From 16^th to 19^th May 2025, I attended the 3^rd International Conference on Tone and Intonation (TAI), made possible by the generous funding of the Philological Society.

The conference was held in Herrsching am Ammersee, a picturesque lakeside town just outside of Munich. We were fortunate enough to enjoy beautiful weather throughout, with clear views of the lake and the surrounding mountains providing a stunning backdrop to the event.

The TAI conference brings together researchers working on a wide range of topics related to tone and intonation, including language documentation, diachronic change, phonological theory, and, in my case, second language acquisition.  With 85 accepted papers (58 posters and 27 talks), this was the largest TAI to date, drawing participants from across the globe. Although it was my first time attending TAI, I was pleased to reconnect with researchers I had met at previous conferences and to meet new people whose work closely aligns with my own. 

I presented a poster on orthographic effects in the perception of Mandarin tone by L1 English learners. This work forms a key part of my PhD project and focusses on how the visual representation of tone and the placement of tone diacritics can influence learners’ mental representation and perception of tone. Presenting a poster proved to be an ideal format for this topic as it allowed me to engage in in-depth discussions with a wide range of researchers. The feedback I received was both thoughtful and constructive and I left with new ideas and perspectives that will undoubtedly strengthen both my thesis and future research.

Attending TAI was an immensely valuable experience, not only for disseminating the main findings of my doctoral research, but also for building and maintaining academic connections within the international tone and intonation community. I am deeply grateful to the Philological Society for their support. Without their funding, my trip to Germany would not have been possible.