Ranka Bijeljac-Babic
Retired Associate Professor – Hosted
Most babies are likely to learn several languages. I am trying to understand how children who are bilingual from birth acquire their two languages. Currently, I study monolingual and bilingual infants’ ability to perceive and produce the accentuation of words in different languages.
Relevant links: Summary of research and recommendations on bilingualism in nursery and elementary schools (in french)
Ongoing project
Voice familiarity in the processing of word meanings
This project aims to investigate whether familiarity with the speaker’s voice facilitates lexical-semantic processing in infants.
Project team lead
Pia Rämä
Investigating cognitive processes underlying food learning in infancy -F.E.E.D your mind
The aim of the F.E.E.D. your mind project is to shed light on the cognitive processes underlying food learning in infancy and provide empirical bases to design such interventions
Project team lead
Camille Rioux
Selected Publications
– Bijeljac-Babic, R. 2019. Développement du langage chez l’enfant monolingue et bilingue. In Le développement du bébé : de la vie foetale à la marche, E. Devouche et J. Provasi, Paris : Elsevier Masson.
– Höhle, B, Bijeljac-Babic, R., Nazzi, T. 2019. Variability and stability in early language acquisition: Comparing monolingual and bilingual infants’ speech perception and word recognition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1–16.
– Bijeljac-Babic R, Höhle B, Nazzi T. (2016). Early prosodic acquisition in bilingual infants: The case of the perceptual trochaic bias. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 210.
– Bijeljac-Babic R, Nassurally K, Havy M, Nazzi T. (2009). Infants can rapidly learn words in a foreign language. Infant Behavior and Development, 32, 476-480.
– Höhle B, Bijeljac-Babic R, Herold B, Weissenborn J, Nazzi T. (2009). The development of language specific prosodic preferences during the first half year of life: evidence from German and French. Infant Behavior and Development, 32, 262-274.