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I study language and cognition in early childhood. My current topics of email: mabelev@uchicago.edu |
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I am interested in how humans acquire grammar, and in how that email: carlsonmt@uchicago.edu (Also affiliated with Dr. Susan Levin) |
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My research focuses on language creation. My current project examines the gesture systems that deaf people invent to communicate in the absence of contact with a conventional spoken or sign language. For the last 7 years I have conducted field work with three deaf Nicaraguans and their families to understand the linguistic properties of these "home sign" systems, as well as their conventionalization (or lack of conventionalization) within each family. email: mariec@uchicago.edu |
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I am interested in how people understand language, particularly how they resolve different types of dependencies. How do we keep track of and match up information over time and distance? My present research investigates the memory mechanisms that underlie our ability to know what a pronoun means, like "he" or "it." I am focusing on the similarities and differences between reading, listening, and face-to-face multimodal communication (i.e. when and how do gestures help?). We don't really know yet what processes and mental machinery are in common or specific to each of these language situations. email: sforaker@uchicago.edu |
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Dr. Shannon Pruden
My current research explores when and how children acquire both the spatial concepts and words that map on to relational terms like motion verbs, spatial prepositions, and spatial adjectives. In my previous research I examined infants' ability to abstract spatial concepts that are eventually encoded in relational terms (e.g. path and manner). My current research continues this line of research and asks whether gesture plays a role in the acquisition of these spatial concepts and words. email: spruden@uchicago.edu http://home.uchicago.edu/~spruden (Also affiliated with Dr. Susan Levin) |
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Dr. Meredith Rowe
I am interested in how caregivers communicate (verbally and nonverbally) with young language-learning children during everyday interactions. My current work focuses on investigating relationships between parental speech and gesture, and on uncovering factors that may help explain variations across mothers in the quantity and quality of verbal and nonverbal communicative input they offer their children. email: rowemer@uchicago.edu (Also affiliated with Dr. Susan Levin) |
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Dr. Seyda Ozcaliskan
My research centers on spatial language and cognition, focusing on both literal (e.g., He ran into the house) and metaphorical motion (e.g., The idea runs through his mind). I use a crosslinguistic-developmental framework to identify universals and language-specific patterns in the linguistic organization of motion in space. My research questions focus on the cognitive outcomes of crosslinguistic variation in spatial language and how children learn to talk and think about literal and metaphorical motion through space as they become native speakers of a particular language. Currently, I am in the process of studying the spontaneous gestures that accompany metaphorical language, with the goal of understanding what spontaneous gestures reveal about the underlying cognitive organization of metaphorically structured concepts. email: seyda@uchicago.edu http://home.uchicago.edu/~seyda (Also affiliated with Dr. Susan Levin) |
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