The Language Group in the NACS program spans faculty in the Departments of Linguistics, Hearing and Speech Science, English, Biology, and Computer Science, making one of the largest groups of researchers on the psychology of language in the United States.

The main research objective of the language group is to bridge the gap between theoretical, computational, psychological and neuroscientific models of language, and students are encouraged to pursue close connections between these different approaches. Research topics include language acquisition (from infancy to kindergarten and beyond), adult language processing, neurolinguistics, neurocognitive disorders, and computational modeling. The language group also specializes in cross-language experimental research. Recent projects have investigated Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, German, Chinese, Thai, and Korean, in addition to English.

There is also a large emphasis on speech perception research. Investigators from Hearing and Speech , Electrical and Computer Engineering, Linguistics and Biology use behavioral, computational, and brain imaging techniques to study how speech is represented and processed in children and adults, in healthy and pathological conditions.

Students have at their disposal an unusually broad range of research facilities.

Language acquisition:

• An infant language lab
• A language acquisition lab for toddlers
• An on-campus preschool

Neurolinguistic research:

• High-density EEG
• The KIT-UMD MEG Lab, for 160-channel biomagnetic recording

Psycholinguistic research:

• Fixed and head-mounted eye-tracking
• Speech recording and analysis
• A number of other behavioral paradigms

The language group is genuinely cohesive, and meets regularly for colloquia, seminars and reading groups. There are also close ties between the language and speech group and the auditory neuroscience group in the NACS Program, and the two groups co-organize a regular discussion group on the neuroscience of hearing and speech perception.

Prospective students should visit individual faculty, laboratory and departmental web sites for further information on individual research projects, course offerings, facilities, etc.

Braun, Allen, Acting Chief, Language Section, Voice, Speech, and Language Branch, NIDCD

The Language Section utilizes multimodal neuroimaging techniques to a variety of interrelated ends: To use state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques, including PET, functional MRI, high density EEG, to characterize cerebral activity in the normal brain and in patients with neurological disorders affecting voice, speech and language. To provide tools necessary to translate these relatively nonspecific findings into the domain of neurochemistry though the development of novel ligands. To explore the use of neuroimaging techniques as adjuncts in genetic studies. To utilize neuroimaging methods in studies of the evolution of language.

Chatterjee, Monita, Hearing and Speech Sciences

Our experiments are designed to quantitatively measure how well cochlear implant users can discriminate between speech-like sounds, both in quiet and in the presence of competing background sounds. These experiments are yielding interesting clues about how the brain separates sounds from each other. We expect that results of these experiments will contribute both to our understanding of how the central auditory system works as well as provide ways to improve cochlear implant speech processors in the future.

Coleman, Linda K., English

Rhetoric and Composition; Linguistics

Gordon-Salant, Sandra, Hearing and Speech Sciences

My research program is concerned primarily with normal aspects of human aging in relation to auditory function and risk factors that contribute to apparent age-related hearing loss.

Hacquard, Valentine, Linguistics

Semantics (modality, aspect, propositional attitudes, degree constructions), Syntax/Semantics and Semantics/Pragmatics Interfaces, Neurolinguistics, Acquisition of Semantics

Hornstein, Norbert, Linguistics

I am currently working on the rethinking of binding phenomena in terms of move. I continue to work on issues in the theory of control and reflexivization but have also recently considered how to integrate bound pronominalization within a move-centered account. This work has a general minimalist flavor to it. However, at the level of implementational detail it differs in important ways from the work currently flying the minimalist banner. Indeed, it resonates more with earlier minimalist work of the mid 90s than with the most recent proposals of Chomsky (1998, 1999, 2000).

Idsardi, William J., Linguistics

My research focuses on the mental representations and computations associated with speech.

Israel, Michael, English

Linguistics

Lidz, Jeffrey, Linguistics

The relation between comparative syntax and first language acquisition.

Newman, Rochelle, Director, Language Development & Perception Laboratories, Hearing and Speech Sciences

My research focuses on speech perception, word recognition, and language acquisition. More specifically, I am interested in questions such as how the brain recognizes words from fluent speech, the time course over which different stages of speech processing occur, and how listeners (especially infants) separate different streams of speech that occur at the same time.

Phillips, Colin, Linguistics

My research combines theoretical linguistics with language processing, language acquisition and neurolinguistics, with a focus on how the human mind/brain makes rapid and effortless language understanding possible.

Poeppel, David, Linguistics, Biology

The main research interest of the lab is the cortical basis of hearing and speech in humans. Two main questions are addressed. One concerns the specification of functional architecture of the speech perception system. This issue is studied using brain imaging as well as neuropsychological data. The second unifying theme in the lab is to investigate to what extent temporal mechanisms encode or represent information in the auditory cortex. We use non-invasive electrophysiological techniques (EEG and MEG) to explore how properties (such as latency variation or oscillatory activity) might provide a useful logistical framework to process or represent auditory patterns. The experiments use stimuli of varying complexity and ecological relevance, ranging from pure tones and FMs to ripples to syllables to words to connected speech. A third research topic that is extensively studied is lexical access. This topic and its various subtleties are investigated using a combination of behavioral and MEG studies.

Ratner, Nan Bernstein , Chair, Department of Hearing & Speech Sciences, Hearing and Speech Sciences

We are currently investigating the origins of stuttering by analyzing the abilities and behaviors of children within three months of stuttering onset.

Resnik, Philip, Linguistics, UMIACS

I do research in computational linguistics, with interests in both the modeling of human linguistic processes (especially lexical acquisition and on-line sentence processing) and the application of natural language processing techniques to practical problems such as cross-language information retrieval and machine translation.

Roth, Froma P., Hearing and Speech Sciences

Dr. Roth has been interested in identifying aspects of oral language development that predict early reading and writing acquisition. Her longitudinal research has shown, for example, that in addition to phonological awareness, semantic knowledge (oral definitions) and metasemantic knowledge (understanding and use of lexical ambiguities sentences and idioms) in kindergarten predict word reading at first and second grade.

Simon, Jonathan Z., Elec. & Computer Eng

I am active in a number of research areas, all under the general headings of Auditory Neural Computations and Representations,Computational and Theoretical Neuroscience, and Signal Processing in Biological Systems. My specific research areas are: Magnetoencephalography (MEG): Experimental Research, Analysis, and Signal Processing of Large Scale Neural Data. Coincidence Detection and Neural Coding of Temporal Information in Auditory Brainstem: Modeling. Neural Processing of Spectrotemporal Auditory Information in Mammals: Physiology and Modeling. Signal Processing and Neural Data.

Uriagereka, Juan, Linguistics

In my work, I study syntactic patterns with an eye on trying to understand what they may tell us about the broader questions that my research pursues. I have specialized mostly in Indo-European (particularly Romance) languages and Basque, presenting analyses from these arenas in a comparative way. I often attempt to relate conclusions reached in the area of syntax to work in the evolution of language or a variety of its performative aspects.

Weinberg, Amy, Linguistics

The laboratory investigates a variety of multilingual applications (cross language question answer, information retrieval, summarization, machine translation). Currently we are contributing to a Cross Langauge Question Answering system. We collaborate with colleagues who address issues in document and alternate media (e.g. video) processing.

Yeni-Komshian, Grace, Hearing and Speech Sciences

The focus of my research is on bilingualism. A major question of investigation is the effect of the age at which bilingual individuals acquire their second language on their proficiency in both of their languages. In this research we make use of current research techniques in speech perception and acoustic analysis of speech.

• Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Lab (CNL lab)
• Computational Linguistics and Information Processing (CLIP)
• Language And Media Processing (LAMP)
• The Language Development Lab