New Sounds 2025

Call for Papers

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to,

Theories and models of L2 speech learning

Speech perception and production

Phonetics and phonology in SLA

Sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic aspects of L2 speech learning

Multilingualism and the acquisition of additional languages

The effects of and best practices in pronunciation instruction & training

The use of technology for L2 speech research, instruction & training

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The organizers invite proposals involving original research for the following:

Doctoral Workshop Presentations: The Doctoral Workshop will take place on the Tuesday (April 22, 2025) preceding the main conference. This is an opportunity for PhD students to make a 15-minute presentation on their dissertation project (research problem, methodology) followed by 15 minutes of feedback from a discussant.

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Papers: 20-minute oral presentation followed by a 10-minute question period.

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Posters: A poster session will take place on two of the three days of the conference. Posters will be displayed and presented by their authors for the length of their session.

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Instructions for Submissions

Conference Submission Platform (Microsoft CMT):
https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/NewSounds2025/

Proposal formats are as follows:

Doctoral workshop presentation: a 300-word text + reference list outlining the research problem and methodology submitted via Microsoft CMT (https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/NewSounds2025/) by September 15, 2024 (midnight, Anywhere on Earth, UTC-12). Please select
Doctoral workshop as a secondary subject area when submitting your abstract. Please note that accepted presentations will need to be submitted two weeks prior to the workshop (by April 8, 2025) in order to provide discussants sufficient time to review & prepare feedback.

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Proposals for papers and posters (including papers within a thematic session): a 300-word text + reference list outlining the research problem, methodology, results, and contributions. All proposals will be assessed considering the following criteria: presence of a motivated research problem with links to previous research; methodological soundness; quality of the analysis including evidence of data having already been collected (authors should indicate the number of participants on which the analysis presented in the proposal is based); contribution to the field; appropriateness of the topic for the conference. These should be submitted via Microsoft CMT (https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/NewSounds2025/) by September 15, 2024 (midnight, Anywhere on Earth, UTC-12) and will be assessed via triple peer review. Oral presentations intended for a thematic session should indicate the thematic session as one of their secondary subject areas when uploading to CMT.

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Please note that the conference Microsoft CMT system will not be available for submissions before August 15, 2024. Notices of acceptance will be sent by December 15, 2024.

This is an in-person only conference and all presentations are to be in English.

Thematic sessions

Thematic sessions, including oral presentations and discussion, will be hosted on two of the three days of the conference.

The following four thematic sessions have been tentatively accepted to the conference, and will be included with the acceptance of a sufficient number of abstracts. Oral presentations for the thematic sessions should be submitted as abstracts on the CMT platform (see Call for Papers above).

• New Sounds and New Words: Connecting phonetic training and lexical development.
  Organizers: Miquel Llompart, Susana Correia, Patrick Rebuschat
  This thematic session aims to bridge the gap between two research areas that are central to the study of second language (L2) speech yet remain largely disconnected: phonetic training and lexical development. Most training methods are geared towards improving the identification and production of individual sounds, and are generally successful at that. Nevertheless, there is only limited evidence that training gains transfer to spoken word recognition or word learning abilities when these depend on the identification of the trained sounds. In a parallel manner, while there is a growing literature exploring how individual differences shape the evolution of L2 pre-lexical perception and production, less is known about the predictors of high attainment at the lexical level. This session intends to raise awareness of these asymmetries, stimulate scientific exchange across domains of expertise and, ideally, lay the foundations of future collaborative research efforts.
• The Phonology/Phonetics interface in L_n acquisition: insights from representational hierarchies.
  Organizer: John Archibald
  An understanding of the phonology/phonetics interface is critical to advancing explanations of L_n knowledge, production, perception, and development. This session will bring together junior and senior scholars working on a range of languages to explore the nature and content of phonological representations (particularly contrastive hierarchies, and the dimensions & gestures model) in diverse multilingual populations (L2, L3 and heritage), as well as how the phonetic system implements these phonological elements (e.g., the role of such constructs as markedness and enhancement), and how phonetic data (a) need to be described to understand phonological output, and (b) serve as the input to the learner in establishing new representations.
• Exploring Prosody in the multilingual context.
  Organizers: Julanta Sypiańska, Magdalena Wrembel
  Although research into third language acquisition of speech has been developing dynamically in recent years, L3 prosody has received limited attention to date. The few extant studies on prosodic elements in the multilingual acquisition have pertained to the production of intonational patterns (Grünke & Gabriel, 2022; Steien & Lyche, 2016; Zhu & Mok, 2016), speech rhythm (Domene Moreno & Kabak, 2023; Gabriel et al., 2022; Gut, 2010), pitch accent (Wu et al., 2024) and word stress (Ghazali & Bouchhioua, 2003). However, there is dearth of research on the perception of prosody by multilingual/L3 learners (but see Archibald, et al., 2024; Sypiańska et al. to be submitted). We would like to fill this research void and consolidate research in this subfield by offering a thematic session on selected aspects of multilingual prosody in both production and perception of speech.
• Speech Technologies for L2 Pronunciation Pedagogy and Assessment: Research, Applications, and Future Directions.
  Organizers: Walcir Cardoso & Paul John
  This session presents the latest research on three Artificial Intelligence-powered speech technologies that can enhance L2 pronunciation pedagogy: Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Text-to-Speech Synthesizers (TTS), and Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPAs). With increasingly natural-sounding TTS systems (Bione & Cardoso, 2020) and highly accurate speech recognition (McCrocklin & Edalatishams, 2020), these technologies enable lifelike interactions (e.g., Moussalli & Cardoso, 2019), providing feedback and interactive pronunciation practice, as well as exposure to variable phonetic input for high-variability phonetic training. In addition, these tools are pedagogically interesting because they can extend the reach of the classroom, enhance learner engagement and outcomes, and offer reliable pronunciation assessments. Our session showcases recent research on ASR, TTS and IPAs as tools for pronunciation instruction and assessment, discusses pedagogical implications and applications, and explores future research avenues in this rapidly evolving field.

Organizing Committee

Laura Colantoni	Department of Spanish & Portuguese, University of Toronto
Ewan Dunbar	Department of French, University of Toronto
Emily Elfner	Department of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, York University
Fatima Hamlaoui	Department of French, University of Toronto
Yoonjung Kang	Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto
Alexei Kochetov	Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto
Monika Molnar	Department of Speech Pathology, University of Toronto
Phil Monahan	Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto
Chandan Narayan	Department of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, York University
Yasaman Rafat	Department of Languages and Cultures, Western University
Anabela Rato	Department of Spanish & Portuguese, University of Toronto
Gemma Repiso Puigdelliura	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Nathan Sanders	Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto
Jessamyn Schertz	Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto
Jeffrey Steele	Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto
Olga Tararova	Department of Languages and Cultures, Western University

 

 

We wish to thank the contributions of: