For any inquiries regarding my academic work, research interests, or potential collaborations, you can find my detailed CV here.
Ali Çağan Kaya
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Email: ali-kaya@hacettepe.edu.tr, alicagank@icloud.com
Web: alicagankaya.com
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH IDS
ORCID: 0009-0007-9386-9766
EDUCATION INFORMATION
High School, Isparta Anadolu Lisesi, Türkiye 2018-2022 (Valedictorian)
B.A., Hacettepe University, Faculty of Letters, English Linguistics, Turkey 2022-2026 GPA: 3.43 (Expected)
REFEREED CONGRESS / SYMPOSIUM PUBLICATIONS IN PROCEEDINGS
I. Kaya, A. Ç. (2024, March). VowSpace: Bir ünlü formant analizi uygulaması [Oral presentation]. 17th Student Conference of Linguistics, Ankara University, Ankara, Türkiye.
II. Kaya, A. Ç. (2024, May). VowSpace: Bir ünlü formant analizi uygulaması [Poster presentation]. 37th National Linguistics Congress, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Türkiye.
III. Kaya, A. Ç. (2024, June). VowSpace: A vowel formant analysis application [Poster presentation]. Student Conference on Linguistics 2024, Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, Türkiye.
IV. Kaya, A. Ç. (2025, May). Praanscribe: A semi-automatic, AI-powered segmentation tool for Praat [Poster presentation]. Student Conference on Linguistics 2025, Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, Türkiye.
V. Kaya, A. Ç. (2025, May). Acoustic analysis of Turkish vowel formants: A methodological perspective [Oral presentation]. 77th Studentischen Tagung Sprachwissenschaft (StuTS), Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
VI. Kaya, A. Ç., & Yağlı, E. (2025, June). Türkçede ünlü formantlarının meta-analitik incelenmesi: Yöntembilimsel farklılıklar ve etkileri [A meta-analytical study of vowel formants in Turkish: Methodological differences and their implications] [Oral presentation]. 38th National Linguistics Congress, Atatürk University, Erzurum, Türkiye.
VII. Kaya, A. Ç., Bostan, B., & Uzun, İ. P. (2025, September). Eyes on the pupil size: Pupillary sensitivity to morphophonological mismatches in Turkish [Oral presentation]. 22nd International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, Dokuz Eylül University, İzmir, Türkiye.
VIII. Kaya, A. Ç., & Yağlı, E. (2025, September). Acoustic analysis of Turkish vowel formants: A methodological perspective [Oral presentation]. 22nd International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, Dokuz Eylül University, İzmir, Türkiye.
PROJECTS & SCOLARLY HELP
TÜBİTAK 2209-A: “The Vowel Space of Standard Turkish”
Role: Executive and researcher
This study aims to reliably describe the formant frequencies of the eight vowels in standard Turkish and to develop an integrated and transparent acoustic analysis method to address methodological inconsistencies in the existing literature. To this end, a meta-analysis focusing on the inconsistencies, reviewing 22 past research. Then, a system to consistently and repeatably collect and analyse vowel data for Turkish was developed. For this purpose, vowel data were collected from 20 standard Turkish speakers in controlled articulation contexts and normalised using the Lobanov method. Further, an application called VowSpace was developed with the aim of acquiring, visualising, normalising, comparing, and linguistically analysing vowel formant frequencies from audio files and/or datasets.
TÜBİTAK 1002-A: “Acoustic Phonological Aspects of the Production Processes of Turkish Compound Words in Spoken Language”
Role: Scholar (Raw data analysis)
The project is on the acoustic and phonological characteristics of compound word production in Turkish, focusing on spoken language data to provide insights into phonetic and suprasegmental variation. I have annotated the data using Praat and FormantPro and developed scripts for further automation of the analyses.
INTERNSHIP & SUMMER SCHOOL EXPERIENCE
Ankara University Brain Research Center (AUBAUM / AU-BRC), Phonetics Laboratory & Ankara University Linguistics Laboratory — Ankara, Türkiye
Intern | Nov-Feb, 2024-2025 | Supervisor: Dr. İpek Pınar Uzun
- Trained in psycholinguistic research methodologies, including the use of the EyeLink 1000+ eye-tracking system and pupillometry.
- Assisted in acoustic data analysis using Praat, contributing to projects on phonetic formant and prosodic analyses.
- Gained experience in pupillometry preprocessing and conducted LMM and GAMM analyses for psycholinguistic research.
36th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI 2025) — Ruhr University Bochum, Germany Participant | July 28 – August 8, 2025 - Attended intensive courses on logic, linguistics, data science, and computation.
- Engaged in interdisciplinary training at the interface of linguistics, philosophy, and mathematics, made connections with an international academic community.
EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE
Editor-in-chief at Hacettepe University Linguistics Community’s Website: https://hulinguistics.com/
SKILLS
Languages: Python, R, JavaScript
Web & Typesetting: HTML, CSS, LaTeX
Linguistic Tools: Praat, ELAN
SOFTWARE & CORPORA
VowSpace (https://github.com/alicagank/VowSpace/)
VowSpace is an open-source desktop application developed with the aim of acquiring, visualizing, normalizing, comparing, and linguistically analyzing vowel formant frequencies from audio files and/or datasets.
Praanscribe (https://github.com/alicagank/praanscribe/)
Praanscribe is an open-source Python application developed with the aim of automizing the process of segmenting parts of speech as much as possible using Praat.
Meta-analysis of Turkish vowels (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UA465) [Data]
A meta-analysis of 22 studies on Turkish vowel formants, examining how methodological differences affect acoustic measurements of F1 and F2. The dataset was shared on the Open Science Framework platform.
Acoustic analysis of Turkish vowel formants (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/GRJTX) [Data]
An acoustic analysis introducing a new, transparent methodology for describing the vowels of Standard Turkish. Our primary aim is to establish a reproducible framework by providing a systematically constructed word list, detailed data collection procedures, and clear analytical steps. In doing so, the project seeks to contribute a standardised approach to the study of Turkish vowel acoustics. This repository contains the dataset of the collected and analysed recordings.
EDUCATIONAL & ACADEMIC TALKS
Ali Çağan Kaya, Esperanto Education Module at Hacettepe University Linguistics Community (23/04/23) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao9GNhaw2L0
Ali Çağan Kaya, workshop “Dilbilim ve Yazılım” (Linguistics and Software) at Linguistics Student Platform (05/10/24) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVWm7vEPOvA
Ali Çağan Kaya, Emre Yağlı, “Ölçünlü Türkçenin Ünlü Formantları” (Formants of Standard Turkish) at Hacettepe University Contemporary Turkish Dialects and Literatures Department as invited speaker (15/10/25)
RELEVANT COURSEWORK & CERTIFICATES
Certificate: Deneysel Psikodilbilime Giriş (Introduction to Empirical Psycholinguistics), 10/10/2024, CogIst, Gülfem Sarı
FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Turkish – Native
English – C1 (Advanced)
Esperanto – B2 (Intermediate)
German – B1 (Intermediate)
French – B1 (Intermediate)
Mandarin Chinese – A2 (Beginner)
MEMBERSHIPS & SCHOLARLY AFFILIATIONS
Hacettepe University Linguistics Community
President, 2025–present
Academic Coordinator, 2024–2025
Member, 2022–present
Member, Student Member, International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (IAFPA) (October, 2025–)
Member, Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW) (2024–)
Member, Universala Esperanto-Asocio (UEA) (Universal Esperanto Association) (2024–)
Member, Tutmonda Esperantista Junulara Organizo (TEJO) (World Esperanto Youth Organization) (2024–)
Member, World Cube Association (2018–)
NON-ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE
Book review, ”Esperanto kaj plurlingva estonteco”, Turka Stelo #63 Marto 2021
Co-Host & Producer, Hacettepe University Linguistics Community “Ders Çıkışı Dilbilim” Podcast
Volunteer, Rode Kruis Nederland, Ready2Help (2024)