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SEYDA …Z‚ALISKAN
Curriculum
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CONTACT
Seyda …zŤalőskan
Research Associate
University of Chicago
Department of Psychology
5848 South University Avenue
Green 215
Chicago, IL 60637
seyda@uchicago.edu
Phone: 773 834 1447
Fax: 773 834 7573
EDUCATION
University of California,
Berkeley
PhD in Developmental
Psychology, 2002
Thesis title: Metaphors we
move by: A crosslinguistic-developmental analysis of metaphorical motion events
in English and Turkish
Clark University,
Massachusetts
MA in Developmental
Psychology, 1996
Thesis title: Genre construction
in emotional discourse: childrenŐs narratives and explanations about emotional
states
BogaziŤi University,
Istanbul
MA in Educational Psychology,
1994
Thesis title: Construction
of sex-role in Turkish childrenŐs literature
BogaziŤi University,
Istanbul
BA
in Business, 1992
RESEARCH
When people talk, they gesture. Even children, from the earliest stages of language learning, use their hands when they speak. Research has made it clear that gesture is integrated both temporally and semantically to the speech it accompanies, and can convey substantive information not captured by speech. As such, gesture offers insight into childrenŐs conceptual understanding of language before this understanding becomes explicit in speech.
My research focuses on childrenŐs earliest linguistic abilities and examines whether precursors of these abilities can be found in childrenŐs gestures. More specifically, I examine whether and how gesture can inform us about early language learning, from the onset of first words and first sentences to the emergence of first metaphors. I approach this question from a wide variety of angles by studying both typically- and atypically-developing children, as well as children who are exposed to structurally different languages.
Overall, my research places gesture at the cutting edge of early language development—gesture both presages oncoming changes in childrenŐs speech and also serves as a forerunner of linguistic advances. My future work will examine how robust gestureŐs contribution to language learning is across different populations and different languages.
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PAPERS
Gesture & early language development
…zŤalőşkan,
Ş. & Goldin-Meadow, S.
(under review). Sex differences in language first appear in gesture.
…zŤalőşkan, Ş.;
Levine, S. C. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (under review).
Gesturing with an injured brain: How gesture helps children with early brain injury
learn linguistic constructions.
…zŤalőşkan, Ş.; Mylander, C.; Goldin-Meadow, S. &
Gentner, D. (under revision). Language about similarity facilitates similarity
comparison.
…zŤalőşkan,
Ş. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2008).
When gesture-speech combinations do and do not index linguistic change. Language
and Cognitive Processes. In press.
Rowe, M.,
…zŤalőskan, S. & Goldin-Meadow,
S. (2008). Learning words by hand: GestureŐs role in predicting vocabulary
development. First Language. 28(2), 185-203.
…zŤalőskan, S. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2006). X IS LIKE Y: The emergence of
similarity mappings in gesture and speech. In G. Kristianssen, M. Achard, R.
Dirven & F. Ruiz de Mendoza (Eds.), Cognitive Linguistics: Foundations
and fields of application (pp. 229-262). Mouton de Gruyter. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2006). Role of gesture in childrenŐs early constructions. In Eve Clark & Barbara Kelly (Eds.), Constructions in acquisition (pp. 31-58). Palo Alto, CA: CSLI Publications. PDF
Rowe, M., …zŤalőskan, S. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2006). The added value of gesture in predicting vocabulary
growth. In D. Bamman, T. Magnitskaia & C. Zaller (Eds.), Proceedings of
the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp.
501-512). PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Gesture is at the cutting edge of early language development. Cognition, 96(3), B101-B113. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. &
Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Do parents lead their children by the hand? Journal
of Child Language, 32(3), 481-505. PDF
…zŤalőskan,
S. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2004).
When mothers do not lead their children by the hand. In A. Brugos, L. Micciulla
& C. E. Smith (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th Annual Boston
University Conference on Language Development (pp. 424-435). Somerville,
MA: Cascadilla Press. PDF
Motion, metaphor, typology
…zŤalőskan,
S. (2007). Metaphors we move by:
ChildrenŐs developing understanding of metaphorical motion in typologically
distinct languages. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(2), 147-168. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. (2007). Learning to talk about spatial motion in
language-specific ways. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, S. Ervin-Tripp, N.
Budwig, S. …zŤalőskan & K. Nakamura (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches
to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin.
NJ, New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. (in press)
…zŤalőskan, S. (2005). On learning to draw the distinction between physical and metaphorical
motion: Is metaphor an early emerging cognitive and linguistic capacity? Journal of Child Language, 32, 1-28. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. (2005). Metaphor meets typology: Ways of moving metaphorically in English and Turkish. Cognitive Linguistics, 16 (1), 207-246. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. (2004). Encoding the manner, path and ground
components of a metaphorical motion event. Annual Review of Cognitive
Linguistics, 2, 73-102. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. (2004). ÔTime canŐt fly, but a bird canŐ: Learning how to think and talk about time as spatial motion in English and Turkish. European Journal of the English Language, 8(3), 309-336. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. (2003). Metaphorical motion in crosslinguistic perspective: A comparison of English and Turkish. Metaphor and Symbol, 18 (3), 189-228. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. (2003). ÔIn a caravanserai with two doors, I am walking day and nightŐ: Metaphors of death and life in Turkish. Cognitive Linguistics, 14 (4), 281-320. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. (2003). ChildrenŐs developing understanding of metaphors about the mind. In B. Beachley, A. Brown & F. Conlin (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 603-614). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. & Slobin, D.I. (2003). Codability effects on the expression of manner of motion in English and Turkish. In A. S. …zsoy, D. Akar, M. Nakipoglu-Demiralp, E. E. Taylan & A. Aksu-KoŤ (Eds.), Studies in Turkish Linguistics (pp. 259-270). Istanbul: BogaziŤi University Press. PDF
…zŤalőskan, S. & Slobin, D.I. (2000). Expression of manner of movement in monolingual and bilingual adult narratives: Turkish vs. English. In A. Gšksel & C. Kerslake (Eds.), Studies on Turkish and Turkic Languages (pp. 253-262). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
…zŤalőskan, S. & Slobin, D.I. (2000). Climb up vs. ascend climbing: Lexicalization choices in expressing motion events with manner and path components. In S. Catherine-Howell, S.A. Fish & K. Lucas (Eds.), Proceedings of the 24th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 558-570). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. PDF
…zyźrek, A. & …zŤalőskan, S. (2000). How do children learn to conflate manner and path in their speech and gestures. In E. Clark (Ed.), Proceedings of the 30th Stanford Child Language Research Forum: CSLI Publications (pp. 77-85). Palo Alto, California. PDF
…zŤalőskan,
S. & Slobin, D.I. (1999).
Learning Ôhow to search for the frogŐ: Expression of manner of motion in
English, Spanish, and Turkish. In A. Greenhill, H. Littlefield & C. Tano
(Eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Boston University
Conference on Language Development (pp. 541-552). Somerville, MA:
Cascadilla Press. PDF
