Annie Rialland (born March 17, 1948 in Jans, near Nantes, France) is a French

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

who is Director of Research emerita of the CNRS Laboratory of Phonetics and Phonology (

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

). Her main domains of expertise are

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. ...

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

, prosody, and African languages.

Education and research

In 1978 Rialland defended her doctoral thesis, “Une langue à tons en terrasses, le gulmancema" at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

5. In 1988 she defended her thèse d’état, “Systèmes prosodiques africains ou fondements empiriques pour un modèle multilinéaire," at the

University of Nice A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

. From the beginning, her scientific approach combined phonetic and phonological perspectives (

autosegmental phonology Autosegmental phonology is a framework of phonological analysis proposed by John Goldsmith (linguist), John Goldsmith in his PhD thesis in 1976 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As a theory of phonological representation, autos ...

, in particular). Over the years, her work investigated a broad range of languages, mainly African (from various language families: Gur, Mandé,

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for National ...

), but also French and the

whistled language Whistled languages use whistling to emulate speech and facilitate communication. A whistled language is a system of whistled communication which allows fluent whistlers to transmit and comprehend a potentially unlimited number of messages over ...

La Gomera La Gomera () is one of Spain's Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. With an area of , it is the third smallest of the eight main islands of this archipelago. It belongs to the province of Santa Cruz de Tene ...

. She has also supervised doctoral theses on the phonetics and phonology of a diverse range of languages ( Berber,

languages,

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, among others).

Career at the LPP

With Jacqueline Vaissière, Rialland co-directed the Laboratory of Phonetics and Phonology (LPP) in Paris for 15 years, from 1991 to 2006. Under their direction, the research orientation of the LPP turned towards integrating phonology and phonetics, based on experimental methods. While at the LPP, Rialland was involved in a number of international collaborative projects funded by leading funding agencies. She co-directed, with

Laura J. Downing Laura J. Downing (born 15 June 1954, Mitchel AFB, New York) is an American linguist, specializing in the phonology of African languages. Education and career Downing earned her B.S. in linguistics from Georgetown University in 1977, and her PhD ...

, a French-German ANR-DFG project, BANTUPSYN, devoted to the Phonology-syntax Interface in Bantu languages (2009–2012). Rialland was one of the co-pilots of DIAREF, a project on child language acquisition (2010–2013). From 2015–2018 Rialland was a member of the French-German ANR-DFG project, BULB, which aims to apply cutting edge speech technologies to help document and analyze unwritten languages (2015–2018).

Honors

Rialland was President of the

Société de Linguistique de Paris The Société de Linguistique de Paris (established 1864) is the editing body of the ''BSL'' (''Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique'') journal A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a met ...

in 2016. She received an Honor Award from the

West African Linguistic Society The West African Linguistic Society (abbreviated as WALS) is an academic scholarly society formed in 1965 to foster and encourage research in the West African languages and literature as well as provide a permanent forum for interaction and exchan ...

in 2017. In 2019 she was elected to the Academy of Europe.

Personal life

She was married to G. Nick Clements, an American theoretical phonologist; they are the parents of two children, William R. Clements and Celia A. Clements.

Selected publications

* * Clements, G., & Rialland, A. (2007). Africa as a phonological area. In B. Heine & D. Nurse (Eds.), ''A Linguistic Geography of Africa'' (Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact, pp. 36-85). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486272.004 * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rialland, Annie Living people Women linguists 1948 births Linguists from France Phoneticians Phonologists Members of Academia Europaea