Lishan Li
M.A. in Chinese Linguistics | B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature
Introduction
Hello! I am a linguistics researcher passionate about Phonetics, Dialectology, and Language Acquisition.
I am a linguistics researcher sitting at the interface of Phonetics and Phonology. My work explores the cognitive resilience of sound systems, focusing specifically on how listeners adapt when phonological contrasts blur and signals degrade. I examine the interplay between individual variability, cue-weighting, and language evolution across diverse populations, including bilingual and bidialectal speakers.
I obtained my M.A. from Beijing Normal University and B.A. from Shandong University.
News
- [Aug 2025] Presented our work on Cantonese Tone Merging orally at Interspeech 2025! 🎤
- [Dec 2024] Paper on dialect loss and tone perception published in JASA (Vol. 156).
Research Overview
🗺️ Data Sources & Fieldwork
Mapping my linguistic fieldwork across China and Southeast Asia.
1. Mechanisms of Sound Change
I investigate how phonetic variation is transformed into phonological restructuring. A central component concerns Cantonese tone evolution and the interaction between morphological tone alternation and ongoing tonal mergers.
2. Bilingualism & Plasticity
I investigate how language experience shapes perceptual sensitivity. I demonstrate that speech perception is not fixed: listeners continually reweight multiple dimensions—such as F0, duration, or voice quality—depending on their linguistic background.
3. Language Acquisition
I extend my expertise in prosody to developmental populations. My current project focuses on children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), examining suprasegmental features to identify reliable acoustic markers.
4. Multidimensional Cue Dynamics
Across all areas of my research lies a unifying interest: how listeners integrate multiple acoustic cues (pitch, duration, spectral tilt) and how these strategies shift in different environments, such as tonal mergers or noisy signals.