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STAFF

OUR RESEARCH INTERESTS
Karolina Rataj
Karolina Rataj
Ph.D.
 
Coordinator of the M.A. Programme in Applied Cognitive Linguistics
Email: krataj@amu.edu.pl

I work as an assistant professor at the Faculty of English. I am also the coordinator of the Applied Cognitive Linguistics (ACL) program. My major interest is in how the brain processes language. To examine this, I conduct EEG experiments to measure brain activity in response to various types of sentences. Figurative language comprehension is part of these experiments, in which except for the EEG signal, reaction times are measured to investigate the time course of semantic processing. Finally, I have explored language processing and comprehension in schizophrenia and aphasia by using a variety of figurative language comprehension tasks. Students who join the ACL program can become part of the teams working on these projects.

 

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Boguslawa Whyatt
Bogusława Whyatt
D.Litt.
University professor

I am an assistant professor and the head of Department of Psycholinguistic Studies. My major research interest is in language processing in translation. In my research I try to challenge some misconceptions surrounding the human ability to translate. For lay persons translation is only a matter of transcoding information from one language to another. For specialists translation is a complex intellectual activity which requires simultaneous activation of two languages as well as efficient cognitive control to avoid cross-linguistic interference. The translation process itself involves higher order cognitive skills such as problem solving, knowledge integration, creative thinking, decision making and self-monitoring. Thanks to new tools including a key-logging software and eye-tracking the secrets of language processing in the translator’s mind can be at least partially unraveled. The research results can be used in practice to improve translator training programmes.

 

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Hanna Wysocka

I am a senior lecturer in the Department of Psycholinguistic Studies. My main interest concerns the development of language in the child and the interaction of the developing language with other cognitive processes, especially memory,  in the growing mind. In the area of language, I am especially involved in the study of how people, children and adults, talk about space and time in different languages – Polish versus English;  at different ages - adults versus children, using their native or foreign language (L1 or L2) at a different level of language proficiency – especially in the foreign language.

 

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Agnieszka Lijewska

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Psycholinguistic Studies. I am particularly fascinated by the ways in which multilinguals are able to communicate in the languages they know. In my work I focus on how multiple languages are represented and processed in the multilingual mind (in the mental lexicon), how the languages interact and influence each other as well as how the process of language acquisition affects lexical processing. I’m also interested in eye-tracking as a research tool which helps to understand the structure and processing of the multilingual mind.

 

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Iwona Kokorniak

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Cognitive Linguistics. As a cognitive linguist, I follow the idea that vocabulary, grammar and grammatical rules in general, are not arbitrary but semantically motivated, being rooted in everyday spatial experience. Of course, they vary from language to language because in different cultures we construe them in different ways. Hence, I am interested in how language reflects patterns of thought and how those patterns may differ across cultures. and how certain patterns of thought may lead to grammaticalization of language. In my work, I try to discover conceptualization patterns that stand behind the linguistic form.

 

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Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman

I am an associate professor at the Department of Pragmatics of English, at the Faculty of English. Since 2011, also working in the capacity of the head of Language and Communication Laboratory, at Faculty of English (AMU).  My research is located at the cross-disciplinary interface integrating language and affect domains (affective pragmatics). I employ experimental behavioral methods to investigate how affective content primes language comprehension at word, sentence and discourse level, and what is the dynamics of temporal chronometry underpinning language-affect interactions. Exploring how different verbal interaction modalities (audio-video, audio, written) influence communication comprehension, remains a constant challenge for my research endeavors. Another line of my research is dedicated to anticipatory mechanics in communication. I am interested in  the mental and neural underpinnings of the anticipatory mode of processing, and I keep testing to what extent it is language competence, and  to what extent, context-triggered predictions that shape figurative language processing in the L1/L2 interface. 

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Magdalena Wrembel

I am an assistant professor at the Department of Contemporary English Language at the Faculty of English. My main research areas involve SLA of speech, third language acquisition, phonetics and phonology, metalinguistic awareness and innovative trends in pronunciation pedagogy, on which I have published several articles, both in international journals and edited collections. I am particularly interested in how multilinguals acquire a new phonological system, how the existing systems interact as well as what the sources and directionality of cross-linguistic influence are. The acquisition of third language phonology is a new developing area that poses a number of methodological problems, therefore, it remains a constant challenge in my academic endeavours. 

 

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