Contact information;
Department of Linguistics, Moore Hall, Room 569
University of Hawaii at Manoa
1890 East-West Road
Honolulu, HI 96822
Office: Moore 558
Office phone: (808) 956-3226
Email: aschafer at hawaii dot edu
Department phone: (808) 956-8602
Department fax: (808) 956-9166
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Office calendar - best view for scheduling dissertation defenses & long meetings (Use the "week" tab for easiest viewing of event durations. Please look for some open slots and then email me to confirm availability.)
Psycholinguistics; sentence and discourse processing; psycholinguistics in understudied languages
Prosody and intonation (especially the psycholinguistics of suprasegmentals)
Information structure in sentence and discourse processing; given, new and contrastive information
Experimental investigations in language documentation (field psycholinguistics)
Processing sociolinguistic variation
B.A. in Linguistics and Anthropology, Washington University, 1989
Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, 1997
Postdoctoral Training in Spoken Sentence Processing, Depts. of Psychology and Speech-Language-Hearing, University of Kansas, 1996-1998
Postdoctoral Training in Phonetics, Department of Linguistics, UCLA, 1998-2001
Ling 412 - Psycholinguistics
Ling 632 - Laboratory and Quantitative Research Methods (next offering: Fall 2025; typically every Fall)
Ling 641 - Professionalism in Linguistics / Professional Development in Teaching Linguistics
Ling 640Y - Psycholinguistics (for graduate students) (current offering: Spring 2025; typically every Spring)
Ling 730 - Advanced Laboratory Research (by consent only; topics include advanced statistical analysis with R)
Ling 750Y - Seminar in Psycholinguistics (topics vary)
Inoue, A. & Schafer, A. J. (to appear). A psycholinguistic examination of phonemic versus etymological orthography: Self-paced reading in Hawai‘i Creole. J. A. Walker, C. Diskin-Holdaway, C. Travis, D. Bradley, & S. Wagner (Eds.) Diversity in Dialect and Language: Selected Papers from Methods in Dialectology XVIII (Melbourne, 2024).
Kohatsu, T., Niikuni, K., Schafer, A. J., & Sato, M. (2026). Eye-movement evidence for emotional effects on perspective simulation in Japanese. Proceedings of the 27th Annual International Conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan.
Bondoc, I. P. & Schafer, A. J. (2026). Pivot accessibility and quantifier float in Tagalog: An experimental investigation. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue Canadienne de Linguistique.
Sato, M., Luo, Y., Schafer, A. J., Tang, A. A., Ono, H., Sakai, H., & Koizumi, M. (2025). Speakers of verb-initial languages and verb-medial languages interpret the world differently: A comparative study of Truku Seediq and English. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.
Bondoc, I. P. & Schafer, A. J. (2025). Expectation and integration processes in flexible word order processing: Interactions of voice and verb semantics in Tagalog. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-024-00160-8
O’Grady, W., Yang, S., Schafer, A. J., Yang, C., Noh, Y., & Lee, G. (2024). The Status of Jejueo: Endangered Language or Disappearing Dialect? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2024.2323705
Sato, M., Niikuni, K. & Schafer, A. J. (2024). High sense of agency versus low sense of agency in event framing in Japanese. In M. Koizumi (Ed.) Issues in Japanese Psycholinguistics from Comparative Perspectives. (pp. 9 – 29). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110778939
Bondoc, I. P. & Schafer, A. J. (2023). Agent-first and pivot-second constraint effects in the online processing of Tagalog flexible word order. Philippine Journal of Linguistics, 54, 44-65.
Kim, J. J., Schafer, A. J., & Drager, K. (2022). Testing the influence of socio-lexical associations along the time course of spoken-word processing. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology, 28, 387-416. https://doi.org/10.17959/sppm.2022.28.3.387
Bondoc, I. P. & Schafer, A. J. (2022). Differential effects of agency, animacy, and syntactic prominence on production and comprehension: Evidence from a verb-initial language. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue Canadienne de Psychologie Expérimentale. https://doi.org/10.1037/cep0000280
Akamine, S., Kohatsu, T., Niikuni, K. Schafer, A. J. & Sato, M. (2022). Emotions in language processing: Affective priming in embodied cognition. Proceedings of the 39th annual meeting of Japanese Cognitive Science Society.
Sato, M., Niikuni, K. Schafer, A. J., & Koizumi, M. (2020). Agentive versus non-agentive motions immediately influence event apprehension and description: An eye-tracking study in a VOS language. Journal of East Asian Linguistics.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10831-020-09205-9
Esteve-Gibert, N., Schafer, A. J., Hemforth, B., Portes, C. Pozniak, C. & D'Imperio (2020). Empathy influences how listeners interpret intonation and meaning when words are ambiguous. Memory & Cognition, 48, 566-580. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-019-00990-w
Schafer, A. J., Camp, A. Rohde, H. & Grüter, T. (2019). Contrastive prosody and the subsequent mention of alternatives during discourse processing. In K. Carlson, C. Clifton Jr., & J. Fodor (Eds.) Grammatical Approaches to Language Processing – Essays in Honor of Lyn Frazier (pp. 29-44). Springer: Studies in Theoretical Linguistics. [PDF] [Data & code]
Grüter, T., Takeda, A., Rohde, H. & Schafer, A. J. (2018). Intersentential coreference expectations reflect mental models of events. Cognition, 177, 172-176. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.04.015 [PDF] [Data]
Miyao, M., Schafer, A. J., & Schwartz, B. D. (2018). Difference in referential-expression preferences between Japanese and Chinese readers. IEICE Technical Report, 118(163), 83-86. Tokyo: The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers.
