Dr. Sonya Bird

Biography

Sonya Bird received her BA Honours in Linguistics from the University of British Columbia from 1993 to 1996. She completed her MA and PhD at the University of Arizona between 1997 and 2002, where her dissertation focused on the phonetics and phonology of intervocalic consonants in the Lheidli dialect of Dakelh, a Dene language spoken in British Columbia. After finishing her PhD, she returned to UBC as a SSHRC post-doctoral fellow to study the phonetic properties of glottalised resonants in St’át’imcets, an Interior Salish language also spoken in British Columbia (2002-2004). In 2004, she joined the Department of Linguistics at the University of Victoria and established the Speech Research Lab in 2007, supported by funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. Her research integrates Phonetics with Indigenous Language Documentation and Revitalization, particularly focusing on the role of pronunciation in oral fluency and language revitalization efforts. Thanks to a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, her recent projects have centered on the speech production and perception of Hul’q’umi’num’ speakers at various proficiency levels. Sonya Bird participates in UVic's undergraduate and graduate programs in Indigenous Language Revitalization, having helped design the Masters in Indigenous Language Revitalization program and served as Graduate Advisor from 2020 to 2022.

Research Interests