A vowel research retrospective

One of the earliest attempts at describing/characterizing vowel quality was Daniel Jones’ Cardinal Vowel system (1918) representing the total range of vowel quality in languages. It was based on auditory quality (evaluated by a trained phonetician). Much later, Ladefoged (1967) demonstrated that despite auditory equivalence, vowels were acoustically different—a function of physiological and production among speakers. The acoustic nature of vowel quality was elaborated through the introduction of easy spectral analysis (using the sonograph) exemplified by the seminal work by Peterson and Barney (1952). In the past five decades we have seen how vowels differ as a function of speaker sex, speaker size, age, speech disorder and dialect group and development of vowel spaces in second-language acquisition (much of the research through contributions of speakers in this session). In concert with these acoustic studies, we have better understanding of the nature of the perception of vowels through multidimensional scaling studies, adaptation/perceptual magnet/categorical perception studies, cross-linguistic studies, and developmental studies. Most recently, we have seen work done with regard to brain mapping and neural models of vowel perception. This talk will provide a review of past vowel research (voluminous as it is) and possible future trends.