Jun.-Prof. Dr. Katharina Zahner-Ritter
University of Trier

Current position and functions

• Junior Professor for General and Applied Phonetics at the University of Trier (since March 2021)
• Director of the Phonetics Department at the University of Trier (Geschäftsführerin, since October 2021)
• Co-Speaker of the Trier Center for Language and Communication (TCLC, since December 2021)
• Senior member of SpeechNet BaWü+

Research foci

• Production and perception of prosody
• Cross-linguistic aspects of prosody & meaning
• First language acquisition (early phonological development)
• Prosodic transfer in second language acquisition
• Human/child computer interaction

Methods

• Forced choice experiments, eye-tracking, looking time paradigms with infants
• Different types of production paradigms
• Statistical analyses, including GAMMs

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News

2024

July 2024: 3 papers and a special session at Speech Prosody 2024 in Leiden - exciting!
Special Session 

• Cross-talk between linguistic and attitudinal functions of Intonation in tonal and non-tonal languages (organised with Yiya Chen, Leiden)

Papers

• Zahner-Ritter, K., Elsässer, N., Feldhausen, I., & Trouvain, J. (in press). Prosodic marking of contrastive focus in French learners of German. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Speech Prosody (SP12), Leiden, the Netherlands. 
• Manzoni-Luxenburger, M., Andreeva, B., & Zahner-Ritter, K. (in press). Intonational patterns under time pressure: Phonetic strategies in Bulgarian learners of German and English. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Speech Prosody (SP12), Leiden, the Netherlands.
• Fünfgeld, S., Braun, A., & Zahner-Ritter, K. (in press). Intonational patterns of verbal irony: A cross-varietal study on two German regional accents. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Speech Prosody (SP12), Leiden, the Netherlands.

2023

August 2023: 2 papers at the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences in Prague

• Weirich, M. & Zahner-Ritter, K. (2023, in press). Indexing femininity in vowel acoustics: A
  comparison between speakers in eastern and western parts of Germany. Proceedings of the
  International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 2023), Prague, Czech Republic.
• Nuscheler, J.D, Elsässer, N., Braun, A. & Zahner-Ritter, K. (2023, in press). Acoustic characteristics of dog-directed speech: The role of individual empathy level and personality traits. Proc. of
  the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 2023), Prague, Czech Republic.
  > student paper based on master thesis of first author; Congratulations!

July: New paper out - Interdisciplinary work!

• Einfeldt, M., Sevastjanova, R., Zahner-Ritter, K., Kazak, E., & Braun, B. (2023). The use of Active Learning systems for stimulus selection and response modelling perception experiments. Computer Speech & Language, 101537. doi.org/10.1016/j.csl.2023.101537

June: Phonetics and Phonology in Europe (PaPE 2023, 2-4 June, 2023, Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
Presenting two posters...

• Poster 1: Prosodic marking of allegedly exciting objects in child-directed speech: 
  Katharina Zahner-Ritter, Luisa Geib and Bettina Braun
• ​Poster 2: The relevance and weighting of prosodic cues in question interpretation: 
  Marieke Einfeldt, Ekaterina Kazak, Angela James, Rita Sevastjanova, Daniela Wochner, Katharina Zahner-Ritter, Nicole Dehé and Bettina Braun

March: New paper

• Gampe, A., Zahner-Ritter, K., Müller, J., & Schmid, S. (2023) How children speak with their voice assistant Sila depends on what they think about her! Computers in Human Behavior. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2023.107693
• see press release

2022

zahner-ritter_gamm_macquarie.pdf
File Size:	8592 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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Invited speaker at CLaS Eye-tracking Workshop 2: Data analysis and statistical approaches (Macquarie University, Sydney, 08.09.2022)
Slides

Outreach event: Kiosk am Hauptmarkt - Triers kleinster Hörsaal

Im April und Juni war das Phonetik Labor der Universität Trier zusammen mit dem Patterns Verbund am Hauptmarkt in Trier vertreten, um von unserer Forschung in der Phonetik zu erzählen. Es gab Mitmach-Aktionen zum Thema "Ironie", "Wörter lernen" und vieles mehr.

Little participants wanted: Online word-recognition studies for 1-2-year-olds​

• With the new BabyLab App, parents can now participate in experiments at home. We investigate how children recognise and learn words when these are spoken in Standard German or different regional varieties.
  ​Here is some info: https://www.ling.uni-konstanz.de/bsl/angebote-fuer-zu-hause/babylab-app/
  The app can be downloaded here: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/bsl-wortformerkennung/id1508534681​​

Phonetics goes Insta
The phonetics lab in Trier is now on Instagram (@phonfacts_). Follow us for "phon-facts" and other updates from the lab! 

TiPToP-Workshop in October 2021.

• Our workshop virtual "Trends in pedagogical transmission of prosody" (TiPToP) has been a great success!​ More than 80 participants on gather.town. Here is a picture of the organising committee:

Get in touch...

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Katharina Zahner-Ritter
University of Trier
Universitätsring 15, 54296 Trier, Germany

room:   B303
phone: +49 (0)651 201-2276

​https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katharina_Zahner​
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1954-6436