Thomas Staniforth

I convene courses in Chinese language and translation at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies, with a particular focus on prosody and pitch perception in tonal language acquisition.

I hold a particular interest in phonetic writing and written representations of speech, particularly concerning how this influences speech perception. I run xinyizhe.xyz, a website for sharing research and ideas in this area.

CV

MA (Religious Studies) University of Edinburgh 2011

MA (Interpreting and Translation) University of Bath 2019

Rajiv Gandhi Scholar, University of Cambridge (CCT) 2011
Visiting Scholar, University of Kathmandu (RYI) 2013
Associate, Chartered Institute of Linguists 2021
Fellow, Higher Education Academy 2021
Member, The Philological Society 2022
Member, Linguistics Association of Great Britain (LAGB) 2022

Language specialism

Mandarin (Modern Standard Chinese)
Southwestern Mandarin (成渝片)
Cantonese
Central Tibetan

• Tone and pitch perception in Chinese languages and dialects
• Prosody and suprasegmental phonetics in L2 acquisition
• 切音字運動