Association for Laboratory Phonology

The Association for Laboratory Phonology is a non-profit professional society for researchers interested in the sound structure of language. It was founded to promote the scientific study of all aspects of phonetics and phonology of oral and sign languages through scholarly exchange across disciplines and through the use of a hybrid methodology.^[1] The founding and honorary members are Amalia Arvaniti, Mary Beckman, Cathi Best, Catherine Browman, Jennifer S. Cole, Mariapaola D'Imperio, Louis M. Goldstein, José Ignacio Hualde, Patricia Keating, John Kingston, D.R. Ladd, Peter Ladefoged, Janet Pierrehumbert, Caroline Smith, Paul Warren, and Douglas Whalen. The Association is an international body open to scholars world-wide, and currently has over 100 members.

Since the Association's inception, the methodologies of laboratory phonology are emerging as the dominant approach to the study of sound systems in universities in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and many other locations. In this way, the success of the approach promoted by the Association for Laboratory Phonology can be attributed to its interdisciplinary nature: bridging linguistics with psychology, computer science, etc., and defining the relationship between the cognitive and physical aspects of human speech as a question of cognitive science.^[2]