In previous work, I investigated the production and perception of the typologically rare contrast between two voiceless alveolar sibilant fricatives in Korean. One question I looked into was how to classify these fricatives in the context of the Korean laryngeal system (which distinguishes lenis, fortis, and aspirated plosives and affricates); another was how to classify them in the broader scope of phonation cross-linguistically.

My findings indicated that properties of the following vowel heavily influence the perception of this contrast, and that the non-fortis fricative seems to exemplify a distinct laryngeal category: aspirated voiceless lenis (Chang, 2013a).

In current work, I am collaborating with Hae-Sung Jeon to investigate variation and change in the mental representation of the Korean fricative contrast within and across generations of Seoul Korean speakers.