This research theme focuses on the interplay between language and cognition. We study child language development, bilingual and second language acquisition, language processing by adults and children, language impairment, the unveiling of language competence in adults, and the formal properties of language. We address a range of more specific research questions. In relation to language acquisition, what are the cognitive correlates of bilingualism in children? What predicts children's informativity? How is vocabulary acquired in childhood and in adulthood, and what is the impact of sleep and nutrition on the consolidation process? In relation to language processing, how do we deal with semantic ambiguity? How do we process non-literal meanings? How do self-monitoring and self-correction work? How do working memory and language interact?
To address these questions, we use a range of techniques and measures, including behavioural responses, reaction-time, eye-tracking, electroencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and transcranial direct current stimulation.
Browse projects from our Showcase events
2025 Showcase
CELCE
Children’s acquisition of coreference and point of view
A Contrastive Study of Metaphors in Theresa May's and Boris Johnson's Political Discourse
The DART & CREATE projects
Emergent Izafe morpheme in Kurdish (Kobani Kurmanji, KK)
Finding the Place of West Yorkshire and Glaswegian Vowels in the Chinese Phonological System: Perception of English Accents by Chinese EFL Learners
Partner with GenAI: re-imagine assessment and education
Quantifying bilingualism in children
Quantifying unstructured within-speaker variation
SLA informed language pedagogy
Surfacing and addressing (linguistic) complexity in exam questions
Teachers’ Perspectives on the Narrative and Descriptive Writing Difficulties Experienced by Primary School Children
Using semantic density to explore readability of instructions to help parents give medicines to children
Why are some texts tougher than others?
2022 Showcase
Speech Tempo: Measurement and Perception
Psycho-Linguistic Predictors of Early Reading Ability of Bilingual Arabic-English Speaking Children in the UK
Quantifying bilingualism in children
The Syntax of Meadow Mari
Dynamic assessment improves screening for reading difficulties
Copula omission in English Broca’s aphasia
A Processing Study of the Acquisition of the Present Perfect by Arabic Learners of English
The acquisition of English tense and aspect agreement by L1 Saudi-Arabic speakers: a classroom-based investigation
Making Multilingual Language Learning More Effective
Similiarity-Based Interference and Relative Clauses: The Effects of Number in English and Mandarin Chinese
Training second language (L2) listeners to improve accent comprehension and reduce accent bias
