Baichen Du
About
Hello! I am a PhD student at UCLA Linguistics, specializing in Phonetics. I study how the structure and fine details of language are produced, perceived, acquired, and changed with various methodologies, such as expreimentation, computation, and filedworks. For example, I study the role of phonology when interacting with perceptibility, articulation, lexical access and variation, and how such role may inform us of the theory of grammar. Currently, I am a member of the UCLA Phonetics Lab . I worked on a number of projects on these topics with Megha Sundara, Yao Yao, Keith Johnson, Alexandra Pfiffner, and Jonathan Havenhill. For more details, see my CV.
Recent News
Collaborating with Jian-Leat Siah and Jae-Eun Jennifer Shin, I will be on a fieldwork trip this winter to Tawau, Malaysia, to investigate the endangered languages of Kalabakan Murut and Serudung Murut, their unique repair strategies in the coda voicing, and the resulting perceptual differences. This trip is sponsored by the Ladefoged Scholarships co-awarded to me and Jennifer.
Current Projects
• Sensitivity to tonal information in Mandarin lexical access: Evidence from corpus study, eye tracking, production, and perception
• Articulatory gestures and sound changes in the context of Mandarin Chinese
• Native and non-native speaker's articulation and production of facial gestures
• Articulatory gestures and sound changes in the context of Mandarin Chinese
• Native and non-native speaker's articulation and production of facial gestures
Publications & Presentations
Journal Articles
• Du, B., Pfiffner, A. (Re-submitted). The co-variance of acoustic cues and lip gestures in the production of the Mandarin sibilant contrast
• Yu, X., Van Hoey, T., Tan, F., Du, B. & Do, Y. (2024). Tracking phonological regularities: exploring the influence of learning mode and regularity locus in adult phonological learning. Linguistics Vanguard. doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2023-0050
• Yu, X., Van Hoey, T., Tan, F., Du, B. & Do, Y. (2024). Tracking phonological regularities: exploring the influence of learning mode and regularity locus in adult phonological learning. Linguistics Vanguard. doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2023-0050
Conference Presentations
• Du, B., Pfiffner, A., Johnson, K. (2024, Jan). The role of visible articulatory variation in Mandarin sibilant contrast and merger. Talk given at 2024 LSA Annual Meeting (LSA2024), New York City, NY.
• Du, B., Pfiffner, A., Johnson, K. (2023, Dec). Consonant and vowel rounding: same acoustics, different visuals. Poster presented at ASA 185th Meeting (ASA185) Sydney, Australia.
• Havenhill, J., Du, B. (2023, Dec). Visual cues in sound change: A cross-modal perceptual account for the typological rarity of labial palatalization. Poster presented at ASA 185th Meeting (ASA185) Sydney, Australia.
• Du, B., Pfiffner, A., Johnson, K. (2023, Oct). Visible articulatory variation as a cue to sound change: Lip rounding and lip protrusion variability in the Mandarin sibilant merger. Talk given at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 51 (NWAV51), Queens College, New York City, NY.
• Du, B. (2023). Acoustic distance effect on the perception of sibilants mergers between retroflexes and alveolars in Taiwan Mandarin. Poster presented at ASA 184th Meeting (ASA184), Chicago, IL.
• Du, B., Pfiffner, A., Johnson, K. (2023, Dec). Consonant and vowel rounding: same acoustics, different visuals. Poster presented at ASA 185th Meeting (ASA185) Sydney, Australia.
• Havenhill, J., Du, B. (2023, Dec). Visual cues in sound change: A cross-modal perceptual account for the typological rarity of labial palatalization. Poster presented at ASA 185th Meeting (ASA185) Sydney, Australia.
• Du, B., Pfiffner, A., Johnson, K. (2023, Oct). Visible articulatory variation as a cue to sound change: Lip rounding and lip protrusion variability in the Mandarin sibilant merger. Talk given at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 51 (NWAV51), Queens College, New York City, NY.
• Du, B. (2023). Acoustic distance effect on the perception of sibilants mergers between retroflexes and alveolars in Taiwan Mandarin. Poster presented at ASA 184th Meeting (ASA184), Chicago, IL.
Workshops
• Du, B. (2023, Sep). Introduction to Advanced R Programming with RMarkdown. The Sociolinguistics Lab, University of California, Berkeley.
Proceedings & Others
• Du, B., Pfiffner, A., Johnson, K. (2024). Visible articulatory variation as a cue to sound change: Lip rounding and lip protrusion variability in the Mandarin sibilant merger. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 30.2 (Selected Papers from NWAV 51).
• Du, B. (2023). The backfire effect in the perception and judgement of congruent and incongruent interpretation of political propaganda. Unpublished undergraduate thesis of political psychology. University of Hong Kong.
• Du, B. (2023). The backfire effect in the perception and judgement of congruent and incongruent interpretation of political propaganda. Unpublished undergraduate thesis of political psychology. University of Hong Kong.
Teaching
As Teaching Assistant
• POLI3148: Data Science in Politics and Public Administration (2024 Fall, Dr. Haohan Chen)
See the course archive I compiled for more information here.
• POLI3148: Data Science in Politics and Public Administration (2026 Spring, Dr. Haohan Chen)
See the course archive I compiled for more information here.
• POLI3148: Data Science in Politics and Public Administration (2026 Spring, Dr. Haohan Chen)
Additional Notes
I also speak Cantonese, in which my name is spelled as Paak San Dou [pak3 sɐn21 tou2]. Prior to joining UCLA, I worked as a full-time research assistant at the Speech and Language Science lab at the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, and at the Psychology Department in University of Manitoba - Winnipeg before completing my exchange study at UC Berkeley. Aside from phonetics, I also enjoy applying data analytics and machine learning techniques to linguistic research.
© 2025 Baichen Du. Manufactured in 2000. 🇭🇰 Exported from Hong Kong.