Staff profile

Dr Marija Tabain

Associate Professor and Australian Research Council Future Fellow in Phonetics

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry

HU2 415, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

B. Mus. (Hons-Melbourne), B.A. (Hons-Melbourne), Ph.D. (Macquarie)

Membership of professional associations

Association for Laboratory Phonology; Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association; Australian Linguistic Society; International Phonetic Association.

Area of study

Linguistics

Brief profile

I arrived at LaTrobe in 2005, following postdoctoral positions in electrical engineering (at the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble in France) and psychology (at the University of California, Santa Cruz; at Macquarie University in Sydney; and at the University of Western Sydney). Before that I completed undergraduate degrees in music, modern languages and linguistics, and did postgraduate training in phonetics. I am active in the field of speech production research, in particular using electro-palatography and electro-magnetic articulography. My research has focused on many different languages, including English, French and Russian; and the Australian languages Arrernte, Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri, Yanyuwa and Yindjibarndi.

Research interests

Linguistic Anthropology

- Acoustic phonetics

- Articulatory phonetics

- Phonetic typology

Recent publications

Edited Books

  • Harrington, J. & Tabain, M. (eds) (2006). Speech Production: Models, Phonetic Processes and Techniques. New York: Psychology Press (ISBN 978 1 84169 437 5).

Edited Conference Proceedings

  • Tabain, M. , Fletcher, J., Grayden, D., Hajek, J. & Butcher, A. (eds) (2010). Proceedings of the 13th Australasian Conference on Speech Science and Technology. Causal Productions: Adelaide, Australia (ISBN 978 0 9581946 3 1).
  • Palethorpe, S. & Tabain, M. (eds) (2003). Proceedings of the Sixth International Seminar on Speech Production. Macquarie University: Sydney, Australia (ISBN 1 86408 871 0).

Journal Papers

  • Tabain, M. (2012). Jaw movement and coronal stop spectra in Central Arrernte. Journal of Phonetics 40 551-567.
  • Tabain, M. (2011). EPG data from Central Arrernte: a comparison of the new Articulate palate with the standard Reading palate. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 41 343-367.
  • Tabain, M. & Breen, G. (2011). Central vowels in Central Arrernte: a spectrographic study of a small vowel system. Journal of Phonetics 39 68-84.
  • Tabain, M. , Fletcher, J. & Butcher, A. (2011). An EPG study of palatal consonants in two Australian languages. Language and Speech 54 265-282.
  • Tabain, M. (2009b). An EPG study of the alveolar vs. retroflex apical contrast in Central Arrernte. Journal of Phonetics 37 486-501. (Reprinted in R. Dale, D. Burnham & C. Stevens (eds) (2011). Human Communication Science: A Compendium. Australia: HCSNet (The ARC Research Network in Human Communication Science) ISBN 978-1-74138-363-8, pp. 209-237.
  • Tabain, M. (2009a). A preliminary study of jaw movement in Arrernte consonant production. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 39 33-51.
  • Tabain, M. (2008). Production of Australian English [ʉ:]: language-specific variability. Australian Journal of Linguistics 28 195-224.
  • Tabain, M. & Perrier, P. (2007). An articulatory and acoustic study of /u/ in pre-boundary position in French: the interaction of compensatory articulation, neutralization avoidance and featural enhancement. Journal of Phonetics 35 135-161.
  • Tabain, M. & Perrier, P. (2005). Articulation and acoustics of /i/ in pre-boundary position in French. Journal of Phonetics 33 77-100.
  • Padgett, J. & Tabain, M. (2005). Adaptive dispersion theory and phonological vowel reduction in Russian. Phonetica 62 14-54.
  • Tabain, M. , Breen, G. & Butcher, A. (2004). CV vs. VC syllables: a comparison of Aboriginal languages with English. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 175-200.
  • Butcher, A. & Tabain, M. (2004). On the back of the tongue: dorsal sounds in Australian languages. Phonetica 61 22-52.
  • Tabain, M. (2003b). Effects of prosodic boundary on /aC/ sequences: articulatory results. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 113 2834-2849.
  • Tabain, M. (2003a). Effects of prosodic boundary on /aC/ sequences: acoustic results. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 113 516-531.
  • Tabain, M. (2002). Voiceless consonants and locus equations: a comparison with EPG data on coarticulation. Phonetica 59 20-37.
  • Tabain, M. (2001). Variability in fricative production and spectra: implications for the Hyper- & Hypo- and Quantal theories of speech production. Language and Speech 44 58-93.
  • Tabain, M. (2000). Coarticulation in CV syllables: a comparison of EPG and Locus Equation data. Journal of Phonetics 28 137-159.
  • Tabain, M. & Butcher, A. (1999). Stop consonants in Yanyuwa and Yindjibarndi: a locus equation perspective. Journal of Phonetics 27 333-357.
  • Tabain, M. (1998). Non-sibilant fricatives in English: spectral information above 10 kHz. Phonetica 55 107-130.

