Patrik Hrabánek studies phonetics by listening to creaky voices

Patrik Hrabánek did his Master’s at the University of Amsterdam. At that time, he joined an ongoing project on the Korean language, which led him to investigate a speech corpus of Seoul Korean.

– It turned out that some people systematically used creaky voice for no apparent reason, so I decided to investigate whether speakers of Seoul Korean actually use that creaky voice to signal any sort of meaning – and some of them did. So, I decided to write my MA thesis about that, says Patrik Hrabánek.

Creaky voices continue to fascinate

The subject continues to fascinate Patrik Hrabánek. In his dissertation he would like to focus on voice quality – and especially creaky voice – in the context of sound change.

– I would like to see how sound change takes place as a result of the change of importance of phonetic cues in perception – and whether the listeners who already take use of innovative cues also employ these cues in their own speech production.

Patrik Hrabánek hopes that his research will shed some new light on the mechanisms of sound change, especially when the feature undergoing change is voice quality, as this is an avenue that not much research exists on yet.

I hope that I will be able to document creaky voice and its associated physiological and acoustic features

– I also hope that I will be able to document creaky voice and its associated physiological and acoustic features more thoroughly and paint a clearer picture of what our vocal folds do when they vibrate. Lastly, I hope that my studies will lead to me successfully continuing higher into academia through getting a postdoc position.

When Patrik Hrabánek is not listening to creaky voices, he likes to go to various music concerts and events.

– The smaller and more underground the better. I also produce music when I feel like it, but it’s mostly for myself as I’m too shy to actually release anything.

Welcome to the Department of Linguistics, Patrik Hrabánek!