Winter Storm Daily Digest - 01.09.2013

Highlights from Wednesday: Mike Fetters and Dustin Chacón's group on Variation and Acquisition discussed some simple parameters that have been proposed and the precise mechanisms that a child might use in determining which kind of language she is learning.
Josh Falk's group on Sign Language and the Syllable discussed David Perlmutter's theory of the sign language syllable, then turned to a discussion of sonority. Next, they will explore potential experiments which could elucidate whether segments having a steady state is necessary in a sonority peaks.
From Alison Shell, Explaining the Critical Period in Second Language Acquisition "Based on our reading, we discussed the relationship between working memory, attentional control and implicit sequence learning. We attempted to connect this to the Less Is More theory and plan to look at the connection of these components with language next session."

Events for Thursday: 1/10/13

1. Language Analysis Workshop This session, participants continue exploring linguistic fieldwork, and begin eliciting and transcribing data from their Zazaki speaking informants.



2. Lunch Talk: Kira Gor, Second Language Acquisition Do second language (L2) learners rely on the same mechanisms in auditory lexical access as native speakers? The talk will review several auditory lexical decision experiments with L2 learners of Russian, a language with rich inflectional morphology organized in paradigms, with focus on two aspects of L2 lexical access: 1. The role of phonological similarity and cohort neighborhood size in L2 lexical processing. 2. Decomposition as opposed to whole-word storage and access of inflected words.
The room we are using for the lunch talks, SKN0200, normally prohibits food, so please be respectful of the space and clean up thoroughly!

3. Professional Development Colin Phillips offers tips on how to secure funding for your research


4. R sessions Scott Jackson (CASL) offers instruction in using the free statistical computing environment R. Topic: mixed effects models. Please refer to the website for precise scheduling and location information. If there is any information you would like included in a future Winter Storm daily digest, please forward this information to the WS Committee (igert-winterstorm@umd.edu). Thank you for your participation! The Winter Storm Committee