Lisa Sullivan

SSHRC Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Linguistics

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Oklahoma State University
Email: lisa.sullivan10@okstate.edu

Research

Pre-velar /æ/-raising

Pre-velar /æ/-raising is a process in which some speakers raise /æ/ before /g/, but not /k/. This process appears to occur in Canada, as well as some areas of the US near the Canadian border such as the Pacific Northwest and the Northern Midwest. My research in this area focuses on the perception of this phenomenon and how it arises and in mapping its distribution across the US and Canada.

  • Sullivan, L. (2020). The production-perception link in phonologically-conditioned pre-velar/æ/-raising. Generals Paper 1. University of Toronto, Toronto ON. [unpublished manuscript] *Note: This manuscript incorrectly states that duration was manipulated. Duration was not manipulated. An unpublished follow-up study showed that the effects found in this study hold when duration is controlled for, though the size of the effect shrunk
  • Sullivan L. (2020). The production and perception of prevelar /æ/-raising by Canadian and American English speakers. Acoustics Virtually Everywhere: The 179th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. Online.
  • Sullivan, L. (2021). Beg, bag or bEYg? Reliability of self-reported /æg/-raising in North American English. Summer Phonetics/Phonology Forum 2021. University of Toronto, Online. [presentation]
  • Sullivan, L. (2022). BAG-raising in Ontario and Colorado. Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto Phonology/Phonetics Workshop 2022. University of Ottawa, Online. [presentation]
  • Sullivan, L. (2022). Pre-velar /æ/-raising in Ontario and Colorado English: Production, Perception and Metalinguistic Awareness. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto. Toronto, Ontario. [dissertation]
  • Sullivan, L. (2023). Hearing beg and bag: Variation in the perception of pre-velar /æ/-raising. In: Radek Skarnitzl & Jan Volín (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 501–505). Guarant International. [paper]
  • Sullivan, L. (accepted). Production of Pre-velar /æ/-Raising in Colorado and Ontario. American Speech.

Metalinguistic Awareness

Building on work from my dissertation, I attempt to quantify metalinguistic awareness using a variety of tasks, and to understand how different modes of Preston’s folk linguistic awareness are implicated in different tasks.

  • Sullivan, L. (2022). Pre-velar /æ/-raising in Ontario and Colorado English: Production, Perception and Metalinguistic Awareness. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto. Toronto, Ontario. [dissertation]
  • Sullivan, L. (2024). Quantifying (folk) metalinguistic awareness. Change and Variation in Canada 13. Université de Montréal. Montreal, Quebec. [slides]

Manitoba English

As part of the Languages in the Prairies Project, Nicole Rosen and I investigate the production of various vowel features of Canadian English, how they manifest in different regions in Manitoba, and how social factors impact the realization of those features

  • Sullivan, L. and Rosen, N. (2023). Vowel Patterning in Manitoba. Congrès annuel de l’Association canadienne de linguistique 2023 | 2023 annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association. York University. Toronto, Ontario. [poster]
  • Sullivan, L. and Rosen, N. (2023). Bag, ban and bang: /æ/-raising in the Interlake. Change and Variation in Canada 12. University of Toronto Mississauga. Toronto, Ontario. [presentation]
  • Rosen, N. and Sullivan, L. (2023). Front vowel patterning in the Interlake region of Manitoba, Canada. In: Radek Skarnitzl & Jan Volín (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 3641–3645). Guarant International. [paper]
  • Sullivan, L. and Rosen, N. (2024). /e/-/i/ overlap in Manitoba English. Congrès annuel de l’Association canadienne de linguistique 2023 | 2023 annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association. Carleton University. Ottawa, Ontario. [slides]

Gender-based sound symbolism in given names

With Yoonjung Kang, I investigated the relationship between the phonology of given names and their gender in English, French and Korean. Correlations between phonological factors and gender may be suggestive of a sound-symbolic relationship.

  • Sullivan, L. (2018). The phonology of gender in French and English given names. Summer Phonology Forum 2018. University of Toronto, Toronto ON. [presentation]
  • Sullivan, L. (2018). The phonology of gender in French and English given names. Forum Paper. University of Toronto, Toronto ON. [unpublished forum paper]
  • Sullivan, L. & Kang, Y. (2019). Phonology of gender in English and French given names. In Sasha Calhoun, Paola Escudero, Marija Tabain & Paul Warren (eds.) Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne Australia 2019. (pp. 2124-2128). Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc. [paper] [poster]
  • Sullivan, L. (2020). Universal and cross-linguistic gender-based sound symbolism in Korean given names. Generals Paper 2. University of Toronto, Toronto ON. [unpublished manuscript] [data]
  • Kang, Y. & Sullivan, L. (2021). Phonology of gender in Korean personal names. Korean Linguistics in Crosslinguistic Context. Cornell University, Online. [presentation]
  • Sullivan, L. & Kang, Y. (2023). Interacting sound symbolic patterns: The case of vowel sound symbolism in Korean given names. In: Radek Skarnitzl & Jan Volín (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 2144–2148). Guarant International. [paper]

Other Projects

  • Web-based (Online) Data Collection – Using web-based interfaces to conduct experiments and collect production and perception data
    • Sullivan, L. (2022). Participant error in online production data collection in Gorilla. Challenges for change: A crowd-sourced brainstorming session. Labphon 18 Satellite Workshop. Online. [presentation] [write-up]
  • Individual Differences in Phonetic Perception – Correlation between gender, AQ score and the perception of VOT in velar, alveolar and labial stops
    • Sullivan, L. (2019). The effect of cognitive processing style on the perceptual compensation of stop voicing for place of articulation. PsyLinCS UTM Workshop 2019. University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga ON. [poster]
  • Pedagogy – Training TAs to provide effective feedback on student writing
    • Sullivan, L., Vearncombe, E. and Sanders, N. (2021). Grading grading: Training for consistency, efficiency, and effectiveness in marking linguistics writing. Special Session on Pedagogy, Congrès annuel de l’Association canadienne de linguistique 2021 | 2021 annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association. Online. [presentation]
    • Doner, J., Sullivan, L., Melara, E. and Yawney, H. (to appear). Why aren’t we teaching writing?: The advantages of early explicit writing instruction in linguistics. Canadian Journal of Linguistics. Special issue on teaching and learning in linguistics (eds. Catherine Anderson, Margaret Grant, Nathan Sanders).