Workshop PhonolEEGy Electrophysiology and phonological theory

Université Côte d'Azur will host a two-day conference whose goal is to promote exchange between electrophysiological research and phonological theory. The conference will include keynote talks, research presentations, and round table discussions.

With the development of affordable, easy to use systems to conduct electroencephalographical research, many studies reference ‘phonology’ in some way. However, the amount of EEG research that explicitly addresses phonological theory is relatively limited. This workshop aims to bring together experts in the field of EEG research and phonology to discuss electrophysiological evidence as it informs phonological theory, to share the state-of-the-art and identify the primary challenges to the field moving forward from both methodological and theoretical perspectives.

A considerable amount of EEG research pertaining to phonological theory has focused on speech perception. Outcomes of these lines of research include evidence for sub-segmental units of representation (Monahan, Lau & Idsardi 2013), underspecified representations (Lahiri & Reetz 2010), underlying representations transformed by assimilation processes (Sun et al. 2015), and abstract phonotactic constraints (Steinberg, Truckenbrodt & Jacobsen 2010). The EEG literature on phonology in speech production has mostly been focused on the encoding of single words in picture-naming and word-reading tasks, with attention to both segmental and suprasegmental properties (Schiller, Bles & Jansma 2003). Several recent and ongoing projects use neurophysiological methods to investigate phonological and morpho-phonological processes (MORPHON, A. Lahiri; From Mind to Brain, T. Scheer). Beyond ERP methodology, recent work on entrainment of neural oscillations in M/EEG is shedding new light on the basic neural mechanisms of language processing (Ding et al. 2017).

We envision a two day meeting where stabilized or fresh-from-the-lab results are presented, also with room for discussing methodology, experiment design and emerging projects. Contributors are invited to present not only their data and interpretation, but also the bigger picture of how they view phonology in a linguistic context and the role of neurophysiological evidence in phonology. The overall idea is to create a venue for the exchange of ideas about how fruitful interaction of electrophysiology and phonological theory can be promoted.

To encourage young researchers with more fresh ideas and findings than travel funding to present at the workshop, we offer travel grants for early-stage researchers with outstanding submissions.

 Invited speakers

- Sharon Peperkamp (ENS Paris)

- Aditi Lahiri (Oxford)

- Mathias Scharinger (Marburg)

- Richard Wiese (Marburg)

- Bill Idsardi (Maryland)

Local organisation team : Mirjam de Jonge, Tobias Scheer, Alex Chabot, Jonathan Bucci

Event supported by Academy 5 of the IDEX UCA JEDI (Workshop Series in Cognitive Science) and Axe 1 MSHS Sud-Est. More details and program here : http://web.univ-cotedazur.fr/fr/idex/academies/human-societies-ideas-and-environments/contents/news/workshop-phonoleegy#.X09YYx0aSi5

Registration is free but mandatory before the 15th of September.

Registration : Pascaline.Bodilis-Guillemain@univ-cotedazur.fr