Episode 35: Jane Setter
Jane Setter joins the show to talk accents, speech prosody, and her new book "Your Voice Speaks Volumes."
Jane is Professor of Phonetics at The University of Reading, UK. In addition to her new book, she is also co-editor of the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary and the Cambridge Handbook of Phonetics. Jane's research interests include speech prosody in children from atypical populations, teaching and learning English pronunciation, and features of the suprasegmental phonology of global varieties of English, such as Hong Kong and Malay speaker English.
In this episode, Jane dives into:
the influences that pushed her into a career in phonology
speech classes and how Margaret Thatcher learned to "unshrill" her voice
being the first phonetician invited to speak at the IATEFL conference
the why and how of (unconscious) linguistic judgement
the significance of four seconds in speech recognition
why television shows choose certain accents for certain roles
why men can't make their voices sound sexy
what it means to have a voice that doesn't represent who you are
More on Jane Setter:
Her book "Your Voice Speaks Volumes"
The Cambridge Book of Phonetics
Twitter: @janesetter
YouTube: Jane Setter
Email: j.e.setter@reading.ac.uk
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About Jane Setter
Jane Setter is Professor of Phonetics at The University of Reading, UK. Author of popular science book Your Voice Speaks Volumes (OUP) and co-editor of the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary and the Cambridge Handbook of Phonetics (both CUP), Jane's research interests include speech prosody in children from atypical populations, teaching and learning English pronunciation, and features of the suprasegmental phonology of global varieties of English, such as Hong Kong and Malay speaker English. A passionate advocate of working with students as partners in the higher education curriculum, she is a UK National Teaching Fellow, and a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE).
National Teaching Fellow and Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE), Jane is reviews editor of the Journal of the International Phonetic Association, on the editorial board of the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, and on the advisory panel of Babel: The Language Magazine. As of August 2019, she takes up membership of the Council of the International Phonetic Association (IPA). She is a regular contributor to the University College London Summer Course in English Phonetics; she has taught on the IPA Certificate Strand of this course, and has acted as an examiner for the IPA Certificate of Proficiency in the Phonetics of English.
Jane is School Director of Academic Tutoring and Departmental Examinations Officer. Her outreach activities include visiting schools to give talks to students, and organising and teaching on our INSET course for teachers of A level English Language. She has also run refresher courses in Grammar and Phonetics for Speech and Language Therapists with colleagues in the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences.
about “Your Voice Speaks Volumes”
Why do we speak the way we do, and what do our voices tell others about us? What is the truth behind the myths that surround how we speak? Jane Setter explores these and other fascinating questions in this engaging introduction to the power and the science of the voice.
The book first takes us on a tour of the sounds in our language and how we produce them, as well as how and why those sounds vary in different varieties of English. The origins of our vast range of accents are explained, along with the prejudices associated with them: why do we feel such loyalty to our own accent, and what's behind our attitudes to others? We learn that much of what we believe about how we speak may not be true: is it really the case, for instance, that only young people use 'uptalk', or that only women use vocal fry? Our voices can also be used as criminal evidence, and to help us wear different social and professional hats. Throughout the book, Professor Setter draws on examples from the media and from her own professional and personal experience, from her work on the provenance of the terrorist 'Jihadi John' to why the Rolling Stones sounded American.
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