[lingtalks] TODAY: Megha Sundara (Linguistics Colloquium)

[Klinton Bicknell]

TODAY, Monday 13 October at 2pm, Megha Sundara (UCLA;http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/Sundara/index.htm 
  ) will give a colloquium in the UCSD Linguistics Department, in AP&M  
4301.

:: Abstract ::

How does phonetic perception develop in monolingual and bilingual  
first language acquisition?

Megha Sundara
UCLA

 From infant research conducted over the last two decades, we know  
that language experience influences infant’s speech perception  
abilities as early as the first year of life. With age, the infant’s  
ability to differentiate between phonetic distinctions becomes  
language-specific. Often this language-specificity is manifested as a  
decline in the ability to differentiate phonetic distinctions that do  
not contrast meaning in the native language. The bulk of the evidence  
that the infant’s ability to differentiate phonetic distinctions  
becomes language-specific comes from investigations of how English- 
learning infants differentiate non-native distinctions.

In contrast, the research on the developing ability to differentiate  
native phonetic distinctions is more limited. I will present  
behavioral data from infants, children and adults learning English and  
French to address three questions. First, how does language experience  
influence the development of native phonetic distinctions in  
monolinguals? Second, how is the effect of language experience  
different in language learners exposed to two languages from birth?  
Third, what accounts for these differences between monolinguals and  
bilingual first language learners? Together, the similarities and  
differences between monolinguals and bilingual first language learners  
and their implications for models of grammar will be discussed.

-- 

For further information about the Linguistics department colloquia
series, including the schedule of future events, please visit http://ling.ucsd.edu/events/colloquia.html 
  .