Janet Fletcher

Biography

Janet Fletcher is Professor of Phonetics in the School of Language and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. She is considered as one of Australia’s leading phoneticians and its leading practitioner in the field of laboratory phonology. Through a series of meticulous studies of timing, rhythm and intonation across a range of languages, Janet Fletcher revolutionised the approach to instrumental phonetic research in prosody in Australia, and opened up the field of intonational research through the use of autosegmental-metrical approaches. Her research has contributed to new ways of thinking about the melody, timing and rhythm of language, and of the interplay of articulatory and acoustic factors, focusing in particular on cross-linguistic differences. Her publications include ‘An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology’ (co-edited with John Clark and Colin Yallop, 3rd Edition, 2007), and numerous peer-reviewed publications in the field of laboratory phonology. She is also a Chief Investigator on the ARC-funded Centre of Excellence Dynamics of Language.