March 14, 2006 (Cancelled)
Professor Kathryn Kohnert (University of Minnesota-Twin Cities)
Talk Title: Common Ground?: "Specific" Language Impairment and Second Language Learners
Abstract: In this talk two different types of language learners are of interest: children with developmental primary or "specific" language impairment (SLI) and children who learn two languages, beginning at different ages and stages in their cognitive, social and emotional development. I will present results from a series of studies designed to investigate potential areas of overlap and divergence in basic processing skills between typically developing children who speak English as a first (and only) language, Spanish-speakers who have learned English as their second language, and monolingual English-speaking children with SLI. Theoretical and practical implications of study results will be discussed.

February 23, 2006
Professor Kiel Christianson (UIUC)
Talk Title: Lost on the Garden Path: Exploring Misinterpretation and "Good Enough" Language Processing
Abstract: The traditional view of how the human sentence processor deals with misparses of garden path sentence such as While Anna dressed the baby that was cute and cuddly spit up on the bed is as follows: When reading such sentences, the parser notices that a misparse has occurred at "spit up" and revises the structure such that Anna is dressing herself, and the baby is spitting up on the bed. In this case, the interpretation of the sentence is also revised from one in which Anna is dressing the baby (the garden path interpretation) to one in which Anna is dressing herself. Alternatively, the reader fails to notice the syntactic trouble and just keeps reading. In either case, the following assumptions are made: 1) Syntactic revision is automatic and exhaustive (when it is undertaken); 2) Syntactic revision results in full revision of the sentence's interpretation; 3) No matter what happens with respect to the revision, there is no cost associated with the garden path predicted for the reading of subsequent sentences. I will present both published and as-of-yet unpublished data that strongly suggest all of these assumptions are false and that the human sentence processor is content to engage in "good enough" processing. Implications for models of sentence processing, reading, and second language pedagogy will be discussed. (Powerpoint)

November 16, 2005
Professor Rachel Hayes-Harb (University of Utah)
Talk Title: Novel Phoneme Contrasts and the Developing L2 Lexicon
Abstract: Studies of second language (L2) speech typically focus on how learners perceive and produce novel L2 sound contrasts; however, very few to date have considered how these contrasts are encoded in learners' lexical representations of L2 words. I will talk about recent work I have done in collaboration with Kyoko Masuda (Georgia Institute of Technology) on the phonological content of L2 learners' lexical representations at different levels of L2 development and the role that non-target-like lexical representations may play in foreign-accented speech. (Powerpoint and pdf of Powerpoint)

October 26, 2005
Professor Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig (Indiana University)
Talk Title: On the Role of Formulas in the Acquisition of Second Language Pragmatics
Abstract: As researchers add studies of acquisition to the growing number of studies in interlanguage pragmatics, the role of formulas in acquisition is often cited. However, the term formula, is used in at least three ways in interlanguage pragmatics: to describe components of speech acts (i.e. semantic formulas, as in apologies, a promise of forbearance, it won’t happen again, or acceptance of responsibility, it was all my fault); to describe conventional expressions used by native speakers which may constitute both the input and the target (in letters announcing acceptances or rejections, We are happy to inform you or We regret to inform you); and to describe recurrent strings used by learners at a time when their interlanguage grammar could not have generated the apparent grammar of the string (such as the use of Shall we go? as a request to leave when the learner usually uses single word requests such as Sitting?). In this talk, I explore the different approaches to formulas and discuss the various assumptions and predictions made by each. I consider the evidence from interlanguage pragmatics for the different positions, drawing on evidence from studies of formulas more generally, and outline areas for further investigation in L2 pragmatics. (Handout and Powerpoint)