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Prominence in Language

Aspiration in Language

A two-day workshop on Aspiration in Language, 3-4 December 2025

The workshop “Aspiration in Language” will take place on December 3rd - 4th, 2025 at the University of Cologne within the framework of the Collaborative Research Center 1252 Prominence in Language (CRC 1252). The venue that this workshop will take place is the Alter Senatssaal, located at the University's Main Building (Hauptgebäude).

Aspiration in linguistics is interesting because it reveals how subtle differences in speech sounds can carry meaning, distinguish languages, and affect pronunciation patterns. Studying aspiration helps linguists understand phonetic variation across languages, how speech is perceived by listeners, and how features like stress, position in a word, or surrounding sounds influence articulation. It also plays a role in second language acquisition, as learners often transfer aspiration patterns from their native language. This makes aspiration an interesting phenomenon for theoretical research, practical applications in speech technology, language learning and teaching, as well as forensic linguistics.

Because prominence in speech is a combination of factors–such as pitch, loudness, duration, and articulatory clarity–aspiration adds an extra layer. This means that in languages where aspiration is tied to stress, it can act as a subtle cue for listeners to detect which syllables carry the main emphasis in a phrase. We are particularly interested in disentangling the interaction between different prominence-lending cues and aspiration.

Call for Papers

This workshop aims to bring together researchers working on aspiration from phonetic, phonological, typological, diachronic, and psycholinguistic perspectives. We are especially interested in contributions that explore the interaction between aspiration and prominence, broadly construed–covering prosodic prominence, stress, focus, and information structure.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

  • Acoustic and articulatory correlates of aspiration in different prominence contexts
  • Typological variation in aspiration–prominence relationships
  • Aspiration in second language acquisition and bilingual speech
  • Diachronic change and the role of aspiration in prosodic restructuring
  • Perceptual cues and listener processing of aspiration and prominence
  • Methodological advances in measuring and analysing aspiration

Abstract submission guidelines:

  • Abstracts must be submitted in English to Christiane Ulbrich (culbrich(at)uni-koeln.de).
  • Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words. Plots, figures and references can be presented on a separate page.
  • Please submit a PDF without any identifying information.
  • Please also submit a separate file with your name, affiliation, and contact details.

Important dates:

  • Abstract submission deadline: 25 September 2025
  • Notification of acceptance: 15 October 2025
  • Workshop: 3-4 December 2025