European Research Council ERC Starting Grant Winner Dr. Yiya Chen Leiden University Center for Linguistics Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (The Netherlands)

Background/Experience From China... –BA from Beijing Foreign Studies University... to the United States –PhD in Linguistics, State University of New York, Stony Brook –Visiting Assistant Professor/Instructor, University of Colorado at Boulder, Cornell University, and New York University... to Europe –Postdoc at the University of Edinburgh (UK) and Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands) –Associate Professor, Leiden University Center for Linguistics –Senior researcher, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition European Research Council

Past Important Research Awards European Research Council (ERC-Starting Grant) Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research –Innovational research grant scheme VIDI grant 2010 Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) –China-Exchange Fellowship Research Highlights Publication of scientific papers in first-class journals Regular reviewer for first-class journals of the field and editorial board member of Journal of Phonetics Co-leader of an international network on prosodic research (funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research and other European countries: UK, Portugal, Spain, Germany, and Sweden) European Research Council

My ERC Experience Suitability ERC offers an excellent opportunity to establish/consolidate an independent research team Principal Investigator, 3 Post-docs, 5 PhD students, as well as student/research assistants (together with other funding sources) Support on pioneering high-impact ideas Interdisciplinary research team with linguists and psychologists Research program duration – 5 years Cohesive research program with more broad and in-depth focus European Research Council

My ERC Experience Procedure –Proposal submission User-friendly web interface –Interview by a panel of experts Good opportunity to communicate research ideas in person –Selection Open: No national boundary; no scientific discipline boundary Competitive but fair: Evaluated upon quality of the researcher and the proposal Benefits –Increased visibility of the research team –More secured academic position –An expanded network with collaborators from America, Europe, and China ( e.g., Chinese Academy of Sciences; Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Beijing University; Fudan University) European Research Council

My ERC Research Project: e.g. Beijing Mandarin ma [High] ‘mother’ma [Rising] ‘hemp’ ma [Low] ‘horse’ ma [Falling] ‘to scold’ - Tonal language: pitch variation signals word meanings - Pitch variation in connected speech Beijing Mandarin: Low tone change ([Low] + [Low]) tonal domain → ([Rising][Low]) ni hao nihao ‘you’ good’ ‘hello’ European Research Council Representation and Processing of Pitch Variation in Tonal Languages (RPPV) Dialects vary significantly in pitch variation patterns.

Research Questions What is the range of pitch variation patterns across Chinese dialects? [Pitch Variation Patterns] How are words with pitch variation stored in the human brain? [Pitch Variation Representation] How are they accessed and planned in connected speech? [Pitch Variation Processing] European Research Council

Results and Applications Areal and cross-language typology of pitch variation New insights into how pitch variation in tonal languages is stored in the brain and planned in speech production Better understanding of human cognition in terms of both the structure of language and the way language is comprehended and produced in speech communication Potential applications: –Improved devices for special needs of hearing or speaking assistance –Efficient systems of human-machine interaction European Research Council

Beyond ERC Three successfully defended PhDs Seven PhD projects in-progress, funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council and the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO) A joint research project (with colleagues from the Psychology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Prof. Yufang Yang and Dr. Xiaoqing Li) Funded by the China Exchange Programme (CEP) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), which aims to foster scientific research cooperation between The Netherlands and China European Research Council

Thanks for your attention 谢谢！