Abebayehu Messele Mekonnen, BA, MA
Department of Human Communication Sciences
The University of Sheffield
31 Claremont Crescent
Sheffield
S10 2TA
UK
Tel: +44 (0) 114 222 2410
Fax: +44 (0) 114 273 0547
email : a.mekonnen@sheffield.ac.uk
Biography
Abebayehu Mekonnen earned his BA and MA in Linguistics from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia in 2005 and 2007 respectively. Upon completion of his BA, he was employed as a graduate assistant in the Department of Linguistics, Addis Ababa University and was promoted to Assistant Lecturer in 2006, and to Lecturer in 2007. Since September 2009, he is now pursuing his PhD in clinical phonetics at the University of Sheffield, UK, investigating speech production in Amharic-speaking individuals with cleft palate.
Research interests
- Experimental phonetics
- Speech production in cleft lip and palate
- Speech production in dysarthria
- Developmental language/speech disorders
Research Project
Abebayehu´s PhD project is on speech production problems in Amharic-speaking individuals with unoperated/late repaired cleft palate. The aim of the research is to assess resonance, articulation, and voice in the speech of the individuals in question and to explore cross-linguistic differences in cleft speech development and production.
Collaborators
Supervisors: Dr. Sara Howard and Prof. Mick Perkins
Selected Publications:
- Abebayehu M. Mekonnen (2011). The effects of macroglossia on speech: a case study. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, Early Online, 1–12.
- Abebayehu Messele Mekonnen and Klaus Wedekind. (2011) Pitch as a Physical Correlate of Stress in Gedeo Nouns. Ethiopian Journal of Linguistics and Philology, 1, 1-14.
- Abebayehu Messele Mekonnen, Klaus Wedekind, Moges Yigezu, and Derib Ado. (in preparation) Sounds of the Horn. The phonetics of languages of the Horn of Africa [with CD data and sound files]
- Abebayehu Messele and Endashaw W/Michael (2009). Multilingualism in Ethiopia: consequences on foreign language teaching and learning. Journée d’études sur le plurilinguisme en contexte éthiopien.
- Abebayehu Messele Mekonnen (2009). An acoustic analysis of a pathological speech: the case of an Amharic-speaking person with flaccid dysarthria. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag, Dr. Muller Aktiengesellschaft.