Maria Teresa Guasti

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Maria Teresa Guasti is a linguist specializing in language acquisition. She is professor of linguistics and psycholinguistics at the University of Milano-Bicocca. [1]

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Education and career

Before her academic career, Guasti worked in information technology, first as a researcher at Olivetti in Turin (1984–5) and then as a software developer for Fininvest in Milan (1985–7). [1] From 1988 to 1994 Guasti worked as a research assistant at the University of Geneva, where she received her doctorate for a dissertation focusing on causatives and verbs of perception. [1] [2]

Guasti's first academic job after her doctorate was as a researcher at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan (1994–7), where she began to combine her interest in linguistic theory with the study of language acquisition. [1] [2] After a period of postdoctoral research at the University of Siena (1997–2000), she was appointed assistant professor of linguistics and psycholinguistics at the University of Milano-Bicocca, where she was to spend the rest of her career; she was promoted to full professor in 2005. [1]

Research and honours

Guasti's research focuses on child language acquisition of syntax, semantics and pragmatics. She studies both monolingual and multilingual acquisition, looking at typically developing populations as well as populations with developmental language disorders, dyslexia or cochlear implants. [1] Her 2002 book Language acquisition: the growth of grammar has been described as ‘the most comprehensive piece of work ... on first language acquisition within the generative tradition’. [3] It is now in its second edition (2017), and has been cited well over a thousand times. [4]

Guasti has been the recipient of numerous honours and awards. In 2019 she was awarded an ERC Synergy Grant for the project ‘Realizing Leibniz’s Dream: Child Languages as a Mirror of the Mind’ together with Artemis Alexiadou and Uli Sauerland; the project runs from 2020 to 2026. [5] In 2021 she was elected ordinary member of the Academia Europaea. [1]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Maria Teresa Guasti". Academia Europaea. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  2. 1 2 "Curriculum Vitae - Maria Teresa Guasti". Academia Europaea. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  3. ↑ Marinis, Theodoros (2005). "Book Review: Language Acquisition: The Growth of Grammar". First Language. 25 (2): 253–256. doi:10.1177/0142723705054818 . Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  4. ↑ "Maria Teresa Guasti". Google Scholar. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  5. ↑ "List of proposals selected for funding - Synergy 2019" (PDF). European Research Council. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
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