Dialect Distinction

It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it.

While language research provides valuable insights into human cognition, communication and culture, it’s phonetic research that reveals the interplay between word choice and delivery.

Dialects, the varieties of a single language that vary depending on the regions or social groups in which they’re spoken, are the reason why a phrase like, “Bless your heart” can be taken as a balm or a backhand.

Fourth-year Florida State University doctoral student Susan Cox studies linguistics and is using acoustic analyses to uncover important differences across dialects in the same language, and her phonetics research is informing linguistic theory and the practical and daily communications that make it simpler for people to acquire second-language proficiency.

Cox, a Pennsylvania native who learned Spanish as a teen and also teaches the language to undergrads at FSU, spent a month traveling in Spain last year, immersing herself in the country to research and document vocal patterns in formal and casual Spanish language pronunciations among the country’s regions.

“The more we know about a native language, the easier it is to make predictions about how second language-learners, like me, will learn,” said Cox, who earned a 2025 College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Award for Doctoral Excellence for her work in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. “The knowledge we gain from native speakers helps us better inform curriculums and the way we teach languages, such as Spanish, to second language-learners. It’s also critical for speech therapy and speech recognition technology.”

Her research explores vocal differences in Spanish spoken in the country’s northern and southern regions to increase understanding of how sounds are created, perceived and distinguished. Cox’s work is funded by a 2024 Outstanding Teaching Assistant of the Year Award, the Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, the Congress of Graduate Students, and a graduate research grant from the Spanish honor society Sigma Delta Pi.

“Susan is an impactful researcher and teacher — she’s kind, patient, and very supportive of her students’ individual learning needs. She always knows how to incorporate the latest research and technology in a productive and engaging way.”

— Carolina González, professor of Spanish and linguistics

On her 2024 research trip, Cox conducted 29 interviews, 17 in the south and 12 in the north, to acoustically analyze phonetic differences across the two dialects.

“These interviews look for intonation — the rise or fall of voice when speaking — paired with what we call creaky voice, or speaking with vocal fry and in a lower pitch, and breathy voice, or speaking as a whisper with an airy quality,” Cox said. “Although it’s often done subconsciously, creaky or breathy voice convey different conversational cues, such as indicating a question or conversational turn-taking.”

Cox is currently analyzing the interviews using an audio waveform visualizing platform, and her analysis so far has revealed that creaky voice is more common in northern Spain while breathy voice is more common in southern Spain. She plans to have a third of the interviews analyzed before traveling back to Spain this summer to share her dissertation-in-progress at the Sixth Phonetics and Phonology in Europe conference in Majorca.

“This will be the first time I present my own research,” Cox said. “I’m looking forward to feedback on my analysis and statistics and the rest of my process. It’s a great opportunity to collaborate with scholars around the world and implement their advice because my work is part of a relatively understudied field of linguistics due to how difficult interview analysis is.”

She will also present research conducted with FSU faculty, including professor of Spanish and linguistics Carolina González and associate professor of Spanish and linguistics Lara Reglero, at the Majorca conference and at the 15th International Symposium on Bilingualism in San Sebastián, Spain. This work covers vocal intonation of questions in Basque Spanish, a dialect of Spanish spoken in northern Spain due to contact with Basque, a prominent language spoken in the area.

“Susan is an impactful researcher and teacher — she’s kind, patient, and very supportive of her students’ individual learning needs,” González said. “She always knows how to incorporate the latest research and technology in a productive and engaging way.”

Cox followed a unique path to graduate study. She earned a bachelor’s in Spanish from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2003. After graduating, she married, moved to Tallahassee, and raised three children before returning to school and completing her master’s in Spanish at FSU in 2021.

“My father always supported and encouraged me to pursue my dream of going back to school — it was one of the last things we talked about before he passed,” Cox said. “Now, my dream job is to teach at a research university. I’m excited at the potential that lies in applying new, innovative technologies to advance my research while teaching others about the significance of language differences.”

Carly Nelson is an FSU student pursuing a bachelor's in advertising with plans to graduate in Summer 2025.