woman in front of brick wall with "Wells Hall" on it

Linguistics PhD Student

xuchenc1@msu.edu

Chenchen is a Ph.D. student in linguistics with primary research interests in phonology, phonetics and sociolinguistics. She received her B.A. in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and M.A. in Chinese linguistics from Soochow University, China, and her M.A. in linguistics from Michigan State University. She taught both Chinese and linguistics before she became an RA.

Her recent research is mainly on understanding Chinese syllable contraction. She studied the socio-perception of Mandarin syllable contraction and the relationship between vowel selection and sonority in syllable contraction using experimental and quantificational methodologies. She is currently working on her dissertation on the phonetic and phonology of syllable contraction in a Mandarin dialect called Rugao. She is also involved in a series of experiments that studies illusory consonants and vowels in Mandarin speakers’ perception.

In her free time, she likes to sing, cook and watch movies. She also likes yoga and swimming.