Intact and impaired fundamentals of syntax: Artificial grammar learning in healthy speakers and people with aphasia

Zimmerer, V. (2010). Intact and impaired fundamentals of syntax: Artificial grammar learning in healthy speakers and people with aphasia. Doctoral thesis. University of Sheffield.

My time as a PhD student had too great an impact for a short post to do it justice. I lived in England for the first time, met incredible people and my experiences with persons with aphasia (language disorder resulting from brain damage or degeneration) changed the way I think about many things in life.

Artificial grammar learning is a fascinating empirical paradigm, but it my a project a tough sell to linguists and speech and language therapists alike. Why test grammar not using words, but nonsensical blobs on a computer screen? The answer is that the human mind is driven by pattern finding, and tapping into core pattern processing mechanisms reveals something about language in healthy speakers and pathologies.

I was supervised by Rosemary Varley and Patricia Cowell, who were simply optimal.

Herrschaft durch Sprachherrschaft (Control through language)

Zimmerer, V. (2006). Herrschaft durch Sprachherrschaft? Was uns die Psycholinguistik über die „Macht der Wörter“ sagen kann. Aptum: Zeitschrift für Sprachkritik und Sprachkultur 2, 137-156.

Zimmerer, V. (2006). Herrschaft durch Sprachherrschaft? Was uns die Psycholinguistik über die „Macht der Wörter“ sagen kann. Berlin: Weißensee Verlag.

These two publications are based on my Masters dissertation. Actually, the monograph is my dissertation with some edits. The project was supervised at the Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf by Martin Wengeler and Martina Penke.

I did my Masters degree in German linguistics (which for the most part mixed philosophy and sociolinguistics), with psycholinguistics and German literature as minors. Since I became increasingly interested in psycholinguistics, but did not want to change my major, I had to figure out a way to do psycholinguistics in the wrong department.

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