Armando de Lacerda and the Coimbra Phonetics Laboratory, 1930-1979. Cross-national mobility and exchange in a global context

Abstract

This paper is a contribution to the history of experimental phonetics seen from the perspective of the emergence, development, and impact of the experimental phonetics laboratory operating at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, from 1936 to 1979, which was considered by many experts in the mid-20th century as the most advanced in Europe. The history of the laboratory is presented in four sections, discussing: (1) the context of its emergence within the rise of experimental phonetics in Europe, starting in the late 19th century; (2) the training abroad of Armando de Lacerda, its director, and his rise to international leadership as a key concept maker, instrument designer, and institution builder; (3) the role of the laboratory as a central node of a dynamic international network, a pole of attraction for foreign students and researchers for more or less extended stays at its premises (1936–1956); and (4) its decay and downfall in the Portuguese context, contrasted with its role as a hub for the reproduction of expertise globally, from Europe to North and South America and Australia. At the local level, due to a fragile (and increasingly hostile) institutional environment, the laboratory was unable to reproduce expertise across scientific generations; at the international level, it acted as the springboard for fruitful careers, and for the establishment of new laboratories that nurtured successive generations of experts.