Marieke van Heugten

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology at the University at Buffalo

The comprehension of unfamiliar accents during language acquisition: It’s in the ear of the beholder

ABSTRACT:

Perhaps one of the most impressive feats of human cognition concerns our ability to comprehend spoken language. This task is far from trivial, in large part due to the tremendous variability in the pronunciation of words across speakers of different language backgrounds. In order to become efficient language users, it is thus important to develop the capacity to flexibly adjust to the different ways in which people pronounce words. In this talk, I will describe a series of studies examining when and how language learners accomplish this. In particular, I will first focus on the developmental trajectory of learning to cope with unfamiliar accents, both from the perspective of young children learning their first language and from the perspective of adults who are in the process of learning a second language. I will then describe a series of studies examining the potential mechanisms underlying this ability. Both similarities and differences between the two populations will be discussed.

RECOMMENDED READINGS: Catherine T. Best, Michael D. Tyler, Tiffany N. Gooding, Corey B. Orlando, and Chelsea A. Quann. 2009.

Development of Phonological Constancy: Toddlers’ Perception of Native- and Jamaican-Accented Words, Psychological Science, 20(5): 539-542.

LINK to COGSCI Page: http://www.cogsci.buffalo.edu/Activities/Colloquium/CLLQs16/2016spring.html