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Kathleen McCarthy, PhD (UCL)

Kathleen

Lecturer in Linguistics

Email: k.mccarthy@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 7557
Room Number: ArtsOne 1.13A
Website: https://languageacquisitionlab.qmul.ac.uk
Office Hours: Tuesday 2-3pm, Wednesday 3-4pm on MS Team (see QMPlus), or by appointment

Profile

I'm interested in language acquisition, from infancy to early adulthood. My research focuses on speech perception/production and early phonological development, particularly in bilinguals who grow up in large immigrant communities. My recent research explores the relationship between these early stages of acquisition and later language and literacy development. As a trained speech and language therapist, I am also interested in atypical development, in particular assessment and intervention for bilingual populations, and language development in late-talkers.
I direct the QMUL Language Acquisition Lab. You can read more about our current projects here.

Teaching

  • Language Acquisition (UG)
  • Phonetics I: the Sounds of English (UG)
  • Acoustic Analysis of Speech (UG)
  • Research Methods (UG)
  • Developmental Disorders of Language and Cognition (UG/PG)

Research

Research Interests:

 

  • Child language acquisition 
  • Speech perception and production 
  • Heritage language communities and bilingual acquisition 
  • Phonological development 
  • Acoustics of speech and hearing 

 

Publications

Browse a publication list by Dr. Kathleen McCarthy.

Kirkham, S. & McCarthy, K.M. (2020) Acquiring allophonic structure and phonetic detail in a bilingual community: The production of laterals by Sylheti-English bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingualism.

McCarthy, K.M., Skoruppa, K., & Iverson, P. (2019). Development of neural perceptual vowel spaces during the first year of life. Scientific Reports 9: 19592.

McCarthy, K.M. & Evans, B. G (2019). The perception of familiar and unfamiliar accents by bilingual and monolingual children. Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2203-2207.

Oxbury, R. & McCarthy, K.M. (2019). Acquiring a multiethnolect: the production of diphthongs by children and adolescents in West London. Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2208-2212.

Sharma, D. & McCarthy, K. M. (2018). Attentional load and style control. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, 24(2), 127-136.

McCarthy, K. M., Rosen, S., Mahon M., & Evans, B. G. (2014). Speech perception and production by sequential bilingual children: a longitudinal study of VOT acquisition. Child Development, 85(5), 1965-1980.

McCarthy, K. M., Evans, B.G., & Mahon, M., (2013). Acquiring a second language in an immigrant community: the production of Sylheti and English stops and vowels by London Bengali speakers. Journal of Phonetics, 41, 344-358.

McCarthy, K. M., Evans, B.G., & Mahon, M. (2011). Detailing the phonetic environment: a sociophonetic study of the London-Bengali community. Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS), 1354-1357.


Mahon, M., Vickers, D., McCarthy, K. M., Barker, R., Merritt, R., Szagun, G., Mann, W., & Rajput, K (2011). Cochlear-implanted children from homes where English is an additional language: findings form a recent audit in one London centre. Cochlear Implants International, 12 (2) pp. 105-113.