The last psychology colloquium for the Fall semester is scheduled for Wednesday - November 14th at 3:30pm in BOUS A106.
Dr. Nairán Ramírez-Esparza from the Social Psychology division here at UConn will be presenting her tenure talk titled "Hablo Inglés y Español: The Bilingual Brain as a Function of Culture and Language".
Abstract: As societies around the world become increasingly multicultural and multilingual, there is growing scientific interest in understanding the bilingual brain. Every language is closely intertwined with a unique culture, and as bilingual infants learn two languages, they also learn the cultural values associated with them. In my research, I have employed multiple methodological techniques to investigate the relationship between language learning and associated cultural learning during early childhood and late adulthood. These include the use of recording devices to capture details of everyday language use and social interactions, the use of text analytic tools to complement self-report strategies, and methods for combining information from both qualitative and quantitative analyses. In this talk, I will present findings from these studies, which provide strong evidence that culture and language are in essence inseparable. I will additionally discuss evidence from my research of the social advantages provided by bilingualism, which include enhanced social flexibility. The results from these studies suggest that investigation of the inner working of the bilingual brain is not only beneficial to scientific understanding, but can also yield fascinating insights that are highly relevant to our modern, culturally diverse, world.
psychology.uconn.edu
Contact whitney.tabor@uconn.edu for more info.
For more information, contact: Whit Tabor, Dept. of Psychological Sciences at whitney.tabor@uconn.edu