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Martyn Holland.
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Department of Phonetics and Linguistics
ANNUAL REPORT 1997
Introduction
In 1997 the UCL Phonetics and Linguistics Department continued to strive for excellence in teaching and research.
Teaching
Students entering for the four-year BSc Speech Sciences, who were until now registered with us as their home department, as from the new session 1997-98 register with the Department of Human Communication Science. This change represents the final stage in the integration of the former National Hospital's College of Speech Science into University College London. The Department of Phonetics and Linguistics continues to provide an important part of the teaching for this degree programme, and to share in such matters as the interviewing and selection of applicants. The future of this degree may be subject to change as a result of the transfer of funding from Education to Health.
Students for the three-year BSc Speech Communication remain registered with us.
There are now about twice as many students registered for the BA Linguistics as there were ten years ago. Numbers for the MA Linguistics and MA Phonetics are also sharply increased, and the intake for our new MSc Speech and Hearing Science is now on target.
Teaching staff
Rita Manzini resigned as Reader in Linguistics, though she remains associated with us as Visiting Professor. The resulting vacancy was filled by the appointment of Ad Neeleman as Lecturer in Linguistics. He comes to us from the University of Utrecht, and is a specialist in syntax.
Research
Staff publications during the year are listed elsewhere in this report.
Among new projects, mention must be made of Siphtra, funded by the HEFCE/DENI Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning and devoted to Analytic Listening, an innovative method of teaching and learning phonetics. John Maidment is the Project Manager, and the Investigators are six of our staff.
Alex Fang transferred to us from the Department of English, as a Senior Research Fellow on an EPSRC project on Statistical Language Modelling.
A further volume of our Working Papers in Linguistics was published, edited by Phillip Backley and John Harris. The next Speech Hearing and Language is awaited.
Seven PhDs were completed in 1997 by students in the Department.
Summer Course
Our Summer Course in English Phonetics, intended principally for teachers and learners of English as a foreign language, goes from strength to strength. In 1997 it attracted 218 students, an all-time record. No other similar course exists anywhere in the world. The general two-week course was preceded by an additional one-week preparatory course designed specifically for neophyte students from the Far East.
The SCEP attracts not only students from all over the world, but also tutorial staff from many different universities. From our own staff, of course, we would not have been able to provide 22 tutors with appropriately high qualifications (one for every ten students).
The income earned by the Summer Course enables us, amongst other things, to employ a number of postgraduate College Teachers and Teaching Assistants to assist on our year-round BA and BSc programmes.
Premises
The Gordon Square houses have been redecorated. We have acquired a little more space at Wolfson House, enabling us to provide a common room and more offices for contract research staff.
John Wells
Head of Department