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Holman Tse, PhD (he/him/his)

Associate Professor of Linguistics
Dept. of Literature, Language, and Writing
St. Catherine University

Welcome to my website! Here, you will find information about my work including links to publications and conference presentation slides.

News

“Is lexical diffusion involved in the Cantonese /o/~/ɐ/ merger? ”, New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV 54), Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC (Oct. 24, 2026).

Abstract/Slides

Most recent publications

  • Tse, Holman (2024). AM/P~OM/P Merger in Hong Kong vs. Toronto Cantonese: An Under-documented Homeland Sound Change in a Heritage Language Context. Selected Papers from NWAV 51. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. 30(2): 135-142. https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/60616
  • Tse, Holman (2024) Individual-Level Cross-Linguistic Comparisons in Toronto Cantonese and English High Vowels. Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies. 14(1):81–93. https://doi.org/10.15845/bells.v14i1.4342

    • About Me

    I am a linguist specializing in heritage language phonetics and phonology and more broadly on sociophonetic variation and sound change in language contact settings. For example, my current research focuses on the extent of English influence on the vowel pronunciation patterns of bilingual Cantonese heritage speakers in Toronto, Canada. You can read more about my research on the research page and through links to publications and presentations. Both my MA (Univ. of Chicago) and PhD (Univ. of Pittsburgh) are in Linguistics while my BA (UC Santa Cruz) is in Anthropology. I have been a faculty member at St. Kate's since 2019. I teach general linguistics and sociolinguistics courses for the Language Studies Program. These courses are part of the “language” part of the Department of Literature, Language, and Writing (formerly Dept. of English and International Languages). You can find more information about my courses by visiting the teaching page. Although it's not a requirement to become a linguist (because it is not what linguistics is actually about), I am able to converse in several different languages. The last page of my CV includes a list of specific languages.

    CV

    My CV (PDF) - Last Updated: August 31, 2025

    Research Profiles

    I maintain research profiles on the following websites: