I am a PhD candidate in the Linguistics Department at UBC. My primary research interest lies in (1) phonological acquisition and modeling (in particular, second language acquisition) using formal frameworks and computational simulations; (2) speech perception, processing and prosody with experimental approaches. In general, my research addresses how L1 phonology influences L2 phonetics and phonology. My dissertation work simulates how L1 phonological variability plays a role in Mandarin-speaking adults learning English low-vowel + nasal sequences.

I am affiliated with Dr. Anne-Michelle Tessier’s Child Phonology Lab, as well as Dr. Molly Babel’s Speech in Context Lab.

My first qualifying paper studies how L1 Mandarin listeners with different amounts of L2 experience perceive and process English VN sequences at phonetic and phonological levels. My second qualifying paper examines L2 phonological representations and lexical competitions of L1 Mandarin speakers using eye-tracking techniques. My ongoing dissertation project models L1 Mandarin speakers’ L2 English phonological development and variations in producing VN and VN.C sequences in a Maximum Entropy Grammar using formal learning algorithms (Gradual Learning Algorithm) and neural network models.

Some of my other research includes prosodic effects and tone sandhi in Mandarin, as well as fieldwork on Ktunaxa focus prosody.

Zhang, S., & Tessier, A. M. (2024). Modeling the consequences of an L1 grammar for L2 production: simulations, variation, and predictions. Frontiers in Language Sciences, 3, 1327600. (access PDF here)

Zhang, S. (2023). First Language Effects on Second Language Perception: Evidence from English Low-vowel Nasal Sequences Perceived by L1 Mandarin Chinese Listeners. Proc. INTERSPEECH 2023, 4184-4188, doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2023-1123. (access PDF here)

Zhang, S. & Wagner, M. (in press). Speech segmentation and tone sandhi in Mandarin Chinese. In Proceedings of the 2022 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association.

Wagner, M., Iturralde Zurita, A., and Zhang, S. (2021). Parsing speech for grouping and prominence, and the typology of rhythm. In Proceedings of Interspeech. 2656–2660. doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2021-1684. (PDF here)

Zhang, S., Babel, M., & Hammerly, C. (2024). The online processing of non-native phonological contrasts in L2: from acoustics to lexicon. The 19th Conference on Laboratory Phonology, Seoul, Korea.

Zhang, S. (2023). First Language Effects on Second Language Perception: Evidence from English Low-vowel Nasal Sequences Perceived by L1 Mandarin Chinese Listeners. INTERSPEECH 2023, Dublin, Ireland.

Speech segmentation and tone sandhi in Mandarin Chinese. The 2022 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association (CLA). (w/ M. Wagner).

Mandarin tone sandhi and speech segmentation. LabPhon 18. 2022. (w/ M. Wagner).

Evaluating the accuracy of forced alignment across Mandarin varieties. The 182nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). 2022. (w/ S. Liu & M. Sóskuthy).

Facial postures as phonetic primes for memory retrieval. The 182nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Denver, Colorado, United States of America.  2022. (w/ A. Shamei, N. Luntzlara, Y. Zhou, S. Frazier, G. de Boer, B. Gick).

Parsing speech for grouping and prominence, and the typology of rhythm. INTERSPEECH 2021, Brno, Czech Republic. (w/ M. Wagner & A. Iturralde Zurita).

Two-dimensional parsing, the iambic-trochaic law, and the typology of rhythm. The 34th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Philadelphia, United States. 2021. (w/ M. Wagner & A. Iturralde Zurita).