Jennifer Sandra Cole is a professor of

linguistics Linguistics is the science, 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 ...

and Director of th
Prosody and Speech Dynamics Lab
at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. Her research uses experimental and computational methods to study the sound structure of language. She was the founding General Editor of ''Laboratory Phonology'' (2009–2015) and a founding member of the

Association for Laboratory Phonology 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 and phonology of oral and sign l ...

Biography

Her Ph.D. dissertation, ''Planar Phonology and Morphology'', was completed in 1987, under the supervision of

Morris Halle Morris Halle (; July 23, 1923 – April 2, 2018) was a Latvian-born Jewish American linguist who was an Institute Professor, and later professor emeritus, of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The father of "modern phonolo ...

, at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

's Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. In 1991, the study was recognized by Garland Publishing and presented as an Outstanding Dissertation in Linguistics. Cole introduced ranked constraints in formal grammar to model the interaction between morphology and phonology. This was one of the first works in the

generative phonology Generative grammar, or generativism , is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguistics ...

framework to model phonological grammar using constraint ranking, an approach which has been developed in

Optimality Theory In linguistics, Optimality Theory (frequently abbreviated OT) is a linguistic model proposing that the observed forms of language arise from the optimal satisfaction of conflicting constraints. OT differs from other approaches to phonological ...

. A primary focus of Cole's research is on variation in the phonetic expression of words and the role of prosodic phrasing and prominence in influencing phonetic variation. She applies linguistic models of prosody to research in computer speech recognition. Cole has carried out field research and authored encyclopedia articles on Sindhi ( Indo-Aryan). She served on the board of trustees of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (2006–2009). Cole promotes speech and language research in the broader context of interdisciplinary science in past roles as Co-Chair of the Biological Intelligence research theme at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology (2010–2016), and as Chair of Section Z (2016) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She has served as an elected member of the Executive Council of the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

(2007–2010).

Personal life

Jennifer Cole is married to Gul Agha, with whom she has three daughters.

Selected publications

* "Positional biases in predictive processing of intonation", 2020 * "Perception of word-level prominence in free word order language discourse", 2019 * "Prosody in context: A review", 2015 * "Signal-based and expectation-based factors in the perception of prosodic prominence", 2010 * "The role of syntactic structure in guiding prosody perception with ordinary listeners and everyday speech", 2010 * "Unmasking the acoustic effects of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation: A statistical modeling approach", 2010 * "Prosodic effects on acoustic cues to stop voicing and place of articulation: Evidence from Radio News speech", 2007 * "An Optimal Domains theory of vowel harmony", 1995

References

External links

Prosody and Speech Dynamics Lab, Northwestern University

AAAS Section Z: Linguistics and Language Science
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cole, Jennifer S. Linguists from the United States Phoneticians Phonologists University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Living people American Sindhologists Women linguists MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni Northwestern University faculty Year of birth missing (living people)

Biography

Personal life

Selected publications

References

Further reading

External links