Christie Brien

Biography

After being honoured with the 2022 Contract Instructor Teaching Award at Carleton University, I am thrilled to continue with SLaLS as a term faculty member in the new Teaching Stream.

My research interests investigate how people resolve issues in language processing, from acquisition to accessibility to age effects. My Ph.D. (University of Ottawa) investigated bilingual language processing strategies to overcome lexical ambiguity. My postdoctoral research (McGill University & Université de Montréal) involved a multidisciplinary project to evaluate and improve the accessibility of information at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for persons with aphasia. A recent project collaboratively evaluated the effectiveness of knowledge mobilization and the experience of families as they participated in child development activities with the uOttawa Living Lab in the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

Research Interests 

• Experimental Linguistics (Psycholinguistics & Neurolinguistics)
• Language Processing strategies in typical and atypical diverse populations
• Lexical ambiguity
• Early stages of phoneme acquisition in atypical diverse populations

Courses

Current course information for this faculty member can be found by searching the Carleton Central/Public Schedule by Term and Name.

Courses Previously Taught

• LING1001: Introduction to Linguistics
• LING2005: Linguistic Analysis
• LING2007: Phonetics
• LING3007: Phonology
• ALDS2704: Bilingualism

Publications 

Brien C., Jarema, G., Giroux, L, Alary-Gauvreau, C., Poldma, T. & Kehayia, E. (forthcoming, 2024). Improving linguistic accessibility of exhibit texts at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Accepted to Universal Accessibility in Museums, A Museum for All. Eds: Porcedda, A., Hammouni, Z., & Kehayia, E.  

Sabourin, L., Burkholder, M., Vinerte, S., Leclerc, J-C., and Brien, C. (2016). Language Processing in Bilinguals: Evidence from Lexical Organization and Cognitive Control. Liszka, S. A., Leclercq, P., Tellier, M. & Véronique, D. (Eds.) EuroSLA Yearbook 16. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  

Sabourin, L., Leclerc, JC., Lapierre, M., Burkholder, M., and Brien, C. (2016). The Language Background Questionnaires in L2 Research: Teasing Apart the Variables. Proceedings of the 2015 annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association. 

Sabourin, L., Leclerc, J.C., Burkholder, M., and Brien, C. (2014). Bilingual lexical organization: Is there a sensitive period? Proceedings of the 2014 annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association. 

Sabourin, L., Brien, C., and Burkholder, M. (2013). The effect of age of L2 acquisition on the organization of the bilingual lexicon: Evidence from masked priming. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17, p. 542-555. 

Sabourin, L., Brien, C., and Tremblay, M-C. (2013). Electrophysiology of Second Language Processing: The Past, Present and Future. In María del Pilar García Mayo, M. Junkal Gutierrez-Mangado & María Martínez Adrián (Eds.) Multiple Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition. John Benjamins. 

Brien, C., and Sabourin, L. (2012). The Effects of Age of Acquisition on Local Syntactically-Constrained Ambiguity Resolution.  EuroSLA Yearbook 12, Leah Roberts, (Ed.). John Benjamins.