Claire Jingyuan Ye

Hi there! I’m Claire, or 叶 敬媛 [jè tɕìŋ yɛ́n].

I hold a PhD in Linguistics from La Trobe University (2026). My research interests span variationist, sociolinguistic perception, Chinese studies, and multilingualism.

My research is primarily quantitative, combining original data collection, corpus analysis, and statistical modelling. My PhD examined variation in Beijing rhotacization, exploring how speakers’ relationships with place shape their language use. More broadly, my work centres on linguistic covariation, perception, and social meaning. I investigate how linguistic variables pattern together across speakers and contexts, how listeners perceive and interpret these patterns, and how their interrelationships contribute to the social meaning of variation.

I am currently developing research at the intersection of speech perception and voice AI, examining how listeners recognise accents, interpret linguistic variation, and evaluate the naturalness and human-likeness of synthetic voices.

I also have a longstanding interest in cognitive linguistics and the relationships between language, experience, and cognition. Always open to collaboration!

And one of my favourite parts of research is plotting in R—turning complex data into visualisations that make patterns easier to see and new questions easier to ask.