Jérémy Genette

• Doctoral defence: 25 August 2025 at 3 p.m.
• UAntwerp, Klooster van de Grauwzusters
• Supervisors: Steven Gillis and Jo Verhoeven
• ​Register by email before 15 August​

Abstract

This dissertation investigates how children acquire subtle phonetic information through the interplay between linguistic development and biomechanical processes.

The production of vowels in adult speech is a complex process. Speakers coordinate the movements of various articulators in their vocal tract, such as the tongue and the larynx. By doing so, they provide listeners with information that enables them, for example, to distinguish between the [ɑ] in hand (“hand”) and the [ɔ] in hond (“dog”). This raises the question of whether babies are also able to make use of this complexity, since it is just as important for them to produce different speech sounds like /ɑ/ and /ɔ/.

The precise positioning of articulators in the mouth is a primary source of information about which vowel is being produced. However, research has also shown that vowels contain subtle, secondary cues that help distinguish between different vowel categories. This information consists of pitch variations, known as Intrinsic Vowel Pitch (henceforth: IF0). IF0 in infant speech has been largely underexplored.

In this dissertation, IF0 was analysed in the speech of 30 infants aged between 6 and 24 months. The material consisted of monthly recordings of their spontaneous speech. The development of IF0 was studied through acoustic analyses of more than 30,000 vowels. The results show that IF0 is present in the earliest speech productions and is thus an automatic phenomenon determined by the anatomical structure of the vocal tract and articulators. This biomechanical explanation of IF0 is further supported by the finding that IF0 also occurs in the speech of hearing-impaired children, and that there is no clear effect of hearing status on the emergence of IF0.

Interestingly, IF0 is further enhanced as vocabulary grows. This may be a strategy to enhance the perceptual distinctiveness of vowels, thereby improving intelligibility.

Lena Walschap

• Doctoral defence: 26 August 2025 at 5 p.m.
• Promotiezaal KU Leuven
• Supervisors: Maïka De Keyzer (KUL) en Tim Soens (UAntwerpen)
• ​Register before 19 August​

Abstract

Some medieval peasants were also fishers. Even so, despite the length and variety of the English coast, research into the agricultural- and peasant history of medieval England has remained predominantly landlocked. Meanwhile the historiography of fishing tends to focus on the scale enlargement and commercialisation of fisheries taking place over the course of the Middle Ages, assuming small-scale fishing lost importance over time. Coastal inhabitants are more often considered in disaster studies, which has led to an image of the medieval coast as a dangerous place. The coasts also boasted resources and opportunities, however, of which fish are a prime example. Adding peasant fishing to the picture broadens our understanding of the diversity of “medieval fishermen” beyond the specialists who left the shores for months on end. More importantly, it highlights peasant strategies and mindsets, especially in the face of the various turbulences the Late Medieval period is known for.

Relying on administrative documents such as accounts and surveys of multiple manors and other estates across three regions on the English South Coast, this research compiles many traces of such peasant fishing activities, highlighting its commonplace nature even at the end of the Middle Ages. This dissertation details the ways in which fishing activities were strongly adapted in the local contexts: characteristics such as the coastal geography, social systems, agricultural practices and trade opportunities all influenced the occurrence and organisation of peasant fishing activities. The combination of fishing and agriculture was also culturally embedded, as access to knowledge and technology ran along networks of kin and community. Finally, coastal peasants fished not as a matter of coercion or desperation, but because it was desirable to them. It was a systematically practiced means of income diversification, which its participants valued in particular for its capacity to minimise risk and generate stability. In this way, where peasant fisheries continued and at times flourished, this should not be regarded as a failure of these fisheries to commercialise. Instead, these peasants could, in the right circumstances, successfully make use of the resources available in the ways that supported them best.