Utako Minai
- Associate Professor
- First Language Acquisition, Child Language Processing
Contact Info
1541 Lilac Lane
Lawrence, KS 66045
Personal Links
Biography —
My research primarily investigates first language acquisition and language processing by preschool-age children. I am particularly interested in (i) how children acquire the knowledge of language meaning at various levels (meaning of words, sentences and utterances), (ii) how children utilize the knowledge of meaning in real-time language processing and the comparison of multiple related meanings, and (iii) how children's development in meaning comprehension interacts with their non-linguistic cognitive development. I address these research issues by conducting experimental studies, utilizing linguistic comprehension tasks, cognitive tasks and the visual world eye-tracking paradigm. I am also interested in cross-linguistic aspects of child language development and language processing. My current languages of research include English, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. Part of my research program investigates adults' meaning comprehension and processing both in their first and second languages, expanding my research scope from childhood language acquisition to adulthood language learning, as studying both first language acquisition and second language acquisition would ultimately help us better understand the precise nature of human language development across the lifespan.
I direct a research laboratory, the Developmental Psycholinguistics Lab. A group of student research assistants, both undergraduate and graduate, are working with me on various projects on child language. We visit local preschools to conduct our studies, as well as invite study participants to our lab.
I teach a variety of courses in linguistics on a regular basis, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, including First Language Acquisition (I & II), Seminar in First Language Acquisition (topic varies), Research Methods in Child Language and The Structure of Japanese.
I also serve as a core faculty member of the Child Language Doctoral Program and the Center for East Asian Studies. I am actively engaged in various outreach activities to disseminate knowledge on child language, Japanese linguistics and acquisition of Japanese.
Education —
Research —
Research areas
- First language acquisition
- Child language processing
- Developmental psycholinguistics
Research interests
- Logico-semantic competence in child language: Logical word learning (mapping between linguistic forms and logical content); Meaning composition (computation of phrasal/sentential meaning); Meaning comparison (computation of inferential meaning across phrases/sentences)
- Developmental aspects of sentence processing: Incremental computation of meaning; Effects of the interaction among syntax, semantics and prosodic structure; Interaction between online meaning computation and cognitive development
- Cross-linguistic research on language acquisition and processing of meaning; Acquisition and processing of language-universal and language-specific aspects of meaning; Investigation of children's use of language-specific cues in language processing
- Adults' meaning processing in their first and second languages
Methodological approach: Experimental
- Linguistic comprehension tasks (e.g., Truth Value Judgment Task, Picture Selection Task, Demand-fulfillment Task)
- Cognitive tasks (e.g., Executive Function measurements, Theory of Mind measurements)
- Visual world eye-tracking paradigm (using Eyelink1000 by SR Research)
Languages of research
- English
- Japanese
- Mandarin Chinese
Selected Publications —
Nobuki, A. & Minai, U. (2022). The role of the contrastive topic -wa in the felicity judgment of negation in Japanese. Japanese/Korean Linguistics 29.
Ishikawa, M. & Minai, U. (2022). Children's comrehension of possessive and adversative passives in Japanese: Examining alternating hypotheses. BUCLD 46 Proceedings.
Minai, U. (2020). Book review: T. Ionin and M. Rispoli, Three streams of generative language acquisition research. First Language, DOI: 10.1177/0142723720905445
Covey, L., Coughlin, C., & Minai, U. (2018). An eye-tracking study examining the role of question-answer congruency in children's comprehension of only: a preliminary report. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 39.
Yang, X., Minai, U., & Fiorentino, R. (2018). Context-sensitivity and individual differences in the derivation of scalar implicature. Frontiers in Psychology 9:1720. DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01720.
Krueger, B., Storkel, H., & Minai, U. (2018). The influence of misarticulations on children's word identification and processing. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, DOI:10.1044/2017_JSLHR-S-16-0379.
Chu, C.-Y., & Minai, U. (2018). Children's demonstrative comprehension and the role of non-linguistic cognitive abilities: a cross-linguistic study. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 47(6), Special Issue: Experimental Approaches to the Study of Child Language: A Cross-linguistic Perspective, 1343-1368. DOI: 10.1007/s10936-018-9565-8
Selected Presentations —
Nobuki, A., Ishikawa, M., & Minai, U. (upcoming/2023) "Pragmatic judgement of negative sentences by children: A case of child Japanese." Poster to be presented at the 2023 SRCD Biennial Meeting. Salt Lake City, UT.
Madden, A., & Minai, U. (upcoming/2023) "Acquisition of Japanese negative polarity item licensing by English-speaking second language learners." Poster to be presented at the 30th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference. Simon Fraser University, British Columbian, Canada.
Wang, T., Minai, U., & Gabriele, A. (2022) "Evaluating referent salience in pronoun processing by native and non-native speakers." Poster presented at the 47th Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.
Wang, T., Minai, U., & Gabriele, A. (2021) "Examining referent salience in native and non-native pronoun resolution: an online eye-tracking study." Poster presented at the 46th Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.
Ishikawa, M., & Minai, U. (2021) "Children's comprehension of possessive and adversative passives in Japanese: examining alternating hypotheses." Poster presented at the 46th Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.
Ito, K., Minai, U., & Royer, A. (2021) "Quantifier spreading and the role of prosody in children and adults: an eye tracking study." Poster presented at the 46th Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.
Nobuki, A., & Minai, U. (2021) "The role of the contrastive topic -wa in the felicity judgment of negation in Japanese." Poster presented at the 29th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference. Nagoya, Japan.
Wang, T., Feroce, N., Briseno, J., Coughlin, C., & Minai, U. (2021) "Seeking the sources of children's comprehension errors involving the universal quantifier every. " Poster presented at the Ninth Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition North America.
Nobuki, A., & Minai, U. (2021) "Pragmatic felicity of negation in Japanese." Poster presented at the 2021 SRCD Virtual Biennial Meeting.
Grants & Other Funded Activity —
3/2019-2/2021: Fiorentino, R., Gabriele, A., Minai, U., & Yang, X. Doctoral Dissertation Research: Examining the linguistic cues that guide prediction in the processing of Mandarin relative clauses: an ERP study. National Science Foundation, BCD: 1844790. (Co-PI)
1/2019-12/2019: Minai, U. Rice Child Language Doctoral Program Fund Grant through KU Research Excellence Initiative Program. Semantics-pragmatics interface in child language: comprehension of scalar terms. (PI)
7/2016-6/2018: Minai, U. General Research Fund, KU. Why young children show difficulty in comprehending the word 'only'. (PI)