Language and Cognition / Psycholinguistics

In order to understand how the complex system of language is stored and processed in the brain, we investigate the monolingual or multilingual development of children and adults, the acquisition of written language, the way in which we produce and understand mother tongue(s) and foreign language(s), or language disorders (e.g. language development disorders, dyslexia, aphasia). In psycholinguistics, we are therefore interested in the relationship between cognition and language and the factors that influence it, such as age, the environment in which someone learns a language, linguistic experience and other cognitive abilities. This knowledge in turn serves as the basis for language therapies, language teaching, language support, etc.

Network with colour gradient ©PHAISITSAWAN - stock.adobe.com
©PHAISITSAWAN - stock.adobe.com

The following linguists work in the field of language and cognition/psycholinguistics:

Svitlana Antonyuk (Department of Psychology):

  • Neurolinguistics
  • Emotions and language

Jeannique Darby (Department of German Studies): 

  • Semantic and pragmatic processing
  • Lexical semantics
  • Mental lexicon

Anouschka Foltz (Department of English Studies):

  • Multilingualism
  • First and second language acquisition
  • (Ambiguities in) language processing
  • Priming
  • Language and cognition
  • Developmental language disorder

Antonia Gösweiner (Centre for Didactics of German as a Second Language & Language Education):

  • Influencing factors and effects of the use of gender-inclusive language among adolescents

Julia Gspandl (Research Unit Plurilingualism):

  • Gebärdenspracherwerb (L1 und L2)
  • Erwerb von (GS-)Klassifikatoren
  • multimodale Mehrsprachigkeit
  • Sprachentwicklung mit Landau-Kleffner-Syndrom

Katharina Haslacher (Centre for Psychotherapy):

  • Multilingualism
  • First and second language acquisition
  • (Foreign) language identity

Gunther Kaltenböck (Department of English Studies):

  • Discourse Grammar
  • Cooptation
  • Aphasia

Lisa Kornder (Department of English Studies):

  • L1-L2 interaction in multilingual speakers
  • Second language acquisition
  • L1 language attrition (first language attrition) and its influencing factors

Veronika Mattes (Department of Linguistics):

  • later first language acquisition
  • Acquisition and development of derivational morphology and lexicon
  • Pragmatic acquisition (register variation in L1 acquisition)

Ineke Mennen (Department of English Studies):

  • Second language acquisition of language production
  • L1 language attrition (first language attrition) and its influencing factors

Sergei Monakhov (Department of Linguistics):

  • Language and Cognition
  • Language acquisition
  • Lexical processing and semantic knowledge

Daphne Reitinger-Zemann (Research Unit Plurilingualism):

  • Multilingualism
  • L2 Language competence in adulthood

Johann Ulrich Reubold (Department of English Studies):

  • Acquisition of (multilingual) language production and perception
  • Language and dialect attrition, L1-L2 interaction

Ralf Vollmann (Department of Linguistics):

  • Early morphological acquisition
  • narrative competence at pre-school age
  • Language development with Rett syndrome