Tamar Keren-Portnoy
Professor

Profile

Biography

My primary focus has been on understanding how current skills promote further learning, especially how babble affects the way infants and toddlers listen to language, perceive and remember new words, and begin to build their lexicons. I am also more generally interested in understanding how phonological knowledge is constructed in its very early stages and how it is influenced by parents' speech to infants. Recently I have started to work on speech and language interventions for infants who are at risk of language delay, such as infants with Down syndrome.

I am also interested in understanding the psycholinguistics of the Semitic morphology of root in patterns in speakers of Semitic languages (like Hebrew and Arabic). 

In all my research I take an empiricist, usage-based perspective. 

I use naturalistic observation data as well as experimental methods with both infants and toddlers.

Career

Departmental roles

• Admissions tutor
• Running 'Adjusting to academic culture' sessions

Research

Overview

My primary focus is on understanding how low-level skills build higher skills. 

I engage in interdisciplinary collaborations with engineers, health scientists and clinicians. In the last few years I have been exploring how infants can be encouraged to vocalise more in order to promote their language development. I am now planning Randomised Controlled Trials to test new interventions to improve language outcomes in children at risk for language delay, such as children with Down syndrome. 

In the last few years I have also studied what aspects in the parental speech may help infants start to learn words and what children learning Hebrew and Arabic know about the morphology of their languages. 

Projects

• Overcoming social disadvantages through reinforcement of babble in infants from low socioeconomic homes (British Academy; in collaboration with Rory DePaolis, Helena Daffern, Mona Kanaan)
• A new intervention using the BabblePlay app for populations at risk for language delay (in collaboration with Sue Buckley, Kelly Burgoyne, Helena Daffern, Mona Kanaan, Laura Boundy and Sab Arshad) 
• Understanding the representations of the Semitic root and pattern structure in the minds of infants and child and adult speakers of Hebrew and Arabic (collaborations with Ghada Khattab, Niveen Omar, Osnat Segal and Marilyn Vihman)
• Babble development and caregiver speech in British and Ugandan babies (British Academy; in collaboration with Catherine Laing and Katie Slocombe)
• Testing children's language outcomes following participation in the To and Fro programme (ESRC IAA, in collaboration with  Catherine Laing   and Catherine Pape)
• Size sound symbolism in mothers' speech to their infants (in collaboration with Catherine Laing, Ghada Khattab and Shayne Sloggett)

External activities

Memberships

• 2010 - Member of ESRC Peer Review College

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Language acquisition (L64I)
• Bilingualism (L25H)
• A usage-based view of language (L71H)

Postgraduate

• A Usage-based View of Language (L84M)