Focus of research

Cantonese tone merger is my main focus but I dabble in other stuff once in a while as well (e.g., BiPhon model, Korean A-not-A Questions).

Interests

Sound change; language transfer; Cantonese; Japanese; Korean; prosody; tones; pitch-accent

Education

2020  Diploma in Linguistics (D.L.I.N) at University of British Columbia 

2017  Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) Combined Major in Science - (Chemistry, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Life Sciences) at University of British Columbia

About

I have been an MA student here under Prof. Yue Wang and her Language and Brain Lab since 2022. I’m interested in the prosody of multiple East Asian languages. I’m currently investigating how Cantonese tone mergers might adapt their speech sounds when having a conversation with non-mergers.

Before I discovered my love for and career in linguistics, I completed my B.Sc at UBC. I then graduated with a Diploma in Linguistics at UBC in 2020. During my studies there, I worked as a Research Assistant at Prof. Molly Babel’s Speech in Context Lab, mainly for Khia Johnson.

Publications

Fong. I., Wong. E., Wang.  F., Chan. K., Fung, A., Johnson-Dhillon. T., Trasolini. J., Behne. D.M., Jongman. A., Sereno. J.A., Tupper. P., Wang. Y. (2024, May). Phonetic adaptation in conversation: The case of Cantonese tone merging. Poster presentation at the joint 186th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and 2024 Acoustics Week in Canada conference (AWC2024), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

K. Ehret., L. Bosman., Babayode, A., N. Chan.,  I. Fong., N. Harris., A. Hewton., D. Reid., R. Wong., M. Taboada. (2023). Podcasts as an emerging register of computer-mediated communication. In Review at Register Studies.

Fong, I., Song. M.Y. (2024, October). The supposed presuppositionality of Korean A-not-A Questions. Accepted poster presentation at the 31st Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference (JK31), Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Williamson, S., Babayode-Lawal, A. A., Bosman, L., Chan, N., Cho, S., Fong, I., & Holubowsky, K. (2023). Japanese/Korean Linguistics: Volume 30. CSLI Publications. https://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/site/JK30Abstract.shtml

Babayode, A., L. Bosman, N. Chan, K. Ehret, I. Fong, N. Harris, A. Hewton, D. Reid, M. Taboada, R. Wong (2023) Structural linguistic characteristics of podcasts as an emerging register of computer-mediated communication. Poster presentation at the International Conference on CMC and Social Media Corpora for the Humanities (CMC-Corpora 2023), Mannheim, Germany. September 14-15, 2023.

Fong, I., To. Samuel., (2023, February). Reversing a Cantonese tone-merger through conversation tasks. Oral presentation at the 7th Annual Language Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference (LSURC 2023), University of British Columbia, Vancouver. BC. Canada

Johnson, K. A., Babel, M., Fong, I., & Yiu, N. (2020). SpiCE: A new open-access corpus of conversational bilingual speech in Cantonese and English. Proceedings of The 12th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2020). http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2020/pdf/2020.lrec-1.503.pdf

Fong, I. (2020, February). Crossing the language boundary: Syllable fusion in Cantonese-English code-mixing speech. Oral presentation at The 4th Annual Language Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference (LSURC 2020), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Song, MY., Fong, I., & Eliora, A. (in press). “Korean A-not-A questions: Is it neutral or not?”. In: D. K. E. Reisinger (ed.), Papers in Pragmatics. Vancouver, BC: UBCWPL.

Song, MY., Fong, I., & Eliora, A. (2020, February). Korean A-not-A Questions: Is it neutral or not? Poster presentation at The 4th Annual Language Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference (LSURC 2020), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Awards and recognitions

• SFU GSS Professional Development Grant (May 2024)
• SFU Graduate Fellowship 2023 Fall
• SFU Graduate Felllowship 2023 Spring
• SFU Graduate Fellowship 2022 Fall
• Second place for poster presentation at The 4th Annual Language Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference (LSURC 2020)

Curriculum vitae