Prof Valerie Hazan

Research summary

Prior to my retirement, most of my research has been concerned with speaker/listener interaction in speech communication, i.e. how speakers adapt the characteristics of their speech production to achieve effective communication in good and poor listening conditions. In a series of four ESRC-funded projects, we investigated the acoustic-phonetic characteristics of speaker-listener interactions in young adults, children with normal and impaired-hearing and older adults. The accent has been on ‘clear speech’ adaptations made in challenging communicative conditions.

I generally have an interest in issues of within- and between-speaker variability in speech perception and production and in the development of speech perception and production in typical and atypical populations.

I have also carried out research on speech perception in second-language learners, on the effectiveness of auditory-visual phonetic training and on audiovisual speech perception.

Collaborators

Prof. Outi Tuomainen (University of Potsdam, Germany)

Prof. Ann Bradlow (Northwestern University, USA))

Prof. Inga Holube (Jade University, Germany)

Profs Jeesun Kim and Chris Davis (University of Western Sydney, Australia)

Prof. Mary Rudner (Linkoping University, Sweden)

Teaching summary

Prior to my retirement, i taught sub-modules on speech sciences and speech perception, primarily to students on the MSc in Speech and Language Sciences programme (SLAN0005: Management of Communications 2: Speech and Hearing). These modules had an important laboratory component, as each teaching session included a practical element, which usually involved participating in a speech perception test and analysing the data, or doing some speech analysis.

Education

University of London

Doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy | 1986

University of Reading

Other higher degree, Master of Arts | 1980

University of Salford

First Degree, Bachelor of Science (Honours) | 1979

Publications

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