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My research
I am a senior researcher whose primary interests lie in the field of language development. Question I am working on are:
- Why is one child more successful at learning language than another child?
- What is the influence of input distributions and language environment on children's language development?
- Which mechanisms underlie language development, and what is the deficit that underlies language impairment?
Early Language Skills of Immigrant Children (ELSIC)
There is variation in the school success of immigrantchildren across countries and cultures. One important factor that determines school success are a child's language skills. Focusing on the language skills of immigrant children, my aim is to investigate sources of variation in the language skills of bilingual immigrant children. Insight into this issue may bring us a step further in understanding why immigrant children across contexts differ in their academic achievements. This research is funded by the Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship and involves collaboration with colleagues at the University of Alberta.
People - Marie Curie - FP7 (Cordis site)
People - Marie Curie - FP7 (EC research site)
Online comprehension versus oral production (BISLIPP - Bilingualism and SLI: Production and Processing))
Both bilingual children and children diagnosed with specific language impairment show a tendency to omit grammatical morphemes in oral production. But do they also fail to recognisesuch omissions if they perceive language? Do comprehension data distinguish between the two learner groups? In a collaborative study with colleagues from the University of Reading and University of Bangor, we compare the online comprehension and oral production of grammatical morphemes in three languages (Dutch, English, Greek) and four groups of children (sequential bilingual, specific language impairment and two monolingual typically developing control groups). This research is funded by NWO within the Language and Multilingualism theme.
NWO project website
L1 maintenance and L2 development in Dutch-English bilingual children (DELS - Dutch English Longitudinal Study)
A small-scale side project that followed naturally from our family staying for three years in Canada. We traveled to Alberta in the summer of 2008 when our youngest child was three and the oldest was seven. Both children were in different stages of their Dutch language development when English immersion started. I followed the two children and their skills in vocabulary, grammar, narration with six-month intervals in order to keep track of both their developments of L1 Dutch and L2 English. This is a collaborative study with Johanne Paradis and Tamara Sorenson Duncan.
Most recent presentations
- May 14-16, 2012. Meeting of the COST Action IS0804, Berlin.
- April 28-29, 2012. Multilingualism conference, Bangor.
- April 3-4, 2012. Workshop Reference and referentiality in learner grammars, Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies.
- March 9, 2012. Netwerk Eerste Taalverwerving (NET), University of Amsterdam.
- November 4-6, 2011. Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), Boston University, US.
- July 19-13, 2011. IASCL 2011, Montreal, Canada.
- June 9-11, 2011. Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders (SRCLD), University of Wisconsin-Madison, US.
Posters
Apart from doing science I also like the fine arts. Presenting posters at scientific conference is a way of trying to combine the two. Below are a number of posters from recent conferences.
Berlin 2012
Bangor 2012
Boston 2011
Madison 2011
London 2010
Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research
In 2003, Sharon Unworth and I organized the first Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research workshop. To our immense pleasure people liked it and it has now become an annual well-visited workshop where students and researchers working in the field of language acquisition can learn all about methods in language acquisition research and exchange their experiences.
In October 2010, a volume has been published largely based on lectures given at the workshops: Blom, E. & Unsworth, S. (2010), Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
We are looking forward to the 10th EMLAR in 2014!
EMLAR VIII
Flyer Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research volume
The importance of Dutch articles
When I came back from Canada to the Netherlands, Iended up right in the middle of a debate on the Dutch article. Dutch has two definite articles: DE and HET. Second language learners of Dutch are well of using DE across the board, since this is the article that is most frequent. So chances that you are right, are pretty good. HET is used with neuter nouns that are singular. What singular nouns are is not too complicated, but what neuter nouns are???? They do not come in particular forms, shapes or meanings and you just have to learn them by heart. Comes as no surprise that learners of Dutch (all of them) find it hard to do well with HET words. Anyway, what is the debate about? Linguists foresee that the difficulties with HET will lead to a disappearance of the article HET from the language, and this prediction raises worries and concerns. Below are some relevant links (in Dutch).
Marieke Kolkman in Onze Taal
Pieter Sabel in De Volkskrant (2 November 2011)
Aleid Truijens in De Volkskrant (9 November 2011)
Previous research
The research for my doctoral dissertation was conducted between 1997-2003,at Utrecht University. More information can be found on"My old website". For those who are interested: there is also a link to the digital version of my doctoral dissertation. From 2003 -2008 I worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the project Variation in Inflection ("Variflex"). In this period I also collaborated with dr. Daniela Polisenska and dr. Marian Erkelens, and researchers from Utrecht University, on infant perception studies in the Utrechts Babylab.
Variflex
My old website
My doctoral dissertation
Doctoral dissertation Marian Erkelens
Doctoral dissertation Daniela Polisenska