معرفی
Prof. Aoju Chen is a Professor of English Linguistics: Language Development at Utrecht University's Faculty of Humanities, Department of Languages, Literature and Communication. She holds a VICI Grant (2021-2026) investigating prosodic development in early childhood and leads the NWO-funded VIDI project (2011-2016) on prosodic focus marking in children. Her research focuses on prosody's role in first and second language acquisition, with interdisciplinary projects in the Dynamics of Youth strategic theme exploring prosody's link to children's sense of belonging.
Her expertise spans Information Structure, Language Comprehension, and Phonology, with a strong emphasis on cross-linguistic studies. Key projects include prenatal prosody acquisition and robot-assisted language learning. She has published extensively on prosodic focus marking, intonation, and bilingualism, with over 50 peer-reviewed articles since 2004. Awards include prestigious NWO grants and contributions to Oxford Handbook of Language Prosody (2020).
Her research integrates experimental methods with computational prosody analysis, addressing both theoretical and applied questions in developmental linguistics. She leads the English Linguistics: Language Development chair and collaborates with robotics teams to apply prosody insights in educational technology. Her work bridges phonetics, psychology, and education, emphasizing real-world applications for language learning and child development.
