I received my BA in Linguistics from the University of British Columbia,
and then completed my MA and PhD at the University of Arizona. I started
off my graduate studies as a formal phonologist, but then became interested
in evaluating formal theories experimentally, and started doing research
in the area of phonetics. Since then, I have settled on the phonetics-phonology
interface as my main area of interest. I wrote my dissertation on the phonetics and
phonology of intervocalic consonants in the Lheidli dialect of Dakelh (Carrier),
an Athapaskan language spoken in British Columbia. After finishing my PhD,
I returned to UBC as a post-doc to study the phonetic properties of glottalised
resonants in St’át’imcets (Lillooet), an Interior Salish
language also spoken in British Columbia. Currently, my research focuses on phonetic
variability, and the extent to which it is linguistically meaningful.
Here at the University of Victoria, I am the Director of the Linguistics Speech Research Lab and am continuing my work on glottalised
resonants in St’át’imcets, investigating which factors affect
their phonetic realisation (syllable position, stress, dialect, individual speaker, etc.).
My hope is to contribute to the growing body of work on phonetic variability and its
implications for models of phonetics and phonology.
Recent Works - click to view/hide
Selected Works
Recent Publications
Bird, S., M. Caldecott, F. Campbell, B. Gick & P. Shaw (2008). Oral-laryngeal timing in glottalized resonant. Journal of Phonetics 36, 492 -507.
Bird, S. (2008). An Exemplar Dynamic approach to language shift. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 53 (2/3), 1001-1012.
Bird, S. and B. Gick (2005). Field methods in phonetics. In K. Brown (ed), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition, Oxford: Elsevier, 1-5.
Gick, B., S. Bird and I. Wilson (2005). Techniques for field application of lingual ultrasound imaging. Journal of Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 19(6-7), 503-514.
Bird, S. (2004) Lheidli intervocalic consonants: Phonetic and morphological effects. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34(1), 69-91.
Bird, S. and M. Caldecott (2004). Glottal timing in St’át’imcets glottalised resonants: Linguistic or biomechanical? Proceedings of the Tenth Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, 328-333
Bird, S., M. Hammond, M. Amarillas, M. Jeffcoat, H. Harley, M. Miyashita, L. Moll, M.A.
Willie and O. Zepeda (2003). Web-based dictionaries for languages of the southwest US.
Literary and Linguistic Computing 17(4), 427-438.
Recent Presentations
Bird, S. (2007). "Exploring Pacific Northwest languages: New and exciting technologies and
findings." Workshop on new techniques in sound pattern research, Stanford University,
Palo Alto, June 14-15.
Bird, S. and J. Leonard (2007). "The universality of articulatory conflict-resolution: Evidence
from Salish languages" Canadian Linguistic Society. Saskatoon SK, May 26-29, 2007.
Bird, S. (2007). "Encoding variability: The case of laryngealized sonorants." Invited talk given at
WSCLA 12, Lethbridge AB, March 29-April 1.
Bird, S. (2006). "I say tom[ei]to, you asy tom[a]to: Representing phonetic variability in our
mental lexicon." Invited talk given at the Northwest Conference on Linguistics, Victoria
BC, February 17-18.
Bird, S. (2006). "Variable pronunciation of St’át’imcets glottalized resonant: Implications for
language documentation and teaching." Paper presented at SSILA, Albuquerque NM,
January 5-8.
Bird, S. and M. Caldecott (2005). "Patterns and timing of St’át’imcets glottalized resonant".
Paper presented at the 40th ICSNL, Musqeum BC, August 10-12.
Bird, S., L. Fais and J. Werker (2005). "The phonetic rhythm/syntax headedness connection:
Evidence from Tagalog." 149th meeting of the ASA, Vancouver BC, May 16-20.
Bird, S. & Gick, B. 2004. "Towards a systematic theory of language-specific phonetics and phonology". NAPhC3, Montreal, PQ.
Dissertation
Bird, S. 2002. The phonetics and phonology of Lheidli intervocalic consonants. Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ.
