ReadCalibration · Phonemic representations in speech perception and production: Recalibration by reading acquisition

The main goal of this project is to demonstrate that reading acquisition (RA) drastically reshapes our phonemic inventory, and to investigate the time-course and fine-grained properties of this recalibration. The main innovative and ground-breaking aspect of this project is the merging of two research fields, (1) reading acquisition and (2) phonemic recalibration, together with a deep and extensive exploration of the (3) perception-production link, which results in a new research line that pushes the boundaries of our understanding of the complex interactions between auditory and visual language perception and production. We will demonstrate that phonemic representations (PRs) become more stable (less dispersed) during the process of learning to read, and that this recalibration varies according to the grapheme-phoneme conversion rules of the reading system. We will explore such recalibration by means of the first cross-linguistic longitudinal study examining the position and dispersion of PRs, both in perception and production of phonemes and words. Secondly, we will explore how recalibration develops when RA is impaired as is the case in dyslexic children –informing the research field on (4) dyslexia– and when pre-reading PRs are unstable as is the case in deaf children with cochlear implants –informing the research field on (5) deafness. Finally, the research will also be extended to PR recalibration during RA in a second language –informing the research on (6) bilingualism. This proposal provides the first systematic investigation of phonemic recalibration during literacy acquisition, and will provide important insight for pragmatic research and theoretical accounts of language perception and production and phonemic recalibration. This project will also have major implications for the clinical field (theories and remediation of dyslexia and deafness) and for social policies and education (bilingualism, spoken and written language teaching).