Janet Pierrehumbert
{{short description|American linguist}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Janet Pierrehumbert
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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1954}}
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| fields = Phonology, Phonetics, Cognitive Science
| workplaces = University of Oxford, Northwestern, AT&T Bell Labs
| doctoral_advisor = Morris Halle
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| awards = Member of the National Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America
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Janet Breckenridge Pierrehumbert {{IPAc-en|p|ɪər|ˈ|h|ʌ|m|b|ər|t}} (born 1954) is Professor of Language Modelling in the Oxford e-Research Centre at the University of Oxford and a senior research fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.{{cite web |url=https://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/people/profiles/janet-pierrehumbert/ |title=Janet Pierrehumbert |publisher=Trinity College, Oxford |accessdate=2015-10-04 |archive-date=2015-10-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151007075823/https://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/people/profiles/janet-pierrehumbert/ |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web |title=Pierrehumbert CV |url=https://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/jpierrehumbert/cv.html |access-date=2025-03-07 |website=www.phon.ox.ac.uk}} She developed an intonational model which includes a grammar of intonation patterns and an explicit algorithm for calculating pitch contours in speech, as well as an account of intonational meaning.Pierrehumbert, J. B. [http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jbp/publications/Pierrehumbert_PhD.pdf The phonology and phonetics of English intonation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151213155827/http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jbp/publications/Pierrehumbert_PhD.pdf |date=2015-12-13 }}. PhD thesis, MIT. Distributed 1988, Indiana University Linguistics Club.Pierrehumbert, J. B. and Mary E. Beckman (1988) Japanese Tone Structure, Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 15, MIT Press, Cambridge. {{ISBN|978-0-262-66063-1}} It has been widely influential in speech technology, psycholinguistics, and theories of language form and meaning.{{cite web |url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ebzKiiwAAAAJ&hl=en |title=Janet B. Pierrehumbert |publisher=Google Scholar |accessdate=2015-10-04 }} Pierrehumbert is also affiliated with the New Zealand Institute of Language Brain and Behaviour at the University of Canterbury.
Education
AB Linguistics, Harvard University, 1975.
PhD Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1980.
Career
Pierrehumbert did her postdoctoral work in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. She joined AT&T Bell Labs as a member of Technical Staff in linguistics and artificial intelligence research in 1982, where her collaborators included Mary Beckman, Julia Hirschberg, and Mark Liberman. She moved to the linguistics department at Northwestern University in 1989. In 2015, she took up her present position in the Oxford e-Research Centre in the Department of Engineering Sciences at Oxford. She has held visiting appointments at Stanford University, Oxford, the Royal Institute of Technology, ENST, École Normale Supérieure, and Stockholm University. She is one of the founders of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, an interdisciplinary initiative to develop advanced scientific methods for studying language sound structure.
Research
Pierrehumbert's research uses experimental and computational methods to study the structure of language systems. Her current research focuses on the dynamics of the lexicon in individuals and populations. It uses large-scale text mining, computational modelling, and experimental paradigms that resemble computer games.
Honours and awards
Pierrehumbert received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996,{{cite web|url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/janet-b-pierrehumbert/|title=Janet B. Pierrehumbert|publisher=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|accessdate=2015-10-04}} and is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,{{cite web|url=https://www.amacad.org/content/news/pressReleases.aspx?pr=59|title=American Academy Announces 2004 Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|accessdate=2015-10-04}} the Linguistic Society of America,{{cite web|url=http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/lsa-fellows-name|title=LSA Fellows By Name|publisher=Linguistic Society of America|accessdate=2015-10-04}} and the Cognitive Science Society.{{cite web|url=http://cognitivesciencesociety.org/about_awards_fellows.html|title=Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society|publisher=Cognitive Science Society|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150716115712/http://cognitivesciencesociety.org/about_awards_fellows.html|archivedate=2015-07-16|url-status=dead|accessdate=2015-10-04}} She held the Edward Sapir Professorship{{cite web|url=http://www.linguisticsociety.org/meetings-institutes/institutes/named-professorships#sapir|title=Edward Sapir Professorship (formerly the LSA Professorship)|publisher=Linguistic Society of America|accessdate=2015-10-04}} at the 2013 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute hosted by the University of Michigan.{{cite web|url=http://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/2013%20Summer%20Institute%20Report.pdf|title=Report on the 2013 Linguistic Institute|last1=Queen|first1=Robin|last2=Coetzee|first2=Andries|publisher=Linguistic Society of America|accessdate=2015-10-04}} In 2019 she was elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.{{Cite web|url=http://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/2019-nas-election.html|title=2019 NAS Election}} She is the 2020 recipient of the Medal for Scientific Achievement from the International Speech Communication Association.
In 2024, Pierrehumbert was elected a Fellow of Academia Europaea.{{cite web |title=Academy of Europe: Pierrehumbert Janet |url=https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Pierrehumbert_Janet |website=www.ae-info.org |access-date=7 March 2025}}
Personal life
Pierrehumbert is married to Raymond Pierrehumbert, Halley Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford.
References and publications
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/jpierrehumbert/ Homepage at Oxford].
- [http://www.wordovators.org/ Web site for the Wordovators project]
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Category:American women linguists
Category:American phoneticians
Category:Phonologists from the United States
Category:Academics of the University of Oxford
Category:Radcliffe College alumni
Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Category:Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society
Category:Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America
Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Category:MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni