Projects Overview
Gender processing and representation in the mental lexicon of bilinguals
(Bilingualism and L2-Acquisition)
Grammatical gender processing in an L2 has caused much debate in the latest research. While researchers mostly agree that gender markers in pre-position are used by native speakers in real-time comprehension as predictive cues for the following noun, there is still no agreement on whether L2 speakers process gender information. Another issue concerns how gender is represented in the L2 mental lexicon.Grammatical encoding in German as a second language
(Bilingualism and L2-Acquisition)
The aim of the project is to investigate the similarities and dissimilarities of grammatical encoding in L1 and L2 speakers of German. Conceptual, lexical and structural factors will be tested as to whether they affect the encoding of argument structure alternations, word order variants, noun phrases and subject-verb agreement. The potential effects of linguistic structures in the L1 as well as those of L2 proficiency on grammatical encoding in the L2 will be taken into account.Grammatical gender sensitivity and biological gender errors in processing German personal and possessive pronouns
(Bilingualism and L2-Acquisition)
The project aims to shed light on the connection between grammatical gender sensitivity and biological gender errors in the processing of German personal and possessive pronouns through psycholinguistic methods and to gain psycholinguistic insights into the process of sex-based pronominalization.Motion-Event conceptualization and encoding by Chinese-German bilingual children
(Bilingualism and L2-Acquisition)
The focus of this project is motion event encoding in early bilingual language acquisition.Phonological co-activation in Portugese-German bilinguals
(Bilingualism and L2-Acquisition)
Previous studies on spoken language processing in late bilinguals (e.g. Spivey und Marian 1999; Canseco Gonzalez et al. 2010) revealed contradictory findings regarding the activation of the irrelevant L1 during L2 listening. Using the visual world paradigm we show evidence for nonselective access in Portuguese late learners of German during spoken language processing.Referential coherence in first and second language learners
(Bilingualism and L2-Acquisition)
In this research, it was investigated how monolingual and bilingual learners of German between the age of 5 and 10 resolve anaphoric pronouns. A visual world paradigm was employed to measure what parts of a visual stimulus participants attend to while presented with short spoken texts, in which a sentence that starts with a gender encoding anaphoric pronoun follows a sentence in which two referents are mentioned.Translanguaging and the Bilingual Brain
(Bilingualism and L2-Acquisition)
Investigating whether translingual reading comprehension has a detrimental effect on cognition.Discourse, Cognition and Linguistic Markers: Empirical Studies on Text Processing with Eye Tracking Technology
(Discourse Particles and Cognition)
The eye tracking technology is used to prove the hypothesis that discourse markers are linguistic elements which guide the processing of information and reduce the cognitive effort during that process. To do so we collect data about the reading behavior under controlled conditions while participants read texts of different typologies in L1 and L2.Research area "Connectives"
(Discourse Particles and Cognition)
The work of the research group DPKog in this field focuses on the processing of causal, adversative and concessive relations. Our research studies the effects that connectives have on the processing of information in different languages, depending on the linguistic features of discourse and on the characteristics of different participant groups.Research area "Focus Operators"
(Discourse Particles and Cognition)
The research group DPKog resorts to reading experiments and to the Visual World Paradigm (VWP), as well as to comprehension tests, to analyze how additive scalar focus operators condition information processing in different experimental conditions and in several languages.The construction of multimodal discourse of poverty in the Colombian digital media
(Discourse Particles and Cognition)
This bi-national research project aims to incorporate the analytical potential of experimental research methodologies in the area of pragmatics to the study of multimodal discourse of poverty and welfare in the Colombian digital media.The focus sensitive element "sogar"
(Discourse Particles and Cognition)
In order to guide the inferential processes in communication, languages use different mechanisms. Focus particles are one of these mechanisms because of their mainly procedural meaning focalizing the hearer's attention and guiding him to certain constituents (Blakemore 2002). Furthermore, focus sensitive elements relate the focus and its alternatives in a certain way. Scalar particles like German "sogar" do so in establishing a relation of likelihood presenting the focused element as the least expected element (König 1991).Conceptualization in language production by patients diagnosed with schizophrenia
(Interdisciplinary Cooperations)
Cross-linguistic studies have shown that speakers of typologically different languages exhibit different patterns with regard to both event conceptualization, as well as the way spatial concepts are used to structure space. These differences affect the information selected as well as the perspective taken when describing situations. This project focuses on German and English native speakers diagnosed with schizophrenia.Language and Cognition in Early Stages of Dementia
(Interdisciplinary Cooperations)
This project focuses on the question in how far linguistic and other cognitive processes are proportionally or disproportionally affected by age-related cognitive-decline.What makes written language hard, what makes it easy to read and to understand?
(Interdisciplinary Cooperations)
Recently, easy-to-read German (Leichte Sprache) was developed as a means to make written texts more accessible to people who struggle with reading texts in standard German. However, it is far from clear whether the suggested linguistic means really promote readability and comprehensibility. Moreover, the suggested rules might be stated more precisely and additional factors might be considered. The aim of the current project is to test the effects of linguistic manipulations on the readability and intelligibility of words, sentences and texts for people with intellectual disabilities, for functionally illiterates, for beginning readers, and for readers of German as a second or foreign language.Event conceptualisation and linguistic realisation: The impact of semantic and lexical factors on sentence production
(Language and Visual processing)
Argument structure, the argument vs. adjunct distinction, and thematic roles are most relevant for the encoding of events, but there is little agreement on the definition of these concepts. The project addresses these issues from a psycholinguistic perspective, focusing on the intersection of conceptualisation and formulation in sentence production. Structural priming experiments help to dissociate the predictions based on a strictly incremental model of sentence production from predictions made by a lexicalist account.Top-down influences on event apprehension
(Language and Visual processing)
To broaden our understanding of apprehension, the earliest stage of information processing in elicited language production studies, we analyze landing positions and onset latencies of first fixations on visual stimuli given short stimulus presentation times.Tracking gaze movement while construing and talking about events: a cross-linguistic approach
(Language and Visual processing)
In this project, we deal with the interrelation between patterns in gaze movement, when watching dynamic video clips, and what is mentioned at what point, when talking about events.VIPICOL - Visual Information Processing In the Context Of Language
(Language and Visual processing)
Do we speak about what we see, or do we see what we speak about? This project investigates top-down and bottom-up processes during visual information uptake for event encoding.Visual attention as a window to cognitive processing – A new method to analyze eye tracking data elicited from dynamic scenes
(Language and Visual processing)
The goal of this project is to develop a new method for the analysis of eye tracking data, which can be used to investigate attention allocation patterns of humans who are presented with dynamic stimuli.'Serial-verb-constructions' in motion event encoding - morphological, syntactic, and contextual aspects
(Psycholinguistic research on Chinese)
In this project we investigate whether Mandarin Chinese can indeed be classified as belonging to the "equipollently-framed" type.Ditransitive constructions in Mandarin Chinese
(Psycholinguistic research on Chinese)
This project investigates syntactic and morphological properties of Mandarin Chinese ditransitive constructions.Neural correlates of language processing in Chinese
(Psycholinguistic research on Chinese)
This project is a cooperation between neurologists, physicists (Dept. of Neurology) and linguists (IDF). It investigates how vowels with different tonal distinctions are processed in the brain.Predicting object states in Mandarin Chinese - insights from the bǎ-construction
(Psycholinguistic research on Chinese)
This project focuses on the resultative meaning of the Mandarin marker bǎ.Processing discourse referents in Mandarin active and passive SOV sentences
(Psycholinguistic research on Chinese)
In this project we ask, in how far information derived from the markers bèi and bǎ affect the interpretation of referents preceding and the prediction of referents following the markers.The interaction of discourse salience, visual information uptake, and syntactic encoding in Mandarin Chinese
(Psycholinguistic research on Chinese)
In this project we contrast Chinese and German with respect to how linguistic "givenness" affects speaker's lexical and syntactic choices.A Case for Semantic Underspecification? The Representation of Aspectual Class Information for Motion Verbs and Directional Prepositions
(Time and Space in Language and Cognition)
This project investigates the cognitive processing of aspectual class (AC) information in descriptions of motion events.Event duration estimations are modulated by grammatical aspect
(Time and Space in Language and Cognition)
This project investigates the effect of grammatical aspect marking on speakers’ estimations of the duration of highly familiar, everyday events.Event units and event segmentation in verbal and non verbal tasks
(Time and Space in Language and Cognition)
In this project, we explore to what extent the cognitive units speakers construct to verbalize motion events correlate with units that people rely on in non-verbal tasks.LANG-ACROSS: Utterance structure in context - L1 & L2 acquisition in a cross-linguistic perspective
(Time and Space in Language and Cognition)
This project focuses on cognitive and linguistic determinants of language acquisition in a cross-linguistic perspective, with a main focus on conceptualizations of space and time.