Professor Anne Cutler to present public lecture in Canberra
The MARCS Institute is pleased to announce that Professor Anne Cutler will present a public lecture in Canberra on Wednesday 4 February 2015.
Professor Cutler's talk is hosted by The ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language and The Australian National University and is titled "How the language we speak guides the way we listen."
Anne will discuss the notion that two people who hear exactly the same speech sounds will process them differently depending on what their own native language prepares them to expect.
This means that greater importance may be attached to some kinds of cues, while others are ignored.
Thus, for example, cues to stress can be exactly the same in two languages, but in one language it is possible to get away with ignoring most of them, while in the other listeners need to use all the cues.
Each language trains its listeners in particular ways. Understanding how our own languages prompt us to listen for certain cues may allow us to predict problems as well as opportunities in second-language acquisition.
Professor Anne Cutler is a Chief Investigator of the Language Processing program of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language.
The Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language was launched in September 2014 and draws together the nation's top linguists, philosophers, psychologists and roboticists to puzzle out the complex mechanisms of human communication.
If you're interested in attending Professor Cutler's public lecture in Canberra, you can book your free seat here.
