The Association for Laboratory Phonology is a non-profit professional society for researchers interested in the sound structure of language. It was founded to promote the scientific study of all aspects of

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

and

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

of oral and sign languages through scholarly exchange across disciplines and through the use of a hybrid methodology.Beckman, M. and J. Kingston ''Introduction.'' In J. Kingston and M. Beckman (eds.) ''Papers in Laboratory Phonology I: Between the Grammar and the Physics of Speech''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1–16. The founding and honorary members are Amalia Arvaniti, Mary Beckman, Cathi Best, Catherine Browman, Jennifer S. Cole, Mariapaola D'Imperio, Louis M. Goldstein,

José Ignacio Hualde José Ignacio Hualde is a Spanish linguist specializing in Basque linguistics and in Spanish synchronic and diachronic phonology, professor of linguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and in the Department of Linguistics, at the Un ...

, Patricia Keating, John Kingston, D.R. Ladd,

Peter Ladefoged Peter Nielsen Ladefoged ( , ; 17 September 1925 – 24 January 2006) was a British linguist and phonetician. He was Professor of Phonetics at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he taught from 1962 to 1991. His book '' A Course ...

, Janet Pierrehumbert, Caroline Smith, Paul Warren, and Douglas Whalen. The Association is an international body open to scholars world-wide, and currently has over 100 members. Since the Association's inception, the methodologies of laboratory phonology are emerging as the dominant approach to the study of sound systems in universities in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and many other locations. In this way, the success of the approach promoted by the Association for Laboratory Phonology can be attributed to its interdisciplinary nature: bridging

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

with

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

, etc., and defining the relationship between the cognitive and physical aspects of human speech as a question of

cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...

.Cohn, Abigail
''Phonology: An Appraisal of the Field in 2007''
Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. January 5, 2007. Anaheim, CA.

Meetings

The biennial Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon) brings together researchers across the many relevant disciplines to present work on the phonological patterns and structures of natural languages. All oral paper sessions are plenary, and are organized to promote discussion across the disciplines. Each session groups together invited and submitted talks on a conference theme and ends with a talk by an invited discussant followed by an open discussion by the entire conference audience. Since the second conference in 1989, there have also been one or more poster sessions, which also are plenary. Conferences generally have between four and six themes, which are broadly defined in order to bring together speakers and commentators from different disciplines and theoretical backgrounds.

Meeting Dates and Host Institutions

* 2022:

Hanyang University Hanyang University (HYU, ) is a Private university, private research university in Seoul and Ansan (ERICA campus), South Korea. ''Hanyang'' () derives from the Names of Seoul, former name of the capital Seoul used during the Joseon period. The u ...

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

(LabPhon 18) * 2020 (virtual):

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

LabPhon 17
* 2018:

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; ) is a public university, public research university in Lisbon, and Portugal's largest university. It was founded in 1911, but the university's present structure dates to the 2013 merger of the former Universit ...

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

LabPhon 16
* 2016:

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

, Ithaca, USA
LabPhon 15
* 2014:

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

LabPhon 14
* 2012:

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart () is a research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany with programs in civil, mechanical, ind ...

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

LabPhon 13
* 2010:

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; ) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, it is the state's second oldest university, a flagship university in th ...

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

, USA
LabPhon 12

Publications

The proceedings of the Conference on Laboratory Phonology were published as Papers in Laboratory Phonology by

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

from 1991 (Vol 1) to 2004 (Vol 6). Beginning with Vol 7, the series was renamed to Laboratory Phonology and published by

Mouton de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

. After the publication of Laboratory Phonology 10 in 2010, the book series was replaced by the journal Laboratory Phonology. The first six volumes of the journal were published by Mouton de Gruyter, and then starting with volume 7 in 2016, the journal moved to Ubiquity Press, to become an online-only, open-access publication. The journal encompasses the scientific study of the elements of oral language, their organization, their grammatical function, and their role in speech communication. Research questions and some of the methods addressed in the publications also extend naturally to the parallel investigation of manual signs as the encoding elements of

sign languages Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sig ...

Proceedings

*Papers in Laboratory Phonology Volume I: Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech *Papers in Laboratory Phonology Volume II: Gesture, Segment, Prosody *Papers in Laboratory Phonology Volume III: Phonological Structure and Phonetic Form *Papers in Laboratory Phonology Volume IV: Phonology and Phonetic Evidence *Papers in Laboratory Phonology Volume V: Acquisition and the Lexicon *Papers in Laboratory Phonology Volume VI: Phonetic Interpretation *Laboratory Phonology 7 *Laboratory Phonology 8 *Laboratory Phonology 9 *Laboratory Phonology 10

Executive Council

* Mariapaola D'Imperio, president (2018-2020) * Cynthia Clopper, vice-president (2018-2020) * Lisa Davidson, secretary (2016-2020) * Jeff Mielke, treasurer (2018-2022) * Mirjam Ernestus, ditor-in-chief of laboratory phonology (2018-2021) * Molly Babel, organizing committee LabPhon 17 (2018-2022) * Sónia Frota, organizing committee LabPhon 16 (2016-2020) * Sasha Calhoun, councilor-at-large (2018-2022) * Alexei Kochetov, councilor-at-large (2016-2020) * Janet Fletcher, councilor-at-large (2016-2020) * Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel, councilor-at-large (2016-2020)

References

External links

Association for Laboratory Phonology website

Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Association For Laboratory Phonology International professional associations Academic conferences Phonology Linguistic societies