Paul Foulkes
Professor

Profile

Biography

Paul Foulkes works in phonetics, phonology, language variation and change, language acquisition, and forensic phonetics. He is a consultant with J P French Associates and director of courses in forensic speech science.

Career

• University of Cambridge (Churchill College) 
  BA in Modern Languages (1989, MA 1993)
  MPhil in Linguistics (1990)
  PhD in Linguistics (1993) 
• University of Cambridge (Clare Hall)
  Junior research fellow (1993 - 1994)
  Lecturer (English, Engineering) 
• Newcastle University (Speech and Language Sciences)
  Research associate (1994 - 1997) 
• University of Leeds (Department of Linguistics and Phonetics)
  Lecturer (1997 - 2000) 
• University of York
  Lecturer (2000 - 2004)
  Reader (2004 - 2010)
  Professor (2010 - )
• J P French Associates
  Forensic consultant (2000 – ) 
• University of Canterbury (New Zealand)
  Visiting Erskine fellow (2008) 

Departmental roles

• MSc in Forensic Speech Science Programme Director
• Chair of Promotions Committee
• PGR Admissions

Research

Overview

My research interests are in language variation and change, phonetics, phonology, sociophonetics, first language acquisition and forensic phonetics.

Most of the work I do focuses on quantitative analysis of natural speech, with a view to understanding systematic phonetic variation and its implications for phonological and linguistic theory. I undertake both research and casework in forensic speaker identification as a consultant for JP French Associates.

Research group(s)

• Phonetics and phonology
• Language variation and change
• Forensic speech science

Grants

• BBfor2 (Bayesian Biometrics For Forensics)
• Marie Curie FP7 Initial Training Network
  (2010-2013)
• Diverlang
  Construction des connaissances langagieres, diversité des usages, contextes sociolinguistiques
• ANR
  (2006-2010)

Collaborators

• Gerry Docherty
• Peter French
• Bill Haddican
• Jen Hay
• Jim Scobbie
• Dominic Watt

Supervision

• Nicholas Flynn
  ESRC funded
• Philip Harrison
• Colleen Kavanagh
• Ulrikke Rindal
  Co-supervision with University of Oslo
• Richard Rhodes
  ESRC funded
• Lisa Roberts
  ESRC funded

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Forensic phonetics (E/L05H)

Postgraduate

• Introduction to forensic speech science (L17M)
• Research in forensic speech science (L32M)

External activities

Invited talks and conferences

• Second International Workshop on Forensic Linguistics
  Barcelona (2010)
• Laboratory Phonology 11
  Wellington (2008)
• First International Eurasian Congress of Forensic Sciences
  Istanbul (2008)
• Human Communication Science SummerFest ’08
  Sydney (2008)
• Linguistic Society of South Africa
  Potchefstroom (2007)
• IEEE Speaker Odyssey
  Puerto Rico (2006)
• 5th UK Language Variation Conference
  Aberdeen (2005)