Speech Science Forum – Antje Stoehr
The effects of orthography and backward transfer in crosslinguistic influence
Speech Science Forum – Antje Stoehr
30 Nov 2023, 16:00 – 17:00
Crosslinguistic influence is perhaps the most intensively studied area of linguistic aspects of bilingualism. Numerous research studies have investigated how the L1 interferes with the L2 during acquisition and processing, and a growing body of research has investigated how the L2 may also influence the L1. In this talk, I will present two lesser studied–but crucial–areas of crosslinguistic influence: the effects of orthography and of knowledge of a third language. I will present data from two empirical studies, which provide evidence that (1) incongruence in the mapping between graphemes and phonemes in L1 and L2 may impair speech perception even in early bilinguals who acquired both languages prior to learning to read and write; and (2) even limited knowledge of a third language may interfere with the L2 lexicon and phonetics. Considering that virtually all adult participants in research studies are literate and that most of the world’s population speaks at least three languages to some extent, these findings are important to move the field of L2 (and LX) acquisition and processing forward.
This is an online event:
https://ucl.zoom.us/j/96427815069?pwd=SWpqdU5OcTVheG1VR2hvK0FtL1hjdz09
Meeting ID: 964 2781 5069
Passcode: 575073
Dr. Antje Stoehr is a postdoctoral researcher at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language in Spain. She obtained her PhD from Radboud University and the International Max Planck Research School for Language Sciences (The Netherlands) in 2018. Her research investigates why bilinguals produce and perceive speech the way they do. To understand divergences between speech properties of bilinguals and monolinguals, she studies the roles of language exposure, non-native input, and mismatches between the L1-L2 orthographic codes on speech production and perception. She is currently extending her research to account for language interactions in multilinguals with a primary focus on the differential influence a third language may have on the first versus second language. In her research, Dr. Stoehr mainly employs behavioral measures and phonetic analyses of speech, but she also uses neuroimaging methods such as EEG and MEG.