Being part of CLIN, WOT is a multilingual discussion and study platform for all linguists at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and beyond. The goal is to bring together young (at heart) linguistic researchers who want to share their research in exchange for tips and tricks from their peers. The fields discussed range from sociolinguistics to second language acquisition to neurolinguistics (and much more). Besides presentations, we also offer workshops and plan on organizing more informal get-togethers as well.
On this page, you can find our previous speakers and topics, as well as the upcoming presentations and workshops.
If you wish to join one of our upcoming lectures or workshops, or you are interested in giving a talk on your topic, you are requested to contact the supervisors: Yasmin.Crombez@vub.be and Magda.Serwadczak@vub.be
20 May 2022: Presentation by Georgia Knell (VUB)
15 June 2022: Presentation by Lisa Hilte (UA)
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Abstract of Georgia Knell - presentation on May 20th 2022
What the eyes don't see, the mind won't learn: Investigating the role of salience in the initial processing of morphology in SLA
The cognitive mechanisms of attention and awareness are believed to play a crucial role in second language acquisition (SLA; cf. Schmidt 1990), but still little is known about their exact role therewithin. Many factors have been proposed to influence a learner’s attention to and awareness of new linguistic forms in a second language (L2), some of which are endogenous, i.e., consciously applied by the learner, and some of which are exogenous, i.e., resulting from factors outside the learner’s control. The latter determine the form’s salience. While some researchers have theorized about the impact of salience on attention, awareness and acquisition in SLA (e.g., Goldschneider & DeKeyser 2001), there are still few empirical studies that directly investigate the influence of salience on L2 processes. From the literature, we have selected particular operationalizations of salience that my impact attention to a particular grammatical form (Ellis, 2016; Simoens et al, 2018) and hypothesize that forms with greater degrees of salience lead to greater attention, awareness, and consequently, acquisition of the form.
The present research aims to initiate a systematic empirical investigation of the effect of various factors of salience on SLA. To this end, we will conduct three experiments that consider a selection of factors hypothesized to determine the salience of L2 features. In each experiment, we analyze participants’ eye movements as they read short texts in a semiartificial language called Englishti, which incorporates into the grammar of English two artificial morphemes, o and olp, which are manipulated in specific ways in each experiment to reflect the salience factor(s) in question for that experiment. Eye movements reveal how the degree of salience of the form interacts with the attention learners allocate to it. A retrospective interview measures the level of awareness learners have of the new form and its meaning. Within each experiment, we also consider how the influence of salience is mediated by individual learner variables, using a series of pretests measuring working memory and language aptitude, as well as implicit vs. explicit learning contexts, using questions after each sentence pertaining either to its comprehension (implicit) or its grammaticality (explicit).
Through this series of experiments that together consider the isolated and interactional effects of various types of salience in combination with learner- and context-specific variables, we expect to develop a more robust understanding of the nature and role of salience in SLA and how this can be applied to improve real-world language learning.
References
Ellis, N. (2016). Salience, cognition, language complexity, and complex adaptive systems. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 38(2), 341–351.
Goldschneider, J., & DeKeyser, R. (2001). Explaining the “natural order of L2 morpheme acquisition” in English: A meta-analysis of multiple determinants. Language Learning, 51(1), 1–50.
Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 129–158.
Simoens, H., et al. (2018). The effect of perceptual salience on processing L2 inflectional morphology. In S. M. Gass, P. Spinner, & J. Behney (Eds.), Salience in Second Language Acquisition (pp. 107–130). New York: Routledge.
11/03/2022 | Drs. Fien De Malsche | Universiteit Antwerpen | The importance of small talk in corporate communicative contexts |
17/12/2021 | Drs. Julie Van Ongeval | Vrije Universiteit Brussel | A diachronic study of Dutch verbal cluster order variation. |
18/11/2021 |
Drs. Magda Serwadczak | Vrije Universiteit Brussel & Universiteit Antwerpen | Reconstructing oral discourse in writing: an analysis of orality markers and entextualization strategies in historical witness depositions |
21/02/2020 | Drs. Eva Koch | Vrije Universiteit Brussel | Workshop on eye-tracking as a method in linguistic research |
16/12/2019 | Drs. Yasmin Crombez | Vrije Universiteit Brussel | What to Choose? Lexical Preference as a Road into Respondents’ Attitudes towards English Loanwords |
16/12/2019 | Miss Paola Mureddu | Vrije Universiteit Brussel | The influence of L2 on L1: a study of homographs and cognates in English and Italian |
14/10/2019 |
Drs. Carolin Schneider | University of Duisburg-Essen | ’Bueno, uhm’ – Interjections as a Code-switching Practice among People living with Alzheimer’s Dementia |
04/06/2019 | Miss Graziela Dekeyser | KU Leuven |
Lost in Translation? Emotional Confusion among Ethnolinguistic Minority Children: A Family Approach |
19/03/2019 |
Drs. Ily Hollebeke & Drs. Rachida Aghallaj |
VUB/
KU Leuven |
Promoting early multilingualism in childhood and childcare: Family language policy and parents’ perspectives on communication with professionals |
12/02/2019 |
Mr. Francisco Miguel Valada |
Vrije Universiteit Brussel |
The effects of instruction on the acquisition of phonological distinctions in a second language: the case of Portuguese |
14/12/2018 |
Drs. Nathan Vandeweerd Drs. Rachel Rubin |
VUB/ UCLouvain | Lexicogrammatical complexity in Learner Language |
30/11/2018 | Mr. Víctor Pérez Béjar | Universidad de Sevilla | Suspended clauses in Spanish |
30/11/2018 | Mr. Serge Bibauw | KU Leuven | Dialogue-based CALL: a multilevel meta-analysis |
16/11/2018 | Mr. Peng Bi | Syntactic Complexity Development for Chinese EFL Learners: Insights from an Annotated Learner Corpus | |
04/09/2018 | Miss Jinling Li | University of Tilburg |
Chineseness as a Moving Target: Changing infrastructures of the Chinese Diaspora in the Netherlands |
24/08/2018
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Miss Kathy MinHye Kim | Michigan State University |
Sleep-dependent consolidation of second language grammar knowledge: The pre-sleep awareness status matters |
22/06/2018 | Miss Clara Ureña Tormo | Universidad de Alcalá | Teaching Spanish idioms from a Cognitive Linguistics perspective |
18/05/2018 |
Dr. Nanna Hilton |
University of Groningen (The Netherlands) |
Stimmen: A Citizen Science Approach to LVC |
26/04/2018 |
Miss Isa Hendrikx |
Université Catholique de Louvain |
Intensifying constructions in French-speaking L2 learners of Dutch or English: Longitudinal results |
12/03/2018 |
Miss Vanessa De Wilde |
Universiteit Gent |
Uncovering covert knowledge of English in children |
19/02/2018 |
Dr. Iris Van de Voorde |
Vrije Universiteit Brussel |
Introduction to PhD project “Pluricentricity in language history. Building blocks for an integrated history of Dutch (1550-1850)” |
05/12/2017 |
Miss Geòrgia Pujadas Jorba |
University of Barcelona |
Focus and non-focus L2 learning through subtitles and captions |
05/10/2017 |
Mr. Toivo Glatz |
University of Groningen (The Netherlands) |
Game-based literacy training in Dutch |
26/06/2017 |
Dr. Memet Aktürk-Drake |
Vrije Universiteit Brussel |
When divergent state ideologies converge on mother-tongue instruction in immigrant languages: The case of Turkish in Western Europe |
13/06/2017 |
Dr. Hanneke Loerts |
University of Groningen (The Netherlands) |
The awful Dutch gender system: ERPs reveal difficulties in gender processing in native and bilingual Dutch speakers |
11/05/2017 |
Prof. Dr. Niels Schiller |
Leiden University (The Netherlands) |
Morphological Processing in Language Production |
03/05/2017 |
Joint lecture: Miss Carmen Pascual & Miss Marina González Sanz |
Universitat de València (CP) & Universidad de Sevilla (MGS) |
The Impact of CLIL in a Multilingual Context: the Valencian Region (CP) & Influence of gender and role on interruptions in the Political Talk Show (MGS) |
23/02/2017 |
Drs. Eva Koch |
Vrije Universiteit Brussel |
Incidental second language morphosyntactic learning in conversation: The acquisition of stem allomorphy in German strong verbs by adult native speakers of Dutch |
22/11/2016 |
Prof. Bertha Gregoria Salvador Jiménez |
Universidad Central "Marta Abreu" de Las Villas, Cuba |
Presentation on the phonological system of Spanish and some procedures for its acquisition |