INVITED SPEAKER: ANAT PRIOR (UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA)

Title: What can we learn about bilingual reading from different-script bilinguals?

 

Date: Friday, November 3rd, 3:30pm
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave., 7th floor, room 735

Abstract: Most research on visual word processing and reading in bilinguals has been conducted with same-script bilinguals, namely speakers of two languages that share the same orthographic system, most commonly the Roman alphabet (e.g., French-English, Spanish-Catalan, etc.). Accordingly, theoretical modeling of bilingual reading mostly departs from assumptions of a shared orthographic system across languages (e.g., BIA+, Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002). However, these assumptions do not describe the general case for visual word processing in bilinguals, and specifically might not capture thedynamics of this process in different-script bilinguals, for whom bottom-up orthographicactivation is by definition limited to a single language system. In the current talk, I will describe several recent lines of research in my lab investigating single word reading and reading comprehension in different-script bilinguals. I will then discuss how these findings might inform our general understanding of the role of domain general abilities and resource sharing across languages in bilinguals.

This talk is co-hosted by the Montreal Bilingualism and Brain Initiative and the CRBLM

Centre faculty and student members who are interested in meeting with Dr Prior are invited to contact Debra Titone at dtitone@psych.mcgill.ca