Professor Silke Brandt
ProfessorResearch Interests
Language acquisition and processing of complex syntax
Language and Theory of Mind development: first and third person perspectives in complement clauses and false belief tasks
Syntactic priming and implicit learning of linguistic structures and morpho-syntactic cues
Interactions between information structure and word order
Research Overview
I do corpus analyses and experimental studies to investigate how children's comprehension and productive use of specific (complex) linguistic structures is guided by the form and function of these and related structures in their input. I see language acquisition as a general learning process and also look at interactions between linguistic and social-cognitive development.
Research Grants
I'm a member of the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD)
PhD Supervision Interests
I would be happy to receive applications in any of these areas: first language acquisition (especially formal and functional aspects of syntax), sentence processing, language and Theory of Mind development, cognitive/ usage-based linguistics & construction grammar.
2025
Journal article
The Influence of Three-Gendered Grammatical Systems on Simultaneous Bilingual Cognition: The case of Ukrainian-Russian Bilinguals
Osypenko, O., Brandt, S., Athanasopoulos, P. 31/12/2025 In: Language and Cognition. 17, 25 p.The role of iconicity in children's production of adverbial clauses
Zhang, S., Brandt, S., Theakston, A. 30/06/2025 In: Cognition. 259Easy as ABC. Functional-pragmatic factors explain “binding-principle” constraints on pronoun interpretation: Evidence from nine pre-registered rating studies
Blything, L., Theakston, A., Brandt, S., Ambridge, B. 25/03/2025 In: Cognitive Psychology.
The ESRC International Centre for Language
01/11/2019 → 31/10/2025
Research
fEC Code: LUCID: The ESRC Centre for Language and Communicative Development
01/10/2014 → …
Research
LUCID: Centre for Language and Communicative Development
01/09/2014 → 31/05/2020
Research
Linguistics in the city
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
Cardinal Newman College
School Engagement
Littleover Community School
School Engagement
New Collaborative Learning Trust
School Engagement
West Kirby Grammar School
School Engagement
Loreto College
School Engagement
New Collaborative Learning Trust
School Engagement
Developmental Psychology
- Research Group in Cognitive Linguistics