New AHRC grant to investigate the role of breathing in conversation

Posted on Friday 13 February 2026

Professor Richard Ogden (York) and Dr. Jürgen Trouvain (Saarland University) have been awarded funding by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) for a major new project investigating the role of breathing in everyday talk.

The two-year project, titled 'Brevit - Breathing behaviour and non-lexical vocalisations in talk-in-interaction', is a collaboration with the University of the Saarland (Universität des Saarlandes).

While breathing is physiologically necessary for speech, its role in communication extends far beyond simple mechanics. Audible in-breaths, clicks (such as 'tutting'), laughter, sighs and gasps perform crucial functions in conversation, from regulating turn-taking to displaying shared pleasure or frustration.

Current research in psychological and cognitive sciences suggests that humans are designed for dialogue rather than monologue. However, these specific non-lexical sounds are rarely replicated in experimental data, leaving a gap in our understanding of how social relationships are negotiated through sound.

The project will combine the methods of Conversation Analysis and Phonetics to address this. The team will collect a novel dataset using synchronised audio, video, and non-invasive respiratory kinematic data (respiratory belts). This will allow for a detailed analysis of how breathing patterns align with social actions in English, German and French.

Professor Ogden will lead the UK team, with Dr Marina Cantarutti re-joining the department in February as the named researcher. The German team in Saarland University includes Dr. Jürgen Trouvain and Dr. Sascha Schäfer.

Outcomes of the project will include a richly annotated multimodal corpus and new theoretical models of how breathing and speech are intertwined. 

Project updates and information can be found on the Brevit website.