Topics in Linguistic Theory: Laboratory Phonology
This MIT OpenCourseWare course prepares students to design and run experimental studies in phonetics and phonology, bridging linguistic theory with laboratory methods. Materials include lecture notes, readings drawn from current phonology research, and problem sets that ask students to formulate testable hypotheses about sound patterns and evaluate them against experimental data. Topics cover articulatory and acoustic phonetics, the interface between phonology and phonetic implementation, and methods for collecting and analyzing speech data. The course is built around student-led discussion of published experimental work, with an emphasis on how to construct an empirical study that speaks to a theoretical question in linguistics. As with other MIT OCW offerings, all lecture materials and assignments are free to access online, with no certificate offered. It suits students who already have background in phonology and want hands-on grounding in experimental method.