Skip to main content

Norman Segalowitz, PhD

Professor, Psychology


Norman Segalowitz, PhD

Education

PhD (Oxford)

Research interests

We aim to understand multilingual development and the implications this has for individual and society. For this we look at the interactions between cognition,communication and culture. Our work includes investigating the cognitive & psycholinguistic  processes underlying multilingualism, the role of communication networks in multilingual development, the role of language identity in multilingual development, the social-motivational aspects of language development,role of language in acculturation and psychosocial well-being. In focusing on the interactions among cognition, communication and culture, we use a variety of techniques and methods. These include laboratory-based cognitive and perceptual tasks, tasks designed to reveal aspects of oral fluency, data collection based on questionnaires and surveys, and field studies of communication. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.mc3montreal.com/


Research activities

  • Second Language Proficiency
  • Bilingualism, multilingualism
  • Cognition, communication & culture
  • Language barriers in health communication for linguistic minorities


Selected publications

  • Williams, J., Segalowitz, N. & Leclair. (2014). Estimating second language productive vocabulary size: A Capture-Recapture approach. Mental Lexicon, 9(1), 23-47.

  • Segalowitz, N., Lacroix, G., & Job, J. (2011). The L2 semantic attentional blink:Implications for L2 learning. In P. Trofimovich & K. McDonough (Eds.), Applying priming research to L2 learning,teaching and research: Insights from psycholinguistics (pp. 155-178). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

  • Isaacs, T., Laurier, M. D., Turner, C., & Segalowitz, N.(2011). Identifying second language speech tasks and ability levels for successful nurse oral interaction with patients in a linguistic minority setting: An instrument development project. Health Communication, 26,560-570.

  • Segalowitz, N. (2010). The cognitive bases of second language fluency. New York: Routledge. (Winner of the Modern Language Association of America's Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize, January 2012.)

  • Trofimovich, P., Gatbonton, E., & Segalowitz, N. (2007). A dynamic look at L2 phonological learning: Seeking processing explanations for implicational phenomena. Studies in Second Language Acquisition,29 (3), 407-448.

  • Taube-Schiff, M., & Segalowitz, N. (2005). Within-language attention control in second language processing. Bilingualism:Language and Cognition, 8 (3), 195-206. 

  • Gatbonton, E., & Segalowitz, N. (2005). Rethinking communicative language teaching: a focus on access to fluency. Canadian Modern Language Review, 61, 325-353.

Back to top

© Concordia University