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The Puzzle of Danish

Talk by Byurakn Ishkhanyan and Christina Rejkjær Dideriksen, School of Communication and Culture - Semiotics

Info about event

Time

Tuesday 13 November 2018,  at 11:00 - 13:00

Location

IMC Meeting Room, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Building 1483-312

Organizer

Riccardo

Abstract:

Danish is an unusual language: because its sound properties tend to obscure the beginnings and ends of words, Danish children appear to be delayed in learning their native tongue, and even adults seem to require more time to understand one another. This poses fundamental challenges to longstanding theoretical assumptions: that all languages are equally easy to learn and use. Preliminary research has revealed some of the difficulties Danish children face during language acquisition, yet we know very little about the impact on adult Danish usage patterns. Through an integrated series of psycholinguistic experiments, we have tested what Danes hear, understand, and how they communicate, compared to Norwegian—a related language with a more “transparent” sound structure. In this presentation we will present some preliminary results from the still ongoing project.

 

 

About the speakers:

Byurakn Ishkhanyan, Postdoc 

Christina Rejkjær Dideriksen, PhD Student