Biography:
My name is Olivia Klapec. I’m currently a sophomore at Penn State University, from Oil City, Pennsylvania. I’m currently working on a degree in Immunology and Infectious Diseases along with a minor in Spanish. After graduating from Penn State, I plan to further my education by attending medical school and achieving my career goal as a dermatologist. Outside of school I enjoy snowboarding and playing piano as well as spending time with my dogs. I’m extremely thankful to be a PIRE fellow and have the opportunity to pursue my fascination with language through this program.
Project Summary:
This summer I will travel to the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan to work alongside Dr. Rosa Guzzardo. We will explore the question of whether the phonological effect of the preceding article (‘a’ or ‘an’) extends to Spanish-English bilingual adults. To do so, we will conduct a visual word eye tracking study to investigate if word form has an effect on the degree to which bilingual adults can predict upcoming words based on the preceding indefinite article. Using this data, I hope to find an answer to the question of whether rules taught in the English second language classroom can be used by learners during real-time language comprehension.