For prospetive PhD students

Research areas

I am interested in supervising PhD students who would like to work on:

any topic related to speech prosody
For instance, production and/or perception of lexical tone/intonation in any language; tone-intonation interaction; syntax-prosody interface; non-native listening; L1 or L2 acquisition of prosody; prosody modelling; etc.
theory-driven speech technology (TTS, ASR) research
I am interested using small data and to conduct theory-driven research on speech technology. The theory can be linguistic, mathematic, psycho- or neuro- linguistic. Or a combination. I have some ready topics and specific plans. If you have experience in building models for speech technology, you are very welcome to apply for a PhD. It is likely that funding will be available in the future.

Second supervisor

In Newcastle, every PhD student is supervised by two supervisors. Depending on your background, you can find another supervisor to complement my knowledge and skills.

If you have a language/linguistics background:

There are three schools related to language/linguistic research:

to combine your research with other aspects of phonetics and phonology, syntax, pragmatics, socio-linguistics, acquisition, etc., look here: English Literature, Language and Linguistics
to combine your research with translation/interpreting or a specific modern language, look here: School of Modern Languages
to combine your research with applied linguistics such as conversation analysis or pedagogical research, look here: Applied Linguistics and Communication

If you have a psychology/neuroscience/clinical background:

to research on language and speech disorders, look here: Speech and Language Sciences
to work on other aspects of psycho-/neuro-linguistics, look here: Faculty of Medical Sciences

If you have a mathematics/engineering background:

to work on theory-driven speech technology and have a mathematics/engineering background, Professor Hongsheng Dai is happy to co-supervise. You can choose to be affiliated with the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics
there may also be suitable supervisors in School of Computing

Ranking

While ranking doesn’t mean as much for a PhD student, it is important to point out that

Newcastle University is a Russell Group university (somewhat like Ivy-league in the US);
Newcastle’s language-related degrees are internationally renowned, e.g. the department I am affiliated with, language and speech therapy, always ranks in the top 3 nationwide: link
This is partically due to the (not very far) history, the majority of the linguistics department was moved from Durham University to Newcastle.

Funding

The major funding sources for art, humanities, and social sciences are:

For more detailed information for the above four, see here.

China Scholarship Council (for Chinese citizens only)
Marie Curie
Newcastle University Overseas Research Scholarships: This award covers the difference between home and overseas fee rates (value to be determined for 2024/25. 2023/24 value approximately £16,188 to £24,088 per annum (depending on tuition fee band)).

Newcastle also have many opportunities for being a teaching assistant which can cover a large percentage of the cost. Newcastle, as a city, also has very low housing price and low living cost.