News Archive
Lauren Covey, Xiao Yang, Alex Vogt-Woodin and Utako Minai presented a poster "Examining the role of pragmatics during children's comprehension of only: An eye-tracking study" at the 42nd Boston University Conference on Language Development, with Dr. Kate Coughlin (KU Linguistics & Life Span Institute), Dr. Cynthia Siew (University of Warwick), Teresa Girolamo (KU Child Language Doctoral Program) and Ivonne Weyers (University of Bonn). (November, 2017)
- Utako Minai's study on fetal language development (collaboration with Drs. Kathleen Gustafson, Robert Fiorentino, Allard Jongman and Joan Sereno) has been introduced in the KU News. (July, 2017)
- Utako Minai has published an article "Fetal rhythm-based language discrimination: A biomagnetometry study" in NeuroReport, with Drs. Kathleen Gustafson (KUMC), Robert Fiorentino (KU Linguistics), Allard Jongman (KU Linguistics) and Joan Sereno (KU Linguistics). (July, 2017)
- Utako Minai and Naoko Nadtochiy's article titled "Native and non-native comprehension of the Japanese existential quantifier nanko-ka" will appear in the edited volume Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In Honor of Stephen Crain (Nakayama, M. & Su, Y.-C., eds., John Benjamins, to be published in July, 2017).
- Patrick Connelly and Utako Minai published an aritlce "Comprehension of mimetics by adult native speakers of Japanese" in Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 37, with Dr. Alison Gabriele (KU Linguistics).
- Utako Minai has been awarded a 2016-2017 General Research Fund grant for her new project on children's comprehension of focus expression.
- A former lab member Adrienne Johnson (Missouri Western State University) and Utako Minai published an article titled "Children’s knowledge of structure-dependent semantic interactions between logical words" in Language Acquisition. (August, 2016)
- Patrick Connelly has been awarded the Distinguished Linguistics Major Award for the 2015-2016 academic year. This award recognizes an undergraduate major who stands out as a distinguished young linguist with the outstanding academic record and the exceptional scholarship in Linguistics. (May 5th, 2016)
- Lauren Covey has been awarded the Frances Ingemann Scholarship for the 2015-2016 academic year. This award, endowed by the founder of the Linguistics Department Dr. Frances Ingemann, is given annually to an outstanding graduate student and considered the highest honor for Linguistics graduate students. (March 25th, 2016)
- A former lab member Chia-Ying Chu (National Taiwan Normal University) and Utako Minaipresented a poster titled "Semantics facilitates children’s pragmatic processing: Chinese-speaking children’s use of semantics" at the XPRAG Workshop on the Role of Pragmatic Factors in Child Language Processing at Humboldt University Berlin, Germany. (May, 2016)
- Alex Vogt-Woodin, Adrienne Johnson and Utako Minai presented a talk titled "Preschool children's sensitivity to non-local structural dependencies between logical words” at the 40th Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 40) in November, 2015.
- Breanna Krueger and Utako Minai presented at poster "A comparative analysis of two tools for measuring children's word processing: mouse tracker & eye-tracking." with Dr. Holly Storkel (KU Speech-Language-Hearing) at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) 2015 Annual Convention in November, 2015.
- Utako Minai presented a poster titled "Assessing pre-natal rhythm-based discrimination of language by fetal magnetocardiography (fMCG)", with Dr. Kathleen Gustafson (KUMC), Dr. Robert Fiorentino, Dr. Allard Jongman and Dr. Joan Sereno (KU Linguistics) at Society for Neuroscience of Language 2015 Annual Meeting in October, 2015.
