Michaela Watkins

Anyone here going to Interspeech and wants to do a student a big favor? He was accepted & paid, but ultimately cannot leave the U.S. due to ongoing fascism (he’s on a visa). They will pull his paper if he can’t find anyone to present it for him. DM if you’re attending & may be able to help!

Our findings show a way of using a simple ratio to gather language specific information. It shows that creaky tokens and pitch jumps can be useful and not errors, at least if you're measuring glottal pulses. Come speak to me in Rotterdam to learn more! 😊
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...This was especially fun because the two datasets are really different, with one being conversational and the other structured. We didn't do much filtering or adjustment of the data, so with even more controlled datasets we expect even better results.

...F0 Ratio was shown to be useful in language specific situations, with non-stød being identified from stød tokens successfully due to a rising intonation contour. Korean showed that female speakers consistently shift from creaky to modal voice, captured well by the ratio...

Together with @rpuggaardrode.bsky.social , Paul Boersma and Silke Haman, we looked at two languages with interesting creaky voice qualities...

Our paper "Robustness of F0 Ratio as a Diagnostic: Comparing Creaky Voice in Danish and Seoul Korean" has been accepted into Interspeech 2025 #langsky #linguistics

I always forget how crazy Amsterdam is during tourist season 😭 the small suitcase army

The interactive kid's dancepad in Utrecht Centraal is playing lacrimosa, and you bet the kids are going wild dancing to it

Dutch universities go on strike - for the first time since anyone can remember. We protest the treatment and budget cuts of our extreme-right government. The strikers take turns - and Leiden university kicks off tomorrow. ✊🏼

Local scientists are pushing back against Trump's federal funding cuts Stand Up for Science rallies will sweep major cities all across the country today, including in San Francisco's Civic Center.

“If we lose all of our funding, our academic support staff — who are disproportionately women and people of color — lose their jobs,” said Nicole Holliday, a UC Berkeley linguistics professor who will speak at the rally. “So do our janitors.” #StandUpforScience2025

sfstandard.com/2025/03/07/b...

Ugh I'd love to go but it's sooo expensive and our travel grants don't even cover half 😭

If you even feel like Python is difficult I encourage you to spend a day just doing Praat scripting, Python will be a dream afterwards... #linguistics

Door of a subway seen from the inside closing automatically with a flashing red light

Universities all over Europe are cutting language programs and closing the doors to the world. We want to get a more complete picture: where, when, why?
If you know of any such cases, please tell us (and share the link with your language and linguistics contacts)!
elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/13...

Almost 20 showed up, a miracle haha

9am phonology class on a Friday, with snow and ice everywhere. I think out of a class of 30 I'll get...12. 🫠 and that's optimistic

🛑 the cutbacks on research and higher education. Powerful full page ad in national papers and online, signed by 511 members 🙋 of the (young) Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences.

“Government, don’t ruin what makes our country successful”

This afternoon, I learnt that our demonstration, planned for tomorrow, was cancelled. We had expected at least 5000 students, teachers and scholars to protest against the budget cuts. It's an absolute clusterfuck, and I have many questions.

Here's what I shared with our local group::

The Dutch government has planned severely destructive budget cuts to higher education and research funding.

Please protest with us!

Consider signing this petition to show support from abroad: www.change.org/p/stop-cuts-...

Dear colleagues around the world,

As you may know, the Netherlands has, since this summer, been governed by a radical right-wing administration with an agenda reminiscent of Orbán's Hungary.

Ja is echt niet te geloven 🤦‍♀️

Ministerie bezuinigt op subsidies voor cultuur, onderzoek en gymnastiekles Minister Bruins en staatssecretaris Paul noemen sommige ingrepen "pijnlijk".

Even more budget cuts... NWO is especially targeted here 🫠 the future of #linguistics departments here is in serious trouble. #langsky

Trump files extraordinary complaint claiming election meddling by UK Labour party Allegation references LinkedIn post saying 100 party staffers were headed to US to campaign for Harris

The UK doesn't have the money to fund their own elections, let alone someone else's 👀

So sad about what is happening at Leiden University, a whole heap of unique programs just gone... Not to mention this is before the cuts even really kick in 👀 #langsky #linguistics

"Our Arabic program is half a millennium old but couldn't withstand the corporatization of the contemporary university because it isn't nuclear engineering"

Our paper discusses how pitch jumps are not necessarily errors, but can be important to mark transitions from creaky to modal voice (or vice versa). Failure to do so can misrepresent speaker's voice quality. Full details in paper: www.isca-archive.org/interspeech_...

Getting my presentation ready on the beautiful island of Kos for Interspeech 2024, come join me on Wednesday in acesso to talk about pitch jumps! #linguistics

It wouldn't be a Dutch conference if it didn't have music playing that totally doesn't match the vibe

#NAACL2024

If you're at NAACL2024 come join us for our talk in the 11:00 session on tone encoding in self-supervised language models in Don Alberto 2! #MLSky #Linguistics

Together with Paul Boersma and Silke Hamann, our paper on pitch jumps was accepted into Interspeech 2024. See you in Kos! (camera ready to follow soon). #langsky #linguistics