My research interests are based in phonetics and sociolinguistics (and their happy lovechild, sociophonetics).
Korean American Sociophonetics and Sociolinguistics
This project engages the young Korean American speech community and examines the production and perception of their speech in English and Korean. I have looked at their participation in the California Vowel Shift and their base pitch in both languages. Data come from bilingual ethnographic interviews, which provide a deeper understanding of each individual's language backgrounds, attitudes, ideologies, and idiosyncrasies, and also allows for adjacent analyses of topic-based style-shifting, speech accommodation, and more. I was recently featured on an episode of Hanmadi Korean Linguistics podcast on my Korean-English bilingualism research! Check it out here.
- Cheng, A., Jeon, L., and Kim, D.E. (2023). A comparative study of English vowel shifts and vowel space area among Korean Americans in three dialect regions. Journal of Linguistic Geography. [pdf][doi]
- Cheng, A. (2022). Indescribable: The Construction and Enregisterment of Korean American Ethnolinguistic Identity. Amerasia Journal. [pdf][doi]
- Cheng, A. (2021). Maintenance of phonetic and phonological distance in the English and Korean back vowel contours of heritage bilinguals. Journal of Phonetics 89. [pdf][doi]
- Cheng, A. and Cho, S. (2021). The effect of ethnicity on identification of Korean American speech. Languages, 6, 186. [pdf][doi]
- Cheng, A. (2020). 'School' Versus 'Home': California-based Korean Americans' Context-dependent Production of /u/ and /oʊ/. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 26.1, Article 9. [pdf]
- Cheng, A. (2020). Cross-linguistic f0 differences in bilingual speakers of English and Korean. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 147, pp. EL67-EL73. [pdf][doi]
- Cheng, A. `No' vs. `Aniyo': Back vowel diphthongization in Heritage Korean. Presented at the 178th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, San Diego, California, December 2019. [pdf]
- Cheng, A. (2019). Age of Arrival does not affect childhood immigrants' acquisition of ongoing sound change: Evidence from Korean Americans. In Calhoun et al., (eds.) Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia 2019, pp. 2213-2217. [pdf]
- Cheng, A. Style-Shifting, Bilingualism, and the Koreatown Accent. Presented at the 93rd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, New York City, New York, January 2019. [pdf]
- Cheng, A. Style-Shifting, Bilingualism, and the Koreatown Accent. Presented at the 2019 Five-Minute Linguist Event, New York City, New York, January 2019. (Runner-up) [video]
Infant-Directed Speech: Bilingual and Bicultural considerations
At Simon Fraser University's Language Learning and Development Lab, with Henny Yeung, I am exploring the acoustics of infant-directed speech and other topics related to child language development, with a focus on bilingual parents, bilingual acquisition, and the consequences of bicultural identity on language development. This work is currently in prep.
- Cheng, A., McClay, E., and Yeung, H. (Accepted). Mothers and Creak. In Venturi, F. (ed.) Creak: Theories and Practices of Pulse Phonation.
- Cheng, A., Ali, F., and Yeung, H. Language entropy versus language exposure as factors supporting multilingual language development.. Presented at the SRCD 2023 Biennial Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 2023. [pdf]
- Cheng, A., McClay, E., and Yeung, H. Measuring creak in novel words in Infant- vs. Adult-Directed Speech. Presented at Laboratory Phonology 18 (June 2022).
- Cheng, A., Lai, A., and Yeung, H. The Influence of Bilingualism on Pitch in Infant-Directed Speech. Presented at The International Congress of Infant Studies (July 2022).
Heritage Bilingualism and Cognitive Function
At Irvine, I trained in using online tools to measure cognitive function in heritage bilinguals. This work is co-authored with Judith Kroll and Gregory Scontras and is currently in prep.
- Kroll, J., Chan, A., Cheng, A., and Scontras, G. (2021). How to frame bilingualism in context: Putting people and places in mind. Commentary on Titone and Tiv (2021). Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. [doi]
- Cheng, A., Kroll, J., and Scontras, G. (In prep). Social context, word recognition, and cognitive function in minority bilingual and bidialectal speakers.
- Chan, A., Cheng, A., Kroll, J., and Scontras, G. Toward a new framework for understanding variation in heritage bilinguals. Presented at the 13th Heritage Language Virtual Research Institute.
Asian Americans and Canadians and Raciolinguistics
Together with a diverse coalition of Asian identified linguists from the United States and Canada, I am working on increasing representation and understanding of people of Asian descent (broadly defined) as uniquely racialized individuals within linguistics as an academic field.
- Cheng, A. Why you can't hear my accent: Racial bias and speech perception. Presented at the 5th Annual UCI Postdoctoral Scholar Research Symposium, UC Irvine, March 2021. [video]
- Garza, J., Lee, C., Cheng, A., and Ánand, A. (Accepted). Asian American Racialization and Model Minority Logics in Linguistics. In Wolfram, W., Charity Hudley, A., and Valdes, G. (eds.) Language and Social Justice in the USA. Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- Cheng, A., Cheng, L., Gonzales, W., and Umbal, P. VariAsian: Contact and Change in Asian North American Speech Communities (with Sheydaei, I., Zheng, M., Namboodiripad, S., and Tse, H.). Organized session at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, San Francisco, CA, January 2021.
- Ánand, A., Lee, C., Cheng, A., and Garza, J. Room at the Table: Locating Asian Identity in Linguistics and the LSA. (with L. Hou, N. Mararac, S. Shankar, E. Chun, J. Lee, A. Lo, and A. Reyes). Organized session at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, San Francisco, CA, January 2021.
- Cheng, A., Faytak, M., and Cychosz, M. (2016). Language, race, and vowel space: Contemporary Californian English. In Clem et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the Forty-Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp. 63-78. [pdf]
Korean Heritage Language and Linguistics
I am the project head of KoHL/콜, the Korean Heritage Language Research Group. KoHL gathers scholars from the field of linguistics and other language-oriented disciplines who are pursuing research on Korean language/linguistics, Korean as a heritage language, and the language practices of peoples and communities of Korean heritage, and we hold bi-weekly roundtable research presentations. In my own work in Korean linguistics, I examine the timecourse of a sound change in Seoul Korean and its advancement in Korean American populations.
- Cheng, A. (2021). Vowel production variation in Korean heritage speakers. Proceedings of CLS 56 (2020), pp. 107-122. [pdf]
- Cheng, A. The null effect of Korean language education on cross-linguistic variation in heritage bilinguals. Presented at the International Conference of Korean Linguistics, August 2021.
- Cheng, A. Heritage Korean and Ethnic Identity in California. Presented at the 20th Meeting of the International Circle of Korean Linguistics, University of Helsinki, June 2017.
- Cheng, A. (2019). VOT merger and f0 contrast in Heritage Korean in California. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 25.1, Article 9. [pdf]
Other Sociolinguistics Projects
I am happily looking for collaborators on projects involving the language in media and the study of voices on YouTube and other social media outlets, with a particular focus on Asian Americans, other racially minoritized speakers, and LGBTQ+ speakers. Please contact me if you are interested!
- Cheng, A. (2023). ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ and other Oscars 2023 films show a trend towards linguistic realism in Hollywood The Conversation. [link]