Experimental Linguistics
Psycholinguistics/Neurolinguistics
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Cross-linguistic Syntactic Processing
The way in which the language processor interprets syntactic structure in languages with very different linguistic configurations may at first seem contrastive, leading us to often assume that the processing strategies we use to comprehend these languages might also be distinct in nature. At LUCL, we examine to what extent this assumption might not be supported by experimental evidence, suggesting that we use common processing mechanisms to interpret sentences in languages that are configurationally very different from each other (e.g.,Mandarin Chinese and French; Spanish and Basque).
Linguistic-based Prediction
Neural correlates of Prosody Perception
How we say something an give important information about both the linguistic structure of an utterance (e.g., whether it is meant as a question or a statement) and the emotional state of the speaker. At LUCL we use functional magnetic resonance imaging methods to understand how the human brain processes such information.
Individual Differences in second language acquisition
Acquiring accurate pronunciation of a second language (L2) later in life is known to be a daunting task, because the mother tongue interferes with the acquisition of L2 sounds. However, some individuals are better than others at acquiring L2 sounds than others. At LUCL we investigate what factors could be responsible for such individual variation in the acquisition of L2 sounds, and what might be neural correlates of individual differences in L2 acquisition.
Phonological Encoding
Turn-taking
Turn-taking is essential to human communication. Generally, spoken interaction involves remarkably smooth and rapid changes of turns. Turn-taking behavior in children appears very early, before linguistic competence and it is universal in many respects. Taking part in a conversation not only means that you act as listener and speaker alternately, but also means that you have to perform different tasks at the same time. While unraveling the incoming message, you already have to prepare your next turn. Scientists have been interested in how this system operates since Sacks et al.’s seminal paper (1974). Psycholinguistic experiments are performed to find out how humans are able to interact so swiftly.