Luca Rognoni, Ph.D.
Cell: +447920178054
Email: luca.rognoni[at]alice.it
I am phonetician, mainly interested in L2 prosody acquisition.
My Ph.D. thesis was a production and perception study of the
acquisition of prosodic focus marking by non-native speakers of English
as a foreign language.
My previous research projects have focused on the experimental study of
the
perception of foreign accent in English as a second language. In
particular, I am interested in defining the relative contribution of
the suprasegmental aspects of speech, e.g. intonation (melody of
speech) and duration (delivery).
I am also interested in CALL (Computer Aided Language Learning) and I
would like to apply the findings of my research to a teaching/learning
method and/or implement them in learning software. Before getting my
MSc and PhD, I have worked for five years as a qualified English and
Spanish teacher at all levels of the Italian schooling system, basing
my work on the communicative approach and on the use of multimedia
aids.
Since 2014 I have been working as Linguistic Project Manager for Appen (www.appen.com).
Specialties: Phonetic transcription and acoustic measurements (using
Praat, Wavesurfer, GIPOS...), multimodal annotation (e.g. Anvil,
Transcriber, Elan), creation and management of annotated speech
databases.
- Education
-
University of Padua, Italy Jan. 2011- Apr. 2014
Ph.D. in Language Sciences
Title of thesis:
The phonetic realization of narrow focus in English L1 and L2.
Data from production and perception.
Supervisor: Maria Grazia Busà
- Visiting student at the Phonetics Lab of the University of Leiden (NL), under the supervision of Vincent Van Heuven (Sep. 2012 - Dec. 2012)
-
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom 2009 - 2010
MSc Speech and Language Processing
Title of thesis: The voice quality distinction in Dinka songs.
Supervisors: Bob Ladd and Bert Remijsen
-
University of Bologna, Italy 2000- 2004
BA+MA Foreign Languages and Literatures
Languages studied: English and Spanish
- Professional experiences
-
Linguistic Project ManagerAppen (September 2014 - today)
- Supervision of linguistic annotation (e.g. prosody, POS tagging) and lexicon projects, trainee Project Manager, working remotely from York (UK)
Free-lance phonetician,
Remote language specialistGracenote (2010), Appen (2013-2014)- Phonetic transcription and linguistic consultancy for creation and validation of annotated text-to-speech/ASR lexicon
Professional translatorAemilia Tradux, Modena, Italy (2005)
- Teaching experience
-
Teaching assistant University of Padua - 2012-2013
- Praat tutorial as part of the course Introduction to experimental phonetics for both undergraduate and MA students;
- Technical support to students of the course.
Teacher of Spanish,
English and I.C.T. Primary and Secondary schools in Modena, Italy - 2005-2010
- Tools used
-
- Praat (acoustic analysis, phonetic annotation, speech manipulation, script writing);
- Regular expressions and sed writing
- Statistical analysis packages (e.g., SPSS, R);
- Basic Python coding skills;
- LaTeX (document editing);
- Survey management tools (e.g., LimeSurvey);
- Stimuli presentation software (e.g., e-Prime);
- Working knowledge of Elan, Anvil and Transcriber.
- Publications
- Rognoni, L. & Busà, M.G. (2014). Testing the
effects of segmental and suprasegmental phonetic cues in foreign accent
rating: an experiment using prosody transplantation. Concordia Working Papers in Applied
Linguistics 5, 547-560. ISSN 2292-4248.
Rognoni, L. (2013). Il sistema fonologico del dialetto modenese. L’Italia Dialettale, 74, 135-148. ISSN: 0085-2295.
Busà, M.G. & Rognoni, L. (2012). Italians Speaking English: The Contribution of Verbal and Non-Verbal Behavior. In Mello, H., Pettorino, M. and Raso, T. (eds.), Proceedings of the 7th GSCP International Conference: Speech and Corpora. Firenze: Firenze University Press, 313-317. ISBN: 978-8866553519.
Rognoni, L. (2012). The impact of prosody in foreign accent detection.
A perception study of Italian accent in English. In M.G. Busà, M.G. & A. Stella (eds.), Methodological Perspectives on Second Language Prosody. Papers from ML2P 2012. Padua: Cleup, 89-93. ISBN 978-8861299375.
Rognoni, L. & Munhoz Xavier, C.C. (2012). Thematic Clustering in Second Language Vocabulary Learning: Scenarios Versus Mental Scenes Development. Asian EFL Journal, 14(4), 69-80. ISSN: 1738-1460.
Rognoni, L. (2012). The voice quality distinction in Dinka songs. A production and perception study in experimental phonetics. Saarbrücken: LAP-Lambert. ISBN: 978-3848433667.
Rognoni, L. (2011). The neutralization of the voice quality distinction in Dinka songs: a production and perception study. In Lee W.S. and Zee E. (eds.), Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences', 17-21 August 2011, Hong Kong, Vol. 3, 1702-1705. ISBN: 978-962-442-341-9.
Rognoni, L. (2011). To be or not to be. That is the... webquest. (Ri)scoprire Amleto sul web 2.0. Lend - Lingua e Nuova Didattica, Anno XL, 4, 47-54. ISSN: 1121-5291.
- Awards and scholarships
-
- Full PhD Scholarship and monthly stipend granted by Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo Foundation, funding my PhD and (2011-2013)
- University of Edinburgh UK/EU Master’s Scholarship: recipient of one of the twelve scholarships offered by the University, fully funding my Masters degree (2009-2010)
- Prize for “Best Project in Teaching with the Aid of Technology”, awarded by the Italian educational portal Matematicamente.it to my CALL project “To be or not to be... That is the webquest” (July 2009)
- University of Bologna Award for a period of research as visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge (Department of Anglo-Saxon Norse and Celtic, Summer 2003)
- Further qualifications
- CELTA (Certificate of English Teaching to Adults), University of Cambridge ESOL
- CEDILS (Certificate in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language), University of Venice
- Q.T.S. (Qualified Teacher Status), General Teaching Council of England
- C.P.E. (Certificate of Proficiency in English), University of Cambridge ESOL