DoctorLynn Clark

My research focuses on sociophonetics (both speech production and speech perception), language variation and change, and exemplar-based approaches to language structure.  I investigate how social factors such as age, gender, community, and region shape phonetic variation and drive sound change. I am also interested in integrating sociolinguistic variation into broader linguistic theory, and I have argued that exemplar-based linguistic frameworks offer a more effective way to model socially based variation than traditional generative approaches.

A key strand of my work examines how clusters of phonetic variables pattern together within a community, revealing how groups of features may shift or co-vary together, and jointly contribute to broader trajectories of sound change. This work helps illuminate the interdependence of phonetic variables and the systems-level processes that underlie accent evolution.

I have also explored how accents develop across the lifespan, particularly how children’s speech changes as they begin school and how new accent features emerge in new dialect formation. More recently, I have expanded this focus to include older talkers, examining how speech continues to change in later adulthood and how individual trajectories across the lifespan contribute to our understanding of long-term linguistic stability and change.

Across my research, I aim to uncover the mechanisms through which usage-frequency, social context, and cognitive processes shape phonetic variation and influence the gradual reorganisation of spoken language within real communities.