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Dr. Silke Brandt

Gast des GRK im Jahr 2011

Language Acquisition: Training and generalization across constructions

ErstbetreuerProf. Dr. Heike Behrens
ZweitbetreuerProf. Dr. Elena Lieven
Abstract

I do corpus analyses and experimental studies to investigate how children's comprehension and productive use of specific (complex) linguistic structures is guided by the form and function of these and related structures in their input. I see language acquisition as a general learning process and have recently looked at interactions between linguistic and social-cognitive development.

Publications:
Brandt, S., Verhagen, A., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2011). German children's productivity with simple transitive and complement-clause constructions: Testing the effects of frequency and variability. Cognitive Linguistics 22(2).
Brandt, S., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2010). Development of word order in German complement-clause constructions: Effects of input frequencies, lexical items, and discourse function. Language 86(3), 583-610.
Brandt S., Kidd, E., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2009). The discourse bases of relativization: An investigation of young German and English-speaking children's comprehension of relative clauses. Cognitive Linguistics 20(3), 539-570.
Brandt, S., Diessel, H., & Tomasello M. (2008). The acquisition of German relative clauses: A case study. Journal of Child Language 35 (2), 325-348.

DisziplinEnglish Studies
SprachenEnglish, German
Forschungsrichtungpsycholinguistics, usage-based approaches, syntax
Schlüsselbegriffelanguage acquisition and processing, language and theory of mind, working memory and cognitive control in language processing