PhD Speech and Language Sciences, School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences (HASS)
Email: y.li218@newcastle.ac.uk

Research Interests:

• Phonetics
• Phonology
• Prosody
• Psycholinguistics
• Second Language Acquisition
• Speech Perception
• Speech Processing

PhD Topic: Using First Language Transfer to Predict Effectiveness of Training for Second Language Tone Perception
Supervisors: Laurence White & Ghada Khattab

My research investigates the acquisition of L2 tones in Thai by listeners of diverse first language backgrounds, either L1s with different tonal systems (Mandarin and Cantonese) or a non-tonal L1 (English). The study will evaluate: a) the impact of L1 tonal status on L2 tonal development; b) whether the efficacy of two different tone-training methods depends on L1 background.