معرفی
Margaret E. L. Renwick serves as Associate Research Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. Previously holding a tenured position in Linguistics at the University of Georgia, she brings extensive expertise in speech variation and phonological systems to her current role. Her academic journey includes affiliation with the Phonetics Laboratory at the University of Oxford.
Dr. Renwick's research focuses on sociophonetics and laboratory phonology, examining how speakers manipulate phonetic detail in patterned ways while listeners extract linguistic and social meaning from speech. Her work investigates phonological contrast, regional accents of US English (particularly Southern accents), and linguistic change across generations. A significant portion of her research explores African American vowel systems in Georgia and Italian mid-vowel systems, bridging theoretical linguistics with empirical acoustic analysis.
Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong trend toward computational approaches in phonetics, with increasing use of machine learning techniques like the Phonet library for vowel variation analysis. Her work consistently bridges theoretical phonology with empirical acoustic data, showing particular strength in regional variation studies across multiple language systems including English and Romance languages.
Dr. Renwick actively mentors students through the Renwick Lab, welcoming advisees at all levels including PhD and MA candidates in Cognitive Science at JHU. Her teaching portfolio includes courses in Acoustic Phonetics, Sociophonetics, and her First-Year Seminar 'Who Has an Accent?' examines sociolinguistic perceptions of speech variation.
The Renwick Lab functions as a comprehensive research environment focused on spoken language analysis, providing resources for phonetic research including tools for IPA transcription, acoustic analysis with Praat, and computational approaches to speech data. The lab supports both theoretical investigations of phonological systems and practical applications of speech technology.
