ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory & Practice

Name:

Prof Ineke Mennen

Position:

Professor of Bilingualism

Email:

Location:

Room 368 Brigantia

Phone:

+44 (0)1248 388702

Biography

I have been at Bangor University since 2008 after having worked at Queen Margaret University, and before that at Newcastle University and Edinburgh University. I first completed an undergraduate degree in Speech and Language Therapy in The Netherlands, after which I worked as a speech and language therapist in various settings in Greece and The Netherlands. I then changed career and was an undergraduate at the University of Amsterdam (Modern Greek Language and Literature), after which I completed my PhD in 1999 at Edinburgh University (Linguistics). My thesis was on second language acquisition of intonation.

Research interests

My research focuses on the acquisition of speech by bilingual speakers (encompassing both sequential and consecutive bilinguals) with a view to enhancing understanding of the mutual interaction between two or more phonetic systems and its implications for phonetic and phonological theory. I am particularly interested in the mutual interaction of prosodic and intonational systems of bilingual speakers, and whether they result from realisational or systemic differences between the languages. While I have studied prosody and intonation mostly in adult bilinguals, my research has also focused on acquisition of prosody and intonation in child speech as well as in disordered speech (e.g. in individuals with Parkinson's Disease, dysarthria, Asperger's Syndrome). Other research interests relate to speech and language therapy provision to bilingual clients and clients from ethnic and linguistic minorities.

Selected Publications

De Leeuw, E., Schmid, M. & Mennen, I. In print. Perception of foreign accent in native speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.

Mennen, I. (2007). Phonological and phonetic influences in non-native intonation. In J. Trouvain and U. Gut (eds), Non-native Prosody: Phonetic Descriptions and Teaching Practice (Nicht-muttersprachliche Prosodie: phonetische Beschreibungen und didaktische Praxis). The Hague: Mouton De Gruyter, pp 53 - 76

Mennen, I. & Okalidou, A. (2007). Greek speech acquisition. In S. McLeod (ed.), The International Guide to Speech Acquisition, Part II. Delmar Thomson, 398-411.

Mennen, I. & Levelt, C. & Gerrits, E. (2007). Dutch speech acquisition. In S. McLeod (ed.), The International Guide to Speech Acquisition, Part II. Delmar Thomson, 327-339.

Mennen, I. & Stansfield, J. (2006). Speech and language therapy services to multilingual children in Scotland and England: a comparison of three cities. Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders, 4, 23-44.

Mennen, I. (2004). Bi-directional interference in the intonation of Dutch speakers of Greek. Journal of Phonetics, 32, 543-563.

Ladd, D.R., Mennen, I., and Schepman, A. (2000). Phonological conditioning of peak alignment in rising pitch accents in Dutch. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 107, 2685-2696.


*Mennen, I.* (under review). Speech production in simultaneous and sequential bilinguals. In P. Howard (Ed.) /Multilingual aspects of fluency disorders/. Channel View Publications Ltd.


Kuschmann, A., *Mennen, I.*, Miller, N. & Lowit, A. (under review). Assessment of intonation. In A. Lowit & R.D. Kent (Eds) /Assessment of Motor Speech Disorders/, Plural Publishing Group


De Leeuw, E., *Mennen*, I. & Scobbie, J.M. (under review). Singing a different tune in your native language: first language attrition of prosody. /International Journal of Bilingualism/.


*Mennen*, I., De Leeuw, E., Scobbie, J. M. & Schaeffler, S. (2010). Measuring language-specific phonetic settings. /Second Language Research, /26 (1).

*Mennen, I.* (2009). Review of Grosjean, F. /Studying Bilinguals/. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. Journal of Linguistics, 45 (3), pp 715-719.

*
Mennen*, I., Schaeffler, F., Watt, N., & Miller, N. (2008). An autosegmental-metrical investigation of intonation in people with Parkinson’s Disease. /Asia-Pacific Journal of Speech Language and Hearing/, 11 (4). 205-219.


Scharff –Rethfeldt, W., Miller, N. & *Mennen*, I. (2008). Unterschiede in der mittlere Sprechtonhöhe bei Deutsch / Englisch bilingualen Sprechern (Speaking Fundamental Frequency Differences in Highly Proficient Bilinguals of German / English). /Sprache Stimme Gehör/, 32: 123 – 128.


More publications

 

Other information

I have a number of *research projects:*

- I am working on another ESRC funded research project in collaboration with Aoju Chen (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics), entitled "The Ups and Downs of Learner Intonation: A Cross-Language and Longitudinal Investigation of the Intonation Systems of L2 Learners". This started in August 2008 and will run for 18 months. See here <http://www.qmu.ac.uk/ssrc/staff/Imennen/upsanddowns.htm> (http://bilingualism.bangor.ac.uk/research/intonation.php.en) for more information.

- Sonja Schaeffler, James Scobbie, and I are working on an ESRC funded research project entitled "Open Mouthed or Stiff Upper Lip? Exploring language-Specific Settings in English German Bilinguals". See here (http://bilingualism.bangor.ac.uk/research/mouth.php.en) for more information.

- I have recently completed, together with Gerard Docherty <http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ecls/staff/profile/g.j.docherty> and Felix Schaeffler, an ESRC funded project "Cross-language differences in pitch range". Information, including publications arising from this grant can be found here <http://www.qmu.ac.uk/ssrc/PitchRange/default.htm>.

- I have recently completed a British Academy funded project with Christiane Ulbrich <http://www2.ulster.ac.uk/staff/c.ulbrich.html> entitled “Dissociation of segments and intonation in the production of second language speech”.

- For other recent projects see here (http://bilingualism.bangor.ac.uk/research/index.php.en?menu=3&catid=6337&subid=0#5).

PhD supervision

I currently supervise the following PhD students: Kelly Ann Webb and Jessica Henrich. My former PhD students are Olga Gordeeva <http://www.qmu.ac.uk/ssrc/staff/ogordeeva/Default.htm>, Esther de Leeuw <http://www.qmu.ac.uk/sls/pg/edeleeuw/Default_E.htm> , and Ioulia Grichkovtsova.