Conference Papers (full refereed papers)

  • Tabain, M. & Fletcher, J. (2012). A preliminary study of intonation in Pitjantjatjara. 14th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology. Sydney: Australia, 213-216.
  • Stoakes, H., Butcher, A., Fletcher, J., & Tabain, M. (2012). Place or manner as perceptually salient in Yolngu Matha: A closed-set 4 AFC listening task in quiet and in noise. 14th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology. Sydney: Australia, 225-228.
  • Tabain, M. & Beare, R. (2011). A spectral analysis of stop bursts in Pitjantjatjara. 17th International Congress of the Phonetics Sciences. Hong Kong: China, 1934-1937.
  • Stoakes, H., Butcher, A., Fletcher, J., & Tabain, M. (2011). Long term average speech spectra in Yolngu Matha and Pitjantjatjara speaking females and males. Interspeech 2011. Florence: Italy, 1897-1900.
  • Gregory, A., Tabain, M. & Morgan, A. (2010). Fundamental frequency and perturbation in infant vocalisations. 13th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology. Melbourne: Australia, 162-165.
  • Tabain, M. & Beare, R. (2010). Jaw movement and coronal stop spectra: the case of Central Arrernte. 13th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology. Melbourne: Australia, 94-97.
  • Tabain, M. , Rickard, K., Breen, G. & Dobson, V. (2008). Central vowels in Arrernte: metrical prominence and pitch accent. Interspeech 2008. Brisbane: Australia, 1122.
  • Tabain, M. & Rickard, K. (2007). A preliminary EPG study of stop consonants in Arrernte. 16th International Congress of the Phonetics Sciences. Saarbrucken: Germany, 501-504.
  • Tabain, M. , Perrier, P., Savariaux, C. & Beare, R. (2004). An articulatory prosody study of /u/: motor equivalence. 10th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology. Sydney: Australia, 432-435.
  • Tabain, M. , Perrier, P. & Savariaux, C. (2003). A kinematic study of prosodic boundary effects on /i/ articulation in French. 15th International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences. Barcelona: Spain, 2617-2620.
  • Tabain, M. , Perrier, P. & Savariaux, C. (2002). Prosodic boundary effects on /iC/ sequences in French: acoustic results. 9th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology. Melbourne: Australia, 497-502.
  • Tabain, M. , Rolland, G. & Savariaux, C. (2001). Coarticulatory effects at prosodic boundaries: some acoustic results. Eurospeech 2001. Aalborg: Denmark, 963-966.
  • Kawai, G. & Tabain, M. (2000). Automatically detecting mispronounciations in the speech of hearing-impaired children. InSTILL (Integrating Speech Technology in Language Learning) 2000. Dundee: Scotland, 39-48.
  • Tabain, M. (1998a). Coarticulation in CV syllables: a locus equation and EPG perspective. 16th International Congress on Acoustics and the 135th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. Seattle: USA, 2003-2004.
  • Tabain, M. (1998b). Consistencies and inconsistencies between EPG and locus equation data on coarticulation. 5th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing. Sydney: Australia, 1855-1858.
  • Tabain, M. (1996). Nasal consonants in Yanyuwa and Yindjibarndi: an acoustic study. 6th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology. Adelaide: Australia, 151-156.
  • Tabain, M. & Watson, C. (1996). Classification of fricatives. 6th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology. Adelaide: Australia, 623-628.

Research projects

  • Tabain, M. (2012-2016). Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. Understanding the sounds of Australia's Indigenous languages.
  • Fletcher, J. & Tabain, M. (2011-2013). Australian Research Council Discovery Project. Structure and meaning of intonation in three Australian languages.
  • Butcher, A., Fletcher, J. & Tabain, M. (2007-2009). Australian Research Council Discovery Project. The relationship between speech production and perception in Australian language speakers: implications for speech development and learning in Aboriginal children.
  • Tabain, M. (2006-2010). Australian Research Council Discovery Project. The effect of sentence structure on consonant and vowel articulations.
  • Tabain, M. (2001-2004). Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship. The role of perception in speech production: a comparison of Australian Aboriginal languages and English.