- Joleen Chu and Utako Minai presented a paper titled "The interplay between demonstrative comprehension and cognitive development: a cross-linguistic investigation" at the Symposium on Syntactic, Semantic and Communicative Development at the 2015 International Conference on Applied Linguistics, held at the National Chiayi University, Taiwan. (May 30th, 2015)
- Utako Minai published an article "Morphological decomposition in de-adjectival nominal in Japanese: masked and overt priming evidence." in Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, with Dr. Robert Fiorentino (KU Linguistics: Neurolinguistics and Language Procesing Lab) and Dr. Yuka Naito-Billen (KU East Asian Languages and Cultures). (April 6th, 2015)
Utako Minai and Yi-Chih Chan (Children's Hearing Foundation, Taiwan) presented a poster “Universal quantifier comprehension, visual information and the development of executive function” at the SRCD Biennial Meeting 2015 (March 21, 2015)
Utako Minai published an article "Acquisition and use of linguistic knowledge: scrambling in child Japanese as a test case" in Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, with Dr. Miwa Isobe (Tokyo University of the Arts) and Dr. Reiko Okabe (Nihon University). (January 31, 2015)
Rachel Brown (former lab member, currently at the Graduate Program in Linguistics, University of Arizona), Joleen Chu, Gretchen Hess and Utako Minai published an article "Assessing preschool children’s knowledge of compounds from a logico-semantic perspective" in Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics. (December 2, 2014)
Joleen Chu and Utako Minai presented a study "The role of Theory of Mind in the acquisition of demonstratives: Evidence from child Chinese" at the 39th Boston University Conference on Language Development (November 7, 2014).
- Utako Minai presented a poster titled "Pre-birth Assessment of Language Ability: a Fetal MEG Study" at Frontiers: The Heartland Institute for Clinical and Translational Research Scientific Session, held at KUMC. The study is a collaboration with Dr. Kathleen Gustafson (KUMC), Dr. Robert Fiorentino, Dr. Allard Jongmand and Dr. Joan Sereno (KU Linguistics). (October 30, 2014)
- Utako Minai's interdiciplinary collaboration has been introduced in KU News. (October 27, 2014)
- Joleen Chu and Utako Minai presented a study "Comprehension of the demonstratives by Chinese-speaking preschool children" at the 14th International Symposium on Chinese Languages and Linguistics (IsCLL-14), held at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. (June 4th, 2014)
- Adrienne Johnson has been awarded an EAPSI grant from the National Science Foundation. NSF sponsors East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for U.S. Graduate Students and covers a summer stipend of $5,000 and roundtrip airfare to the host location. EAPSI partner agencies pay in-country living expenses during the Summer Institutes. Adrienne will go to Korea this summer to collect data for her dissertation project on the role of individual differences in the establishment of wh-dependencies in Korean learners of English, supervised by Drs. Gabriele and Fiorentino. (April, 2014)
- Joleen Chu is the winner of this year's Schiefelbusch Child Language Scholarship, a scholarship offered by the KU Life Span Institute to honor the contribution by the first Director of the Child Language Program, Richard L. Schiefelbusch, and to recognize outstanding graduate students in the study of child language (April, 2014).
- Utako Minai presented a poster "Is every child different until they turn 15?: Not so quick development of universal quantifier comprehension" at the 2014 CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, together with Kiwako Ito and Adam Royer (Ohio State University) (March 13th, 2014).
- Joleen Chu and Utako Minai presented a poster "Comprehension of demonstrative phrases in Mandarin Chinese" at the Second East Asian Psycholinguistic Colloquium held at the University of Chicago (March 8th, 2014).
Joleen Chu and Utako Minai presented a poster titled "Examining the role of theory of mind and executive function in the first language acquisition of demonstratives" at the 38th Boston University Conference on Language Development (November, 2013).
Joleen Chu and Utako Minai presented a poter on English-speaking children's demonstrative comprehension at the 5th Conference on the Experimental Pragmatics at the Utrecht University, Netherlands (September 5th, 2013).
Utako Minai, Rachel Brown, Joleen Chu and Gretchen Hess presented a poster on adults' comprehension of compounds at the 8th International Conference on Morphological Processing held at the University of Cambridge, UK (June 20th, 2013).
Rachel Brown made an oral presentation on her child compounding project at the Undergraduate Research Symposium that was held on April 27th. She has been selected as a Sigma Xi Undergraduate Research Competition 1st place awardee.
Utako Minai, Yi-Chih Chan, Joleen Chu and Rachel Brown made a poster presentation at 2013 Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Biennial Meeting (April 20th, 2013).
Utako Minai's collaborative project, "Pre-birth Assessment of Language Ability: a Fetal MEG Study", with Robert Fiorentino (Neurolinguistics and Language Processing Lab, Linguistics), Allard Jongmand (KUPPL, Linguistics), Joan Sereno (KUPPL, Linguistics), Kathleen Gustafson (Hoglund Brain Imaging Center, KUMC) and William Brooks (Hoglund Brain Imaging Center, KUMC), has been selected for an awarded project supported by the Frontiers Pilot and Collaborative Studies Funding (March, 2013).
Lamar Hunt III and Utako Minai have published a co-authored article on processing of semantic and pragmatic meaning co-authored with Stephen Politzer-Ahles, Robert Fiorentino (Neurolinguistics and Language Processing Lab, Linguistics) and Linzi Gibson (Psychology) in Neuroscience Letters (January, 2013).
Joleen Chu and Utako Minai presented a collaborative study on semantics of doubly-quantified sentences in adult second language acquisition with Alison Gabriele (Second Language Acquisition Lab) at the 5th Generative Approaches to Language Development-North America (GALANA 5) (October, 2012).
Utako Minai presented a collaborative study on word order in child Japanese with Miwa Isobe (Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan) and Reiko Okabe (Nihon University, Japan) at the 5th Generative Approaches to Language Development-North America (GALANA 5) (October, 2012).
Lamar Hunt III and Utako Minai submitted an article on processing of semantic and pragmatic meaning with Stephen Politzer-Ahles, Robert Fiorentino (Neurolinguistics and Language Processing Lab, Linguistics) and Linzi Gibson (Department of Psychology) (September, 2012).
Utako Minai and Naoko Takami have published a paper on second language acquisition of semantic/pragmatic meaning in the Proceedings of 36th Boston University Conference on Language Development. (June, 2012)
Joleen Chu has been awarded the Government Scholarship for Study Abroad (GSSA) offered by Taiwan government for her Ph.D. dissertation research proposal titled "Acquisition of demonstratives and cognitive development: Cross-linguistic research on child Mandarin and child English". (April, 2012)
Joleen Chu has been awarded the Frances Ingemann Scholarship for the 2012-2013 academic year. This award, endowed by Prof. Ingemann, is given annually to an outstanding graduate student and considered the highest honor for Linguistics graduate students. (March, 2012)
Utako Minai has published a co-authored article on Japanese-speaking children's semantic computation and their cognitive development in Journal of Child Language, with Nobuyuki Jincho (RIKEN BSI, Japan), Naoto Yamane (RIKEN BSI, Japan) and Reiko Mazuka (RIKEN BSI, Japan/Duke University). (December, 2011)
Utako Minai has published a co-authored article on Japanese-speaking children and adults' use of intonation in contrast resolution in Journal of Memory and Language, with Kiwako Ito (Ohio State University/RIKEN BSI, Japan), Nobuyuki Jincho (RIKEN BSI, Japan), Naoto Yamane (RIKEN BSI, Japan) and Reiko Mazuka (RIKEN BSI, Japan/Duke University). (December, 2011)
Lab members presented in multiple conferences in November, 2011.
Utako Minai presented a collaborative study on scrambling in child Japanese with Miwa Isobe (Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan) and Reiko Okabe (Nihon University, Japan) at the Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition 2011 held in Thessaloniki, Greece. (September 8-10, 2011)
Department of Linguistics will host the 5th Generative Approaches to Language Development - North America (GALANA 5) in October, 2012, sponsored by the National Science Foundation.