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University of Hawai'i |
(808) 956-8856 Telephone |
For Immediate Release: |
August 30, 2000 |
Contact: Jim Manke, University and Community Relations, 956-6106
|
Ann M. Peters |
| UH Linguistics Professor in Europe for Lectures |
Peters to Deliver Keynote Address at International Conference
University of Hawai`i at Manoa linguistics professor Ann M. Peters will give the keynote address at the international Turku Symposium on First Language Acquisition next month.
Peters' presentation will be on "The Roles of Analogy and Grammatical Rules in Producing Complex Morphology," at the University of Turku, located about 100 miles west of Helsinki, Finland. The conference runs September 1-2, 2000.
In her presentation, Peters will be explaining how children and adults shape their language and build words by two processes: following grammatical rules and, more frequently, by following their own instincts based on observations of how other words in the language are built or composed, including the handling of future, past and present tenses.
Linguistics scholars from France, Russia, Wales and Sweden will also make presentations. The talks are part of the celebration marking the 80th year of the University of Turku.
Peters' trip to Europe includes additional presentations at the University of Jyvaskyla in central Finland on September 5-6. She will also be consulting with child language researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The meetings there are to prepare for an extended visit to the institute next year. In mid-October, she will be at the University of Mannheim (Germany) to give a presentation on language acquisition.
As a recognized international authority on linguistics, Peters was invited to lecture in Finland and Germany to provide insights that can enable speech therapists to help children with speech impairments. In her research she has studied children who may be slow speech/language learners who otherwise do well in school, as well as children facing difficulties in cognitive and emotional handling of their first languages.
Peters' book, "The Units of Language Acquisition," is a basic study in early childhood acquisition of a first language. She is now working on a second book and continues as an associate editor of the international Journal of Child Language published in Manchester, England. She has been researching and teaching at the University of Hawai`i since 1966. The linguistics department at UH is rated as one of the leading centers for the study of language development in the United States.
