‘As a child,
I sometimes played
in my mum’s lab.’
Dr PATRYCJA
STRYCHARCZUK
RESEARCH FELLOW, SPEECH AND HEARING SCIENCES
I’m Dr Patrycja Strycharczuk, and I do research on how and
why sounds of language change. Sound change is something
we’re not normally aware of, yet somehow we sound slightly
differently from our parents or our grandparents.
What is more, we often find that small
and even barely audible changes in
pronunciation are in fact constrained in
highly complex ways. In my research, I try
to understand the structure of various
factors which influence sound change, by
analysing the speech of people in different
age groups at multiple levels, from the
underlying tongue and lip movements to
the resulting sound.
O
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R A T I N G
L
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WOMEN
RESEARCHERS
INSPIRING
RESEARCH CAREER
JOURNEYS
As a child, I sometimes
played in my mum’s lab, and
she would show me how
you can see the structure
of cells under a microscope.
My field of research today is
very different from hers, but
there is the same thrill of
uncovering something hidden
through careful observation.