Aurore Gonzalez

lab_pictureAurore Gonzalez is a postdoctoral researcher involved in the LeibnizDream project “Realizing Leibniz’s Dream: Child Languages as a Mirror of the Mind” (PIs: Artemis Alexiadou (HU), Maria Teresa Guasti (UniMiB), and Uli Sauerland (ZAS)). She received her PhD from Harvard University in January 2021, with a dissertation on polar questions and interrogative particles supervised by Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University).

Her research focuses on the semantics of natural language and its interface with syntax and pragmatics. In her work, she closely combines formal approaches with crosslinguistic and experimental methods of investigation. Some topics she has worked on include polar questions, negative polarity, negative coordination, and unconditionals.

Upcoming Events

February 3, 2025
February 10, 2025
  • BIL Seminar "What does atypicality really mean? Language acquisition in autism" - Mikhail Kissine February 10, 2025 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm U6, Sala Lauree, Terzo piano

    Abstract
    "Research on language in autism mostly explores delayed acquisition or atypical use, the reference point being language in non-autistic individuals. Such approaches focus on language disability, but somewhat downplay the acquisition routes that may be specific to autism. More specifically, typical language development is known to be intimately linked to socio-pragmatic, joint communicative experiences. Early-onset and life-long atypicality in the socio-communicative domain are core characteristics of autism, and likely explain why language onset is often significantly delayed in autistic children. However, it is also usually assumed that language trajectories in autism should be correlated with an increase of socio-communicative skills, such as joint attention. In this talk, I will review evidence that some autistic individuals may, in fact, acquire language in spite of persisting strong socio-communicative disabilities. I will also present new results that show that some autistic children are interested in language in and of itself, independently of its communicative function, and display enhanced sensitivity to the acoustic and structural properties of the linguistic input."

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