Zachary Jaggers

User Experience

It Sounds Nice When You Say It Like I Do

I’ve found that when a speaker uses a pronunciation of a borrowed word or foreign place name that sounds more like how it’s pronounced in its original language, listeners think of the speaker as more open-minded and globally oriented. (The social meaning they hear resembles the way I’ve found this pronunciation difference to correlate with nationalism.)

Pronouncing someone’s name can leave a deep impression, since they identify with it personally. I’ve collaboratively researched how hearing ethnic minority names mispronounced and Anglicized especially affects People of Color in ways that attune them to the social and power dynamics at play in name exchanging: A pronunciation mismatch is considered less polite and likable, while also more likely from a speaker of more power and capital.

Linguistic Stereotypes and Profiling

I’ve collaborated on work examining what acoustic phonetic correlates predict how someone profiles a speaker as sounding Black or White. We know people get discriminated against for how they talk. It’s helpful to know what activates these perceptions — whether they’re accurate or not — as a way to start addressing the ways they are subsequently discriminated against.

I’ve also worked with researchers studying how non-native accented speech is also discriminated against. Even when people can understand a non-native speaker perfectly fine, they will still say that they had a hard time doing so and may rate the speaker negatively along other dimensions. But since the majority of English speakers in the world don’t speak it as their first or only language, we should try harder to accommodate such speakers.

Using Data Analysis to Model Speech

We need to know what the basic units of language are, how they interact with each other, and how to measure them if we want to be inclusive of the various kinds of language people use when analyzing language data or developing language technology.

Characterizing the sounds of language

I have experience contributing to this knowledge, like what acoustic measurements best help us distinguish between the “ia” in California vs hernia. This then helps us measure whether someone pronounces Tokyo as 2 syllables or 3, since speakers vary in this pronunciation. See open-access expert publication in Laboratory Phonology.)

I’ve also looked at the statistical distributions of sound distinctions, and at what these can tell us about language processing. For example, I looked at the English “sh” and “s” sounds and compared them to similar sounds in Basque, which has a sound similar to English “sh” but two sounds that are similar to English “s” and are distinct from each other. I found that the way the three sounds in the Basque system behave statistically suggests that speakers are doing a lot behind the scenes to keep them distinct from each other. (See open-access expert publication with the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences.)

Identifying meanings through patterns

I’ve also analyzed language text corpora for patterns of variation, in work I’ve presented at expert conferences. These patterns inform our understanding of language usage and meaning.

Sometimes optional features get used more as processing aids. People will use the optional ‘that’ in a phrase like “They said [that] …” if the phrase is longer and more complex.

And sometimes the ways and times optional features get used tells us about what the speaker means — people will say well before quoting someone in a case like “They said [well] …” as a way to signpost that the person being quoted was taking a different stance from the person they were talking to.

Helping Others Achieve

I aim to help people advance their understanding of how communication works, how people communicate differently, and why it’s important to communicate effectively and inclusively.

Consulting

I’ve consulted teams and leaders on diversity, implicit bias, and privilege, including workshops, exercises, and panels with a focus on communication.

I’ve used my expertise to help choral artists learn the sounds of a wide variety of languages, leading to praise from New York Concert Review and from an international consulate who commissioned the ensemble, as well as from the ensemble’s own director:

“saved us a ton of time with really good results”
“simplified the pronunciation techniques and provided straightforward frameworks for understanding them”
“made things very clear, when even the composer and native speaker had some trouble articulating the strategies we needed to produce the desired outcome”

I’ve advised early career researchers from a wide variety of fields on pinpointing projects that are meaningful to them to pursue, identifying their relevance to broader society, and storycrafting compelling proposals that have gone on to win grant competitions.

Leading Learning

I’ve directed well-reviewed lab skills workshops, with a focus on hands-on learning combined with useful materials that attendees can refer to afterward.

“This workshop was super helpful!”
“Thanks for sharing your awesome tricks!”
“Thank you so much for preparing materials for this presentation! They are so nicely organized and I’m sure I’ll go back to them quite often!”

I’ve played leadership roles in developing interactive science museum exhibits about language science and language diversity, with both members of the public and student volunteers attesting to enjoyable learning experiences.

I’ve taught 8 higher education courses spanning language, society, critical thinking, and research. I’ve been well-reviewed as an engaging teacher, making things accessible and tangible, and fostering a space for discussion and personal connection.

“always very helpful and provided tools for students to understand course material on a deeper, personal level”
“added a personal and individualized twist on it and gave unique, real life examples of each phenomenon”