Janet Pierrehumbert

Who is Janet Pierrehumbert?

Janet Pierrehumbert is a professor of linguistics at Northwestern University whose research uses experimental and computational methods to study the sound structure of language. She developed an intonational model which includes a grammar of intonation patterns and an explicit algorithm for calculating pitch contours in speech, as well as an account of intonational meaning. It has been widely influential in speech technology, psycholinguistics, and theories of language form and meaning. She is also one of the founders of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, an interdisciplinary initiative to develop advanced scientific methods for studying language sound structure.

Pierrehumbert is also affiliated with the Northwestern University Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and the New Zealand Institute of Language Brain and Behaviour at the University of Canterbury. Her current research uses agent-based modeling of speaker populations to model the dynamics of language sound systems in individuals and populations. She has held visiting appointments at Stanford University, Oxford, the Royal Institute of Technology, ENST, and the École Normale Supérieure.