Sato, M., Niikuni, K., Schafer, A. J., & Koizumi, M. (2018). Agent versus non-Agent motions influence language production: Word order and perspective in a VOS language. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Madison, WI. [PDF]
Dennison, H. & Schafer, A. J. (2017). Processing intonationally implicated contrast versus negation in American English. Language and Speech, 60, 174-199. doi:10.1177/0023830917694066 [PDF]
Grüter, T., Rohde, H., & Schafer, A. (2017). Coreference and discourse coherence in L2: The roles of grammatical aspect and referential form. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 7, 199-229. doi:10.1075/lab.15011.gru
Schafer, A. J. (2017). Differences between native and non-native English listeners in the use of prosodic focus and event structure to anticipate discourse structure and resolve reference. Japanese Society for Language Sciences 2017 Conference Handbook. Kyoto, Japan. [PDF]
Esteve-Gibert, N., Portes, C., Schafer, A., Hemforth, B. & D'Imperio, M. (2016). Intonation in the processing of contrast meaning in French: An eye-tracking study. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2016. (pp. 1225-1229). Boston, MA. [abstract, PDF, and video of conference presentation]
Ling, W. & Schafer, A. J. (2016). Tone pair similarity and the perception of Mandarin tones by Mandarin and English listeners. Proceedings of the 5th International Tonal Aspects of Language, Buffalo, NY.
Schafer, A. J., Takeda, A., Camp, A., Rohde, H., & Grüter, T. (2015). Effects of contrastive intonation and grammatical aspect on processing coreference in Mainstream American English. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences, Glasgow, Scotland.
Sato, M., Schafer, A.J., & Bergen, B.K. (2015). Metaphor priming in sentence production: Concrete pictures affect abstract language production. Acta Psychologica, 156, 136-142. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.09.010
Grüter, T., Rohde, H., & Schafer, A. (2014). The role of discourse-level expectations in non-native speakers' referential choices. In W. Orman & M. J. Valleau (Eds.) Proceedings of the 38th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD). (pp. 179-191). Cascadilla: Somerville, MA.
Sato, M., Schafer, A.J., & Bergen, B.K. (2013). One word at a time: Mental representations of object shape change incrementally during sentence processing. Language & Cognition, 5, 345-373. doi:10.1515/langcog-2013-0022
Dennison, H. Y. & Schafer, A. J. (2011). Contrastive focus affects word order in Korean sentence production. In H.-M. Sohh, H. M. Cook, W. O'Grady, L. A. Serafim, & S. Y. Cheon (Eds.) Japanese/Korean Linguistics, 19 (pp. 483-497). CSLI: Stanford, CA.
Speer, S. R., Warren, P., & Schafer, A. J. (2011). Situationally independent prosodic phrasing. Laboratory Phonology, 2, 35-98. doi:10.1515/labphon.2011.002 [abstract]
Dennison, H. Y. & Schafer, A. J. (2010). Online construction of implicature through contrastive prosody. In Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2010. [abstract] [PDF].
Hwang [Jackson], K., Schafer, A.J., & O’Grady, W. (2010). Contrastive focus facilitates scrambling in Korean sentence processing. In S. Iwasaki, H. Hoji, P.M. Clancy, & S.-O. Sohn (Eds.) Japanese/Korean Linguistics, 17 (pp. 167-181). CSLI: Stanford, CA.
Hwang, H. & Schafer, A.J. (2009). Constituent length affects prosody and processing for a dative NP ambiguity in Korean. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 38, 151-175. doi:10.1007/s10936-008-9091-1 [abstract]
O’Grady, W., Schafer, A.J., Perla, J., Lee, O.-S., & Wieting, J. (2009). A psycholinguistic tool for the assessment of language loss: The HALA project. Language Documentation and Conservation, 3, 100-112. [abstract & PDF]
Schafer, A. J., O’Grady, W., Lee, O.-S., Perla, J., Wieting, J., & Perdue, K. (2009). On the psycholinguistic assessment of relative language strength in bilinguals: Evidence from Korean heritage speakers. In Proceedings of Mental Architecture for Processing and Learning of Language (MAPLL) 2009. Technical Report of Language and Thought of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers.
Hwang, H., Schafer, A.J., & Anderson, V.B. (2007). Discrimination of English intonation contours by native speakers and second language learners. In Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences XVI (pp. 713-716). Saarbrücken, Germany. [PDF]
Hwang, H. & Schafer, A.J. (2006). Prosodic effects in parsing early vs. late closure sentences by second language learners and native speakers. In Hoffmann, R. & Mixdorff (Eds.), Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2006 (pp. 585-588). Dresden, Germany.
Schafer, A.J., Speer, S.R., & Warren, P. (2005). Prosodic influences on the production and comprehension of syntactic ambiguity in a game-based conversation task. In M. Tanenhaus & J. Trueswell (Eds.) Approaches to Studying World Situated Language Use: Psycholinguistic, Linguistic and Computational Perspectives on Bridging the Product and Action Tradition (pp. 209-225). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Speer, S.R., Warren, P., & Schafer, A.J. (2003). Intonation and sentence processing. In M. J. Solé, D. Recansens, & J. Romero (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 95-105).
Warren, P., Speer, S.R., & Schafer, A.J. (2003). Wanna-contraction and prosodic disambiguation in US and NZ English. Wellington Working Papers in Linguistics, 15, 31-49.
