Ocke-Schwen Bohn Explained

Ocke-Schwen Bohn (born in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 14 May 1953^[1]) is a professor of English Linguistics at Aarhus University in Denmark.^[2] He specializes in phonetics and psycholinguistics, especially second language and cross-language speech perception, foreign accented speech, and infant speech perception, and he has also conducted work on the phonetics of an endangered language (Föhr North Frisian),^[3] on interlanguage intelligibility, and on language in autobiographical memory. Bohn currently serves as member of the editorial board of Journal of Phonetics^[4] and Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics.^[5] He also organized the 2016 edition of the International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech (New Sounds) conference.^[6]

Biography

Bohn received an M.A. (“Staatsexamen”) in English and Geography from Kiel University in 1979, and Ph.D. (”dr. phil.”) in English Linguistics from Kiel University in 1984.^[7] He completed a postdoctoral fellowship on an NIH grant (PI: James E. Flege) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1989. Since 1996, he has been professor of English Linguistics at Aarhus University in Denmark.^[1]

Research

Bohn is internationally recognized for his research on infant speech perception, cross-language speech perception, vowel perception, and second language speech.^[8] Bohn's collaborations in these areas have resulted in the influential^[9] Speech Learning Model and its revision,^{[10] [11]} in insights on infant, native, and cross-language vowel perception (with Winifred Strange and with Diane Kewley-Port), in the discovery of universal patterns of infant vowel perception (with Linda Polka), and in the study of cross-language perception of a range of consonants and vowels (with Catherine Best and with Terry Gottfried). Bohn is probably best known for his Desensitization Hypothesis^[12] and for his work (with Linda Polka) on the Natural Referent Vowel framework.^[13] His work on second language speech has provided support for the assumption that the capacity for phonetic category formation remains intact over the life-span.

External links

• Aarhus University profile

Notes and References

1. Book: Nyvad. Annemette. Nyvad. Annemette. Hejná . Michaela. Højen. Anders. Jespersen. Anna Bothe. Sørensen. Mette Hjortshøj. A Sound Approach to Language Matters: In Honor of Ocke-Schwen Bohn. 2019. Department of English, Aarhus University. Aarhus. 978-87-7507-440-2 . 18–10. Preface. 10.7146/aul.322.218.
2. Web site: Ocke-Schwen Bohn - Research - Aarhus University . 21 February 2022.
3. How to organize a fairly large vowel inventory: the vowels of Fering (North Frisian) . Ocke-Schwen . Bohn . . 34 . 2 . 2004 . 161–173 . 10.1017/s002510030400180x. 59404078 .
4. Web site: Editorial Board - Journal of Phonetics . Elsevier . 21 February 2022.
5. Web site: Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics . De Gruyter . 21 February 2022 . en.
6. Web site: New Sounds 2016 - Conference organizer . 21 February 2022 . en.
7. Book: Bohn . Ocke-Schwen . The L2 acquisition of English sentence structure: the early stages: a case study of four German children . 1984 . Kiel University . Kiel.
8. Interview in Organon: Cardoso, W., & Alves, U. K. (2015). "Interview with Ocke-Schwen Bohn". Organon, 30(58), 321-239.
9. Wayland, Ratree. Preface. (2021). In R. Wayland (Ed.), Second Language Speech Learning: Theoretical and Empirical Progress (pp. Xxiii-Xxvi). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108886901.001
10. Book: Flege . James Emil . Bohn . Ocke-Schwen . The Revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r). In Wayland, R. (ed.). Second Language Speech Learning: Theoretical and Empirical Progress. . 2021 . Cambridge University Press . Cambridge . 3–83 . 10.1017/9781108886901.002. 234057047 .
11. Book: Flege . James Emil . Bohn . Ocke-Schwen . Aoyama . Katsura . The revised speech learning model (SLM-r). In Wayland, R. (ed.). Second language speech learning: Theoretical and empirical progress, 84-118 . 2021 . Cambridge University Press . Cambridge . 84–118 . 10.1017/9781108886901.002. 234057047 .
12. Book: Bohn . Ocke-Schwen . Cross-language speech perception in adults: First language transfer doesn't tell it all. In Strange, W. (ed.). Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research . 1995 . York Press . Timonium . 279–304.
13. Polka . Linda . Bohn . Ocke-Schwen . Natural Referent Vowel (NRV) framework: An emerging view of early phonetic development . . 2011 . 39 . 4 . 467–478 . 10.1016/j.wocn.2010.08.007.