDF]

Honorof, D. N. & D. H. Whalen (2005) Perception of pitch location within a speaker's F0 range. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 117(4), 2193-2200. [doi:10.1121/1.1841751] [Download]

Honorof, D. N. (2004) Articulatory events are given in advance. In Yngve, V. H. & Z. Wasik, eds., Hard-Science Linguistics, pp. 67-86. London, England: Continuum Press. [PDF]

Honorof, D. N. (2003) Reference vowels and lexical sets in accent acquisition. Voice & Speech Review 3: 106-122. [PDF]

Honorof, D. N., ed. (2000) Comma Gets a Cure by Jill McCullough and Barbara Somerville. [http://web.ku.edu/~idea/readings/comma.htm]

Invited Addresses and Colloquia

Honorof, D. N. (December 5, 2007). Invited colloquium: My voice or yours? Vocal imitation as memory–based exploration. CUNY Graduate Center Ph.D. Program in Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, New York, New York.

Romero, J. & Honorof, D. N. (Sept 18, 2004) Spirantization revisited. Presented orally by the first author at Second Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonetics & Phonology, Indiana University, Bloomington.

Honorof, D. N., C. Y.-C. Chang, K. Iskarous, M. K. Tiede, D. Ostry, & D. H. Whalen (September, 2003). Invited address: Mandarin /r/ as a grooved approximant: Reconstructed tongue shape data from MRI and OPTOTRAK-ultrasound synchronization. 36th International Meeting of Societas Linguistica Europaea, Lyon, France.

Browman, C., L. Goldstein, D. N. Honorof, A. Jebbour, & E. Selkirk (June 23-26, 1998). Invited Conference Address: Gestural organization underlying syllable structure in Tashlhiyt Berber. Presented orally by the fifth author at Current Trends in Phonology II, Royaumont, France.

Honorof, D. N. (May 13, 1998). Invited colloquium: Mimicry Effects in Adult Acquisition of L2 Targets. Department of Speech, Communication Sciences and Theatre, St. John's University, Jamaica, New York.

Honorof, D. N. (1995). Invited colloquium: Gestural parametrization of voice quality. Articulatory Phonology Workshop, Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, Connecticut.

Conferences: Other

Honorof, D. N., D. W. Coleman, & V. H. Yngve (July 31, 2004). Cognitive, social, and communicative opportunities in hard-science linguistics. 37th International Meeting of Societas Linguistica Europaea, Kristiansand, Norway.

Honorof, D. N. (August 3-9, 2003) Articulatory evidence for nasal de-occlusivization in Castilian. In M. J. Solé, D. Recasens & J. Romero, eds., Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 1759-1762. Causal Proceedings, Barcelona, Spain. [PDF]

Honorof, D. N. & D. H. Whalen (November 2003). Perception of relative location of F0 within the speaking range. 146th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Austin, Texas. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 114:2393(A).

Honorof, D.N. (August 1999) Effects of imitation on the articulation of challenging speech targets. In Proceedings of the XIVth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, pp.1141-1144. San Francisco, CA. [PDF]

Byrd, D., Browman, C. P., Goldstein, L. & D. Honorof (August 1999). EMMA and X-ray microbeam comparison. In Proceedings of the XIVth Congress of Phonetic Sciences, pp. 627-630. San Francisco, CA. Presented orally by the first author. (See also Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97:3365(A). [doi:10.1121/1.412700])

Kumada, M., F. Bell-Berti, & D. N. Honorof (1999). Comparing materials for the evaluation of symptom severity in the read speech of spasmodic dysphonia patients. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 105:1246(A). [doi:10.1121/1.425978]

Kumada, M., E. Mencl, K. R. Pugh, R. T. Constable, F. Bell-Berti, D. N. Honorof, & V. L. Gracco (1999). Brain function in spasmodic dysphonia: A functional MRI study. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 105:1247(A). [doi:10.1121/1.425983]

Honorof, D. N. & C. P. Browman (August 1995) The center or edge: How are consonant clusters organized with respect to the vowel? In K. Elenius & P. Branderud (Eds.), Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 3: 552-555. Stockholm, Sweden. [PDF]