Main profile

Sunyoung

Lee-Ellis

Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State

Interests: 

Second Language Acquisition, Speech Perception

Heritage Language Learning

Projects: 

Graduate-IGERT

Units: 

Second Language Acquisition

Degree(s): 

PhD in Second Language Acquisition, UMD

Advisor(s): 

Robert DeKeyser

Graduation Year: 

2012

Contact: 

uknowsunyoung@gmail.com

Role(s): 

Alumni

Website: 

Sunyoung's Website

About: 

I am interested in studying how two language develop in a bilingual mind. Much of my research focus on Heritage Language Speakers, typically 2nd generation immigrants in the U.S. These are speakers whose first language (typically the language of their immigrant parents) is no longer their dominant language. This group provides a valuable natural laboratory for distinguishing the roles of early experience vs. amount of experience in language learning, factors that are typically confounded. Results from cross-language speech perception studies challenge the common view that early experience is paramount. Some perceptual abilities are most dependent on early experience in a language, whereas others are more dependent on the amount of experience in a language.

Collaborators: 

Jeff Lidz
Shannon Barrios
William Idsardi
Nan Jiang
Shevaun Lewis
Wing Yee Chow
Colin Phillips