Lab for Applied Language Science

Mission

The Lab for Applied Language Science (LALS) is open for anybody who is interested in language development and language use. We aim to offer opportunities for novel interdisciplinary collaborations among linguists, language teachers, psychologists, speech pathologists, social scientists, educational tool developers, speech engineers, etc. and to provide training for researchers and students who wish to develop skills in experimental approaches to language science.

LALS conducts psycholinguistic research on:

  • First language development in young and school-age children
  • Language processing in adolescents, young, middle-age and aging adults
  • Second/Foreign language acquisition in children and adults
  • Language development and processing in clinical populations

The above missions motivate research studies such as:

  • Speech perception and/or sentence processing in children, adults and individuals with clinical conditions (e.g., developmental disorder, hearing impairment, dementia, etc.)
  • Grammatical development in school-age children and children with developmental disorders
  • Effect of specific types of training on second/foreign language processing
  • Individuals’ cognitive abilities and their language processing skills

The application goals of these research include (but are not limited to):

  • Construction of language skill database for school-age children
  • Evaluations of interventions for communication development
  • Comparative assessments of foreign language pedagogies
  • Development of age- and condition-specific communication tools

LALS is open to:

  • Researchers who want to test their scientific hypotheses in the areas related to language and language use
  • Students who want to learn experimental methods in language science
  • Educators and clinicians who wish to obtain empirical data on the language skills of specific populations
  • Those who plan to develop language education/assessment/training materials based on empirical evidence for efficacy
  • Developers of condition-specific communication tools

Lab For Applied Language Science MediCALD Project 3:00

VideoTranslatorAI and the University of Newcastle Lab for Applied Language Science collaborate on the Cultural and Linguistic Diversity Challenge project funded by NSW Small Business Innovation and Research Program.

Eye tracker demo

Members

Associate Professor Kiwako Ito

Associate Professor of Linguistics, Director of LALS
School of Humanities and Social Science

» Find out more

Dr Jayden Macklin-Cordes

Lecturer of Linguistics
School of Humanities and Social Science

» Find out more

Alex Cowan

Alex Cowan

PhD scholar in Linguistics
Chelsea Harris

Chelsea Harris

Honors Student, 2022 New Colombo Plan Scholar
Laurits Knudsen

Laurits Knudsen

PhD student in Linguistics

Supervisor: Bill Palmer

Mais Alsabayleh

Mais Alsabayleh

PhD student in Linguistics
Bayley Hegerhorst Mahony

Bayley Hegerhorst Mahony

Undergraduate Research Assistant
Avery Hardy

Avery Hardy

Undergraduate Research Assistant
Jiawen Huo

Jiawen Huo

PhD student, CSC scholar
Elizabeth Walker

Elizabeth Walker

Honours student
Madeleine Lock

Madeleine Lock

Undergraduate Research Assistant
Tessa Robertson

Tessa Robertson

Undergraduate Research Assistant
Josh Osborn

Josh Osborn

Honours student

Supervisor: Dr. Jayden Macklin-Cordes

Project Collaborators

Project Title: Individuals’ memory and their ability to process grammar: A comparative eye-tracking study

Associate Professor Bill Palmer

Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci (Linguistics)

» Find out more

Associate Professor Chie Nakamura

Associate Professor in English Language Education in Science and Engineering
Waseda University, Tokyo

Global Center for Science and Engineering

» Find out more

Dr. Pauline Welby

CNRS: Laboratoire Parole et Language

» Find out more

Dr. Thierno Aliou Diallo

Dr. Thierno Aliou Diallo

Coastal Carolina Univerisity