koen.sebregts @ bbc.co.uk
/ˈkun ˈse.bʁɛxts/
My research was broadly on (socio)phonetic variation and sound change, and their implications for theories of phonological knowledge and the phonetics-phonology interface. I especially enjoyed examining the articulatory and acoustic detail of sound changes in progress, to refine our insight into what is behind such changes, and also where and how the variation involved should be located in theories of speakers' knowledge of sound structure. Slightly more succinctly, I'd describe myself as a LabPhonologist with variationist tendencies.
Work
The research I had just started when I decided to leave academia for the greener pastures of broadcast media was on the use of creaky voice (or vocal fry) in the L2 English and L1 Dutch by speakers in a multilingual academic community (an undergraduate campus college) where English is the lingua franca. Joint research with my colleagues Hielke Vriesendorp, Yosiane White and Hugo Quené this was part of a larger project into phonetic convergence. Our initial findings (that these Dutch speakers use creaky voice to roughly the same extent as L1 English speakers have been reported to in other studies, and that it's speaker-dependent, rather than language-dependent) were published in the latest ICPhS proceedings volume.
Apart from some as yet unpublished work on voicing in Dutch, I mostly worked on rhotics, aka r-sounds, and especially those in Dutch. If you only ever read one thing about r-variation, I'd say make it the chapter on rhotics in the Routledge Handbook of Sociophonetics (Ed. Christopher Strelluf, 2023) - co-authored with Hans Van de Velde and Roeland van Hout.
If you'd like to dive into more detail, Patrycja Strycharczuk and I collaborated on an ultrasound study of so-called derived geminates (and the potential resulting degemination) involving Dutch r. The resulting article was published in Journal of Phonetics (2018).
Even more detail, 300+ pages of it in fact, is found in my PhD thesis (2015) on the large-scale phonetic variation found with Dutch r. In it, I develop a model of progressive sound change to explain the origins, development and current status of Dutch r variation. To untangle the geographical, social and linguistic factors involved, I collected and analysed data from some 400 speakers (~20.000 tokens) in the Netherlands and Flanders. With Jim Scobbie at " Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh) I also collected articulatory (ultrasound) data focused on Dutch coda approximant r, an innovative variant. The results of this study appeared as a book chapter (2010, see Publications and Presentations), and they are also discussed in my thesis.
Long-term phonetic convergence vs. speaker-specificity: creaky voice in L2 English. The 19th Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon 19), Seoul, Republic of Korea, 27-29 June 2024. (with Hielke Vriesendorp, Hugo Quené, and Yosiane White, poster) ⠚
Constraints on phonetic convergence: creaky voice on the college campus. Workshop on phonetic imitation (LabPhon 19 Satellite), Seoul, Republic of Korea, 26 June 2024. (with Hielke Vriesendorp, Hugo Quené, and Yosiane White) ⠚
2015 PhD in Linguistics, Utrecht University
Thesis: The sociophonetics and phonology of Dutch r
🏆 Awarded AVT/Anéla Dissertation Prize, for best PhD thesis in Linguistics 2014-15. [Judges’ report (in Dutch)]
🏆 Awarded Academische Jaarprijs, Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde, for best PhD thesis in Dutch linguistics
2001 MA in English Language and Literature (cum laude), Leiden University
Thesis: English [r]-liaison: rule-based theories, Government Phonology and Optimality Theory
2016 BKO (Basiskwalificatie Onderwijs), Utrecht University
University Teaching Qualification
2024- | Pronunciation Advisor | British Broadcasting Corporation |
2017-2024 | Assistant Professor of English linguistics | Utrecht University, Dept of Languages, Literature and Communication |
2011-2017 | Lecturer in English language and linguistics | Utrecht University, Dept of Languages, Literature and Communication |
2011-2011 | Researcher | Meertens Institute, Amsterdam |
2009-2010 | Lecturer in English linguistics | University of Leiden, LUCL/English Language and Culture |
2007-2010 | English teacher | Hogeschool Utrecht, Faculty of Education, English programme |
2008-2009 | Lecturer in English language and linguistics | Utrecht University, Dept Modern Languages |
2007-2008 | Lecturer in English linguistics | University of Leiden, English Language and Culture |
2006-2007 | Lecturer in English proficiency | Utrecht University, Institute of Foreign Languages |
2005-2006 | Lecturer in Dutch linguistics | Utrecht University, Institute of Dutch |
2003-2004 | Lecturer in English linguistics | University of Leiden, Dept of English |
2001-2005 | Junior Researcher | Utrecht University, UiL-OTS |
Utrecht University
I was a member of the English department at Utrecht from 2011 (after previous stints as an adjunct lecturer, see above) until 2024, teaching on a range of courses in linguistics throughout the years, but eventually ending up convening our undergraduate courses in phonetics, phonology and sociolinguistics. I also supervised BA and MA theses on these topics, and for the final three years there I was the programme coordinator of the BA degree in English Language and Culture.
University of Leiden
I taught at the Leiden English department for two-and-a-half (non-consecutive) years between 2003 and 2010 on almost all linguistics courses in the BA programme.
Hogeschool Utrecht (HU University of Applied Sciences)
I taught at the HU for three years (2007-2010), on courses in linguistics, English language proficiency and teaching methodology at UG and PG level.
Journal peer reviewer
Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics; Glossa; Isogloss; Journal of the Acoustical Society of America; Journal of Germanic Linguistics, Journal of the IPA; Journal of Phonetics; Language and Speech; Language Dynamics and Change; Linguistics in the Netherlands; Nederlandse Taalkunde, Taal en Tongval.
Chapter peer reviewer
Language Variation: European Perspectives VIII (Benjamins, 2021)
The future of dialects. Selected papers from Methods XV (Language Science Press, 2016)
Book proposal reviewer
Cambridge University Press, 2021
Routledge academic textbooks, 2017
Bloomsbury Publishing, philosophy and linguistics, 2015
Conference board member/reviewer
International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences, 2019, 2023; Laboratory Phonology, 2020, 2022; Manchester Phonology Meeting, 2019-present; Old World Conference in Phonology, 2016-2019.
Co-organiser
Sociolinguistics Circle 2019, April 2019, Utrecht
‘r-atics 5, the fifth international symposium on rhotics, May 2016, Leeuwarden.
Member
Association for Laboratory Phonology; AVT (Dutch Linguistics Association)