Theo Marinis

University of Konstanz, Germany, Linguistics, Faculty Member

University of Reading, Clinical Language Sciences, Faculty Member

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My research focuses on cross-linguistic first and second language acquisition and processing in adults, typically developing children, and children with language impairment with the aim to uncover the nature of language processing in typical and atypical language development.
Phone: +44-118-378 7465
Address: School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences
University of Reading
Reading RG6 6AL, UK

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Sentence repetition

Parallel function hypothesis revisited in the processing of Turkish relative clauses in adults

The Parallel Function Hypothesis (PFH) Sheldon (1974) suggests that children use a strategy that ... more The Parallel Function Hypothesis (PFH) Sheldon (1974) suggests that children use a strategy that assigns the same role to the co-referential NPs as their matrix clauses. That is, a complex NP that appears in an embedded clause is processed more easily when it has the same grammatical role both in the matrix and embedded clause compared to when it has different roles. As far as relative clauses (RCs) are concerned, it predicts better performance in structures where the relativized head has the same grammatical role in the embedded clause and in the matrix clause. That is, a subject RC with the subject role (SS) or an object RC with the object role (OO) in the matrix clause should yield shorter reaction times (RTs) in processing than a subject RC with the object role (OS) and an object RC with the subject role (SO), respectively. Sheldon (1974) suggests the same pattern should be observed in all languages regardless of their typological characteristics. In other words, it is predicted...

format_quoteParticipants demonstrated a processing pattern contradicting the PFH: initial RCs assigned subject roles, suggesting role assignment depends on position.format_quote

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Semantic context effects in Bengali-English bilingual and English monolingual speakers

We investigated the contribution of linguistic and executive control processes in semantic contex... more We investigated the contribution of linguistic and executive control processes in semantic context effects for young healthy Bengali-English bilingual and English monolingual speakers. We collected blocked-cyclic naming data, executive control data and background measures to characterize each participant. This dataset contains the blocked-cyclic naming data as well as Stroop data in English from 25 Bengali-English bilinguals and 25 English monolinguals. The data from the blocked-cyclic naming task was collected using audio recorder, later transcribed orthographically. Demographic information and vocabulary testing data were collected using paper and pen tasks. Executive control tasks were assessed using computer-based tasks and were programmed and delivered using E-Prime. The groups were matched for receptive vocabulary, age, education and non-verbal intelligence. These data could be used by future researchers to answer their specific questions regarding blocked-cyclic naming perfor...

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Multilingualism and multiliteracy in primary education in India: A discussion of some methodological challenges of an interdisciplinary research project

Research in Comparative and International Education, 2019

In the Indian context, concerns have been raised for many years about the learning outcomes of pr... more In the Indian context, concerns have been raised for many years about the learning outcomes of primary school children. The complexity of the issue makes it difficult to advise stakeholders on what needs to be done to improve learning in primary schools in India. As it has been shown that low socio-economic status is one of the key factors that negatively affect learning outcomes, the focus of the Multilila project (‘Multilingualism and multiliteracy: Raising learning outcomes in challenging contexts in primary schools across India’) is on educational achievement among children of low socio-economic status. In following the development of language, literacy, maths and cognitive abilities of primary school children over two years we hope to throw new light on why multilingual children in India do not always experience the cognitive advantages associated with multilingualism in other contexts. This paper focuses on some of the methodological challenges faced by this project. After exp...

format_quoteMultilingual children in India do not consistently experience cognitive advantages of bilingualism, contrasting findings from other contexts.format_quote

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Language and Decoding Skills in Greek-English Primary School Bilingual Children: Effects of Language Dominance, Contextual Factors and Cross-Language Relationships Between the Heritage and the Majority Language

Frontiers in Communication, 2019

Bilingual children are a heterogeneous population, as the amount of input and use of their langua... more Bilingual children are a heterogeneous population, as the amount of input and use of their languages may differ due to various factors, for example, the status of each language (majority, minority), which language is used in the school, and whether children are acquiring literacy in one or both languages. Their language ability depends to a large extent on the use of each language and on whether they each language at the same rate. The aim of the study was to investigate how primary school bilingual children in the UK perform on several domains of language and reading skills and how these relate to language dominance. Moreover, it addressed how this performance is affected by a range of contextual factors and whether there are cross-language relationships in the children's language and reading abilities. Forty Greek-English bilingual children in Year 1 and Year 3 were tested on vocabulary, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, morpho-syntax, and decoding in Greek and English. The results showed that as a group, the children were Greek dominant before the age of 4 but English dominant now and confirm that language dominance could change even before children enter school and affects language and literacy skills equally. A strong relationship between language use and performance was only in evidence in the minority language, which suggests that parental effort should be directed toward the minority language because schooling appears to level out differences in the majority language. There was no negative relationship between the use of the heritage language and children's language and reading performance in the majority language. In contrast, significant positive cross-language associations were revealed among vocabulary, phonological awareness, inflectional morphology and decoding skills. The practical implications of this study are that parents and teachers should be informed for the positive effects of heritage language use in and outside the home for the maintenance of the heritage language and for the development of the children's language and literacy skills.

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Comprehending Non-literal Language: Effects of Aging and Bilingualism

Frontiers in Psychology, 2018

A pressing issue that the twenty-first century is facing in many parts of the developed world is ... more A pressing issue that the twenty-first century is facing in many parts of the developed world is a rapidly aging population. Whilst several studies have looked at aging older adults and their language use in terms of vocabulary, syntax and sentence comprehension, few have focused on the comprehension of non-literal language (i.e., pragmatic inference-making) by aging older adults, and even fewer, if any, have explored the effects of bilingualism on pragmatic inferences of non-literal language by aging older bilinguals. Thus, the present study examined the effects of age(ing) and the effects of bilingualism on aging older adults' ability to infer non-literal meaning. Four groups of participants made up of monolingual English-speaking and bilingual English-Tamil speaking young (17-23 years) and older (60-83 years) adults were tested with pragmatic tasks that included non-conventional indirect requests, conversational implicatures, conventional metaphors and novel metaphors for both accuracy and efficiency in terms of response times. While the study did not find any significant difference between monolinguals and bilinguals on pragmatic inferences, there was a significant effect of age on one type of non-literal language tested: conventional metaphors. The effect of age was present only for the monolinguals with aging older monolinguals performing less well than the young monolinguals. Aging older bilingual adults were not affected by age whilst processing conventional metaphors. This suggests a bilingual advantage in pragmatic inferences of conventional metaphors.

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Object-first orders in Turkish do not pose a challenge during processing

Özge D., Marinis, T. and Zeyrek D. (2013). Object-first orders in Turkish do not pose a challenge during processing. In Özge, U. (ed.). Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 269-280

L2 children do not fluctuate

Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 2016

Reading's research outputs online L2 children do not fluctuate: Production and on-line processing... more Reading's research outputs online L2 children do not fluctuate: Production and on-line processing of indefinite articles in Turkish-speaking child learners of English Vasiliki Chondrogianni & Theodoros Marinis Studies on the acquisition of indefinite articles by sequential bilingual (L2) children have provided mixed results regarding whether L2 children omit or substitute indefinite articles. In the present paper, we examined whether Turkish-speaking child L2 learners of English omitted or substituted indefinite articles by using a production task that comprised two different semantic contexts, the referential specific and the non-referential predicational context. We also examined the source of children's errors by using a self-paced listening task where children heard grammatical sentence where indefinite articles were present and ungrammatical sentences with omitted indefinite articles. L2 children's performance was compared with that of two monolingual (L1) groups: an age-matched L1 group and a younger L1 group. Results showed that all groups of children distinguished between the two semantic contexts in both the production and the on-line processing task. At the same time, both groups of older L1 and L2 children's errors consisted in omission of indefinite articles whereas the predominant error for the younger L1 children was substitutions. In the on-line processing task, all groups of children detected the ungrammaticality related to article omission. We interpret these results within the Feature Reassembly and the Full Transfer/Full Access Hypotheses.

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Language Production and Comprehension in Bilingual SLI: Evidence from Complex Morphosyntactic Structures

The last decade has seen an increase in the number of published studies in bilingual children wit... more The last decade has seen an increase in the number of published studies in bilingual children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) but the latter have focused mainly on language production. A substantially smaller body of research on comprehension primarily addresses the question whether children with SLI show a similar profile to bilingual typically developing (TD) children. However, research comparing bilingual and monolingual children with SLI remains comparatively limited. Moreover, this is also the case with research into language comprehension in bilingual children with SLI in isolation or compared to production within the same population. This paper outlines the background to Specific Language Impairment within a bilingual setting and the rationale for studying bilingual children with SLI as evidence for/against theories of language and language impairment. It further discusses directions for future research in order to bridge the gaps in the existing literature and a pres...

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Primary Modern Languages: the impact of teaching approaches on attainment and preparedness for secondary school language learning

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acquisition of clitic objects in Modern Greek : single clitics, clitic doubling, clitic left dislocation

ZAS Papers in Linguistics, 2000

The present study is concerned with Single Clitics, as weil as with Clitic Doubling and Clitic Le... more The present study is concerned with Single Clitics, as weil as with Clitic Doubling and Clitic Left Dislocation constructions and will test the Uniformity Hypothesis (Sportiehe 1992), according to which all three constructions involve the same underlying structure. It will be shown that: - acquisition data pose a problem for the Uniformity Hypothesis (Sportiche 1992) and support rather the idea that Single Clitic, Clitic Doubling and Clitic Left Dislocation constructions do not involve the same underlying structure, - omission of definite articles in Clitic Doubling and Clitic Left Dislocation constructions parallels omission of definite articles in simple DPs, - selective omission of some types of Determiners, i.e. definite articles and use of another type of Determiners, i.e. clitic pronouns, can be explained in terms of the different feature specification of words belonging to the category D and the different status of clitics vs. definite articles.

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Language impairment in bilingual children

Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 2017

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Panagiotidis, P. & Marinis, T. (2011). Determiner spreading as DP-predication. Studia Linguistica 65, 268–298

Studia Linguistica, 2011

Syntactic complexity in the comprehension of wh-questions and relative clauses in typical language development and autism

Applied Psycholinguistics, 2016

ABSTRACTThis study investigates effects of syntactic complexity operationalized in terms of movem... more ABSTRACTThis study investigates effects of syntactic complexity operationalized in terms of movement, intervention, and noun phrase (NP) feature similarity in the development of Aʹ-dependencies in 4-, 6-, and 8-year-old typically developing (TD) French children and children with autism spectrum disorder. Children completed an offline comprehension task testing eight syntactic structures classified in four levels of complexity: Level 0: no movement; Level 1: movement without (configurational) intervention; Level 2: movement with intervention from an element that is maximally different or featurally “disjoint” (mismatched in both lexical NP restriction and number); and Level 3: movement with intervention from an element similar in one feature or featurally “intersecting” (matched in lexical NP restriction, mismatched in number). The results show that syntactic complexity affects TD children across the three age groups, but also indicate developmental differences between these groups. ...

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The potential of sentence imitation tasks for assessment of language abilities in sequential bilingual children

The potential of sentence imitation tasks for assessment of language abilities in sequential bili... more

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Marinis, T. (2010). On-line sentence processing methods in typical and atypical populations. In: Unsworth, S. & Blom, E. (eds.). Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research. John Benjamins [Language Learning and Language Teaching], 139-162

Marinis, T. (2008). Syntactic processing in developmental and acquired language disorders. In: M. J. Ball, M. Perkins, N. Mueller & S. Howard (eds.), The Handbook of Clinical Linguistics. Blackwell: Oxford, 198-211

Doukas, T. & Marinis, T. (2012). The Acquisition of Person and Number Morphology Within the Verbal Domain in Early Greek. University of Reading Language Studies Working Papers 4, 15‐25

The aim of this paper is to examine the acquisition pattern of person and number verb morphology ... more The aim of this paper is to examine the acquisition pattern of person and number verb morphology within the generative framework and to compare the results of the analyses with previous research in Greek and other European languages. The study considers previous data on the acquisition of subject-verb agreement, and thereafter, examines the acquisition of person and number morphology in a new dataset of two monolingual Greek-speaking children. The analyses present quantitative data of accuracy of person and number marking, error data, and qualitative analyses addressing the productivity of person and number marking. The results suggest that person and number morphology is used correctly and productively from a very early age in Greek-speaking children. The findings provide new insight into early Greek language acquisition and are also relevant for research in early development of languages with rich inflectional morphology.

Terzi, A., Marinis, T., Francis, K. & Kotsopoulou, A. (2012). Crosslinguistic differences of autistic children’s comprehension of pronouns: English vs. Greek. Proceedings of the 36th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 607-619

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