Daniel Williams

Department of Germanic Studies
University of Sheffield
Jessop West
1 Upper Hannover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
UK

Biography

I am a postgraduate research student based in the Department of Germanic Studies and co-hosted by the Department of Human Communication Sciences at the University of Sheffield, which I joined in September 2009.
Before coming to Sheffield, I completed a BA in Dutch and German and an MA in Linguistics, both at University College London.
During my BA I also spent some time at the University of Ghent in Flanders, the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and the University of Vienna in Austria.

My BA dissertation looked at the lowering of certain Dutch diphthongs in young people in the Netherlands and my MA dissertation examined the perception and production of Dutch stops by native speakers of English.

Research

My PhD thesis focuses on second-language speech and second-language speech perception. Both Dutch and English exhibit relatively large vowel inventories and I am investigating to what extent this facilitates and/or hinders learning of Dutch vowels by native speakers of English.
I will also be examining perceptual difficulties with (front) rounded vowels and second-language phonemic and phonetic learning over time.

Collaborators

Supervisors: Dr. Roel Vismans (Germanic Studies) and Prof. Sara Howard (HCS)