Lluisa Astruc

Profile

Before joining the Department of Spanish as Lecturer, I have worked as Affiliated Lecturer  in the Department of Spanish, University of Cambridge (since 2007), Associate Researcher at the Centre Neuroscience in Education, University of Cambridge (2008), Research Assistant at The Open University (2006), and as an Associate Lecturer of Spanish (The Open University, 2006-2008). 

My research has dealt mainly with phonetics and phonology, especially prosody, and with language acquisition. For instance, I've been working on the intonation of Catalan, Spanish and English. See the APriL project: http://april-project.info and also my personal website www.astruc.info if you want to know more and/or download some publications.

These are some recent publications:

Chapters in books:

• Astruc, L., Mora, E., Rew , S. (2010) "Venezuelan Andean Spanish intonation". In P. Prieto & P. Roseano (eds) Transcription of Intonation of the Spanish Language. Muenchen: Lincom Europa, 191-226.
• Ortiz-Lira, H., Fuentes, M., Astruc, L. (2010) "Chilean Spanish intonation". In P. Prieto & P. Roseano (eds) Transcription of Intonation of the Spanish Language. Muenchen: Lincom Europa, 255-283.
• Payne, E., Post, B., Astruc, L., Prieto, P., Vanrell, M.M. (2010) "Rhythmic modification in Child Directed Speech". In Michela Russo (ed)  Atti del convegno di Prosodia. Gli universali prosodici: confronto e ricerche sulla modellizzazione rítmica e sulle tipologie ritmiche, 147-183. Roma: Aracne Biblioteca di Linguistica.
• Astruc, L. and Nolan, F. (2007) "Variation in the intonation of sentential adverbs in English and Catalan", in C. Gussenhoven and T. Riad (eds) Tones and Tunes, Volume I: Typological and Comparative Studies in Word and Sentence Prosody. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 233-263.
• Astruc, L. And Nolan, F. (2007) "A cross-linguistic study of extra-sentential elements". in P. Prieto, J. Mascaró, and M.J. Solé (eds) Segmental and prosodic issues in Romance phonology. John Benjamin, 85-107.
• Ramírez, Mª D., Astruc, L. and B. Morán (2007) "Entonación interrogativa en español y en inglés", in J. Dorta et al (eds) La prosodia en el ámbito románico. Colección Universidad. Madrid: La Página Ediciones S.L.

Articles on dyslexia

• Goswami, U., Gerson, D., L. Astruc. (2010) "Amplitude envelope perception, phonology and prosodic sensitivity in children with developmental dyslexia". Reading and Writing 23(8), 995-1019.

Articles on motivation to learn Modern Languages

• J.A. Coleman, Galaczi, Á., L. Astruc. (2007) "Motivation of UK school pupils towards foreign languages: a large-scale survey at Key Stage 3". Language Learning Journal 35: 2, 258-280.

Articles on prosody

• Astruc, L., Prieto, P., Payne, E., Post, B., M.M. Vanrell (under review) 'Tonal targets in early child Catalan, Spanish, and English'.Language and Speech.
• Prieto, P., Vanrell, M.M., Astruc, L., Payne, E., Post, B. (in press) “Phonotactic and phrasal properties of speech rhythm. Evidence from Catalan, English, and Spanish". Speech Communication.
• Payne, E., Post, B., Astruc L., Prieto, P., Vanrell, M. (in press) “Measuring child rhythm”. Language and Speech.
• Astruc, L., Payne, E., Post, B., Prieto, P.,Vanrell, MM. (2010) “Word prosody in early child Catalan, Spanish and English”. Proceedings of Speech Prosody.
• Payne, E., Post, E., Astruc, L., Prieto, P. & Vanrell, M.M. (2010) “A cross-linguistic study of prosodic lengthening in child-directed speech”. Proceedings of Speech Prosody.
• Prieto, P., Vanrell, Astruc, L., M.M., Payne, E., & Post, E. (2010) “Speech rhythm as durational marking of prosodic heads and edges. Evidence from Catalan, English, and Spanish”. Proceedings of Speech Prosody.
• Vanrell, M.M., Prieto, P., Astruc, L., Payne, E., Post, B., (2010) “Early Acquisition of F0 Alignment and Scaling Patterns in Catalan and Spanish”. Proceedings of Speech Prosody.
• Astruc L., Payne, E., Post, B., Prieto, P., Vanrell, M. (2009) "Acquisition of tonal targets in Catalan, Spanish, and English". Cambridge Occasional Papers in Linguistics.
• Payne, E., Post, B., Astruc L.,Prieto, P., Vanrell, M.M.  (2009) "Rhythmic modification in Child Directed Speech". In O. Parker Jones and E. Payne (eds) Oxford University Working Papers in Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, Volume 12, Papers in Phonetics and Computational Linguistics, 123-144 (http://www.ling-phil.ox.ac.uk/publications).
• Astruc, L. (2008) "Cortesía y entonación: las interrogativas absolutas en catalán". Revista de Letras, Departamento de Letras, Centro de Estudos em Letras. Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. Vol. 7, 41-53.
• Vizcaíno Ortega, F, Cabrera Abreu, M., Estebas Vilaplana, E., Astruc, L. (2008) "The phonological representation of edge tones in Spanish alternative questions". Language Design, 31-38.

Teaching Interests

Spanish language and linguistics. For instance, I teach in L314, the OU higher level course in Spanish.  I have taught Spanish linguistics as an Affiliated Lecturer (University of Cambridge) and Spanish language at beginners and intermediate level as an Associated Lecturer (The Open University).

Research Interests

My research has dealt mainly with phonetics and phonology, especially prosody, and with language acquisition. I have worked on the intonation of Catalan, Spanish and English.

Current Research

I've been working on the the APriL project (http://april-project.info/), which has two parts:

• A cross-linguistic study of intonational development in young infants and children – Funded by the British Academy (Ref. SG-51777; March 2009 – February 2010; PI Post).
• The acquisition of intonational grammar in Catalan, English, and Spanish – Funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Ref. 2009 PBR 00018, August 2009 – July 2010; PI Prieto).

Publications