Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Implicit Learning and Its Cognitive and Brain Effects on Language Learning With Special Reference to Implicit Music Learning." "Piet Van de Craen" "Rehabilitation and Physiotherapy, Language and literature" "Implicit learning of languages refers to learning where '[complex information] is [learned] without complete verbalisable knowledge of what is learned' (Seger 1994:164). Until recently, implicit learning was not associated with language learning as most theories dedicated themselves to the explicit learning of grammatical rules (Ellis 1997). However, since the rise of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) things have changed. This approach emphasizes, at least in the beginning, knowledge of languages without any explicit knowledge and CLIL is the candidate to study this learning approach in a natural environment. As Reber (1967, 1993) has shown implicit learning differs from explicit learning in many ways. It is, among other things, more robust, less prone for variation, supposed to be IQ independent, and it carries a more communal view of learning than traditional learning. Results obtained via CLIL classroom research where languages are learnt from a young age in an implicit learning environment through the medium of a foreign language seem to corroborate Reber's view (Jäppinen 2005, Van de Craen et al. 2007 a, b, c, 2008), Lorenzo et al. 2009). However, most research on implicit learning has been carried out in a laboratory environment by studying artificial grammars (cf. Reber 1967, Cleeremans 1997, DeKeyser 2003, Hulstijn 2003, Pothos 2007). Hence, in the past decade a huge terrain for natural implicit language study has been created. Another terrain where implicit learning plays a role is music. Learning an instrument in music schools is mostly done either via music theory (solfège), i.e. explicit learning, or via picking up the instrument before solfège is acquired, i.e. implicit learning. The Suzuki approach is an example of this. The comparison between implicit music learning and implicit language learning imposes itself. Moreover, developments in the neurosciences have made it relatively easy to scan learners. The team I am working with has been able to show that brain differences appear depending on the learning manner (Mondt 2005, Mondt et al. 2011). Today, the current state of the art regarding implicit learning is that it seems more effective and that positive effects regarding cognitive development arise. This study wants to find out whether brain parallel substrates exist between implicit language learners and implicit music learners as well as to compare these groups with traditional language and music learners. The results will be of importance for the development of (i) knowledge about language, music learning and the brain as well as (ii) for the development of more pinpointed language and music pedagogies." "The development of clause linking and complex sentences in the second language acquisition of Dutch and French." "Alex Housen" "Language and literature" "The ability to produce complex sentences through clause linking (I can't go shopping. I am ill -> I can't go shopping because I am ill) is essential for mature and efficient language use but for many second language learners it also represents a major learning obstacle. This project is the first to investigate both developmental and crosslinguistic aspects of clause linking and sentence complexification within the framework of a unified linguistic theory (Role & Reference Grammar). We analyse the language productions collected over a period of three years from both native speakers and second language learners (Dutch- and French-speaking secondary school pupils from Brussels) of two different languages, Dutch and French. This will enable us to identify languagespecific features and more universal features in the production and development of complex sentences. The corpus consists of both spoken and written language representing several text types (description, narration, argumentation), which allows us to also investigate the impact of language register and language task on the development of clause linking in a second language. The aim of this project is to gain a better understanding of how people learn languages and also to test linguistic theories about the structure of sentences." "Dutch Experimental Realism of the 1960s - Reading Documentary Literature through Autobiographical Genres" "Hans Vandevoorde" "Ghent University, Language and literature" "This project aims to give an overview of the Dutch documentary literature of the 1960s. During this period various authors introduced reality in their work in a non-traditional way, pursuing an experimental realism. In order to approach this subject matter in a way that will contribute to both the understanding of Dutch literary history and documentary literature on an international level, I will study how readers are able to understand the 1960s texts as 'documentary'. Two rhetorical effects that are also important for autobiographies support this way of reading: credibility and veracity. In my research I will focus on the genres in the text that evoke these effects, acknowledging the multiform nature of documentary literature. Documentary texts frequently display a contradictory repertory of signals. The characteristic documentary techniques are verbatim reproduction of external texts, interviews and reportage, which provide the text with a connotation of objectivity. But documentary texts also make use of fictionalising techniques, e.g. consciousness representation and focalisation, to evoke credibility and veracity. All these techniques bear references to certain genres in them. I will examine the specificity of the Dutch documentary literature in the 1960s, by analysing which fictional and non-fictional genres are referred to, in which ways, and how they are interrelated, specifically in comparison to autobiography." "Britain in Europe: The Emergence of Post-Insular Identities and Transcultural Discourses in Contemporary British Literature" "Janine Hauthal" "Language and literature" "Despite the Euroscepticism dominating British foreign policy, contemporary British novelists, playwrights and travel writers play a vital role in imagining Europe as a transnational community. While previous studies on how Europe is imagined in British literature have predominantly drawn on postcolonial theory and demonstrated how Europe is constructed as Britain's national or cultural 'Other', this project attends to how contemporary British authors imagine 'Britain in Europe' and/or a transcultural 'new Europe'. Focussing on European dimensions of Englishness and Britishness, it seeks to bring about a shift from the dichotomous paradigms of postcolonial studies and imagology to a transcultural conceptual framework in order to account for the emergence of previously disregarded post-insular identities and transcultural discourses in these texts. Thus, the project contributes to the re-thinking of Britain's relationship to the continent. The project, however, does not just seek to examine the inter-/trans-cultural issues these British texts negotiate, but takes a particular interest in their narrative strategies. By adopting and further developing a contextual narratological approach, the project investigates the aesthetics of transcultural narratives that transcend established national and cultural boundaries. In this way, it opens up new and distinctly transnational vistas at the nexus of 'nation', 'narration' and 'identity' in contemporary British writing ." "What's So Funny? Absurdist Humour in Absurdist Fiction from a Cognitive Perspective" "Inge Arteel" "Study Centre Experimental Literature, Language and literature" "The project examines the use of a specific type of humour in absurdist novels, which will be defined as absurdist humour. By combining cognitive humour theory with recent cognitive literary theory, specifically schema-theory, the project seeks to provide insight into the mechanisms of absurdist humour. Specific instances of absurdist humour will be explored through examination of a corpus of absurdist fiction, consisting of four American novels. This will in turn enhance our understanding of how absurdist humour influences the experience and interpretation of absurdist literature. Integrating schema-theory and humour theory offers the advantage that it can account for all the aspects important to the interpretation of absurdist humour in literary text, i.e. the text (on the level of style and content), the reader and the context. The emphasis of the project on the process of interpretation and the analysis of an actual corpus of absurdist novels also goes beyond the scope of traditional humour theory research which tends to limit itself to short and often specifically designed jokes. In that way the project will shed more light on one of literature and everyday life's greatest pleasures." "Daily life and crisis in literary journals. A multiperspective reading of diaries written during the Second World War" "Hans Vandevoorde" "Study Centre Experimental Literature, University of Antwerp, Ghent University, Language and literature" "This project investigates which context- and form-related characteristics and which literary and anthropological functions of the diary are influenced by the historical and local crisis circumstances of war and occupation. Thus, it examines if the specific historical situation of the Second World War leads to changes in the genre of the journal and its functions. The proposed study is divided into two parts that are closely related. The first part (the PhD project) starts with listing the characteristics of diaries. Than comes a detailed reading of the ways in which diaries of canonized writers portray the reality of daily life in urban environments during the Second World War. Finally, the changes in daily writing practices of the authors being in a crisis situation will be investigated and connected to the genre features of the journal in terms of content, form and function. In the second (interdisciplinary) part of the research the genre of literary diaries is contrasted with non-literary diaries and compared with German literary diaries in order to find out the specific literary and translocal chararacteristics and functions of the journal." "Tennessee Williams's metatheatre" "Johan Callens" "Language and literature" "This project seeks to investigate some of the less-often studied plays by the American playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), informed by metatheatrical theory.The proposed research will try to uncover Williams's dramatisation of various attitudes vis-à-vis the theatre and thus offer a better insight into the playwright's stance on his own art. It aims to assess how Williams's metadrama developed over time, as literature in general shifted from modernism to the arguably more self-reflexive postmodernism.Finally, because the material under discussion was primarily written to be performed, my study will take into account a number of contemporary Williams productions and examine how these articulate the metatheatrical potential inherent in the plays." "Imagineering Violence - Techniques of Early Modern Performativity in the Northern and Southern Netherlands (1630-1690) (ITEMP-violence)" "Karel Vanhaesebrouck" "Ghent University, Language and literature" "Central to the project is the concept of imagineering, a term we have appropriated from its earlier use in the creative industry and that is a composite of ‘engineering’ and ‘imagining’. It allows us to conceptualise the reciprocally manipulative relation between audience and media. Not only did the public have an influence on commercial institutions such as the theatre or the publishing market, these media also had, the other way round, a normative and experiential impact on these audiences, framing their understanding of reality. Theatre, the visual arts, public spectacles, and so forth, all represent and give shape to violence through the different techniques that are available to them, making violence imaginable to their early modern public. In fact imagineering finds its match in the age-old Dutch word ‘verbeelding’, which at once signifies imagination and representation." "Bridging the gap: Linking noticing and the implicit L2 acquisition of grammatical subregularities in a natural second language." "Alex Housen" "Language and literature" "While some researchers have claimed that, compared to children, adults have a reduced ability or are incapable of learning language unconsciously (implicitly), studies using artificial languages have shown that adults can acquire grammar rules implicitly, provided they receive ample language input. This project extends the latter line of research by investigating whether these findings also hold when a purely natural language (German) is used. In addition, we link the question of implicit learning with that of noticing the gap, that is, the conscious registration of a mismatch between the learner’s interlanguage form (eg. *the sheeps) and the input target form (eg. the sheep). L2 German learners of intermediate to advanced proficiency level will take part in two experiments targeting a stem vowel change (eg. sprechen > spricht) in strong German verbs. The first experiment measures the learners' ability to perceive the stem-vowel change in spoken input when production data suggest this form is not fully acquired yet. The second experiment, which involves the same participants and takes place one year later, tests participants’ ability to use the stem vowel as a cue to grammatical number (singular or plural) during real-time listening. By combining performance data on both tasks, we can study whether noticing the gap (experiment 1) functions as a precursor to learning (experiment 2) and integrate these two distinct lines of research in the literature." "A clinical-neurolinguistic and experimental fMRI study of the modulating role of the cerebellum in writing processes" "Wim Vandenbussche, Peter Marien" "Linguistics and Literary Studies, Centre for Linguistics, Language and literature" "Clinical-neurolinguistic and experimental fMRI study of the modulating role of the cerebellum in writing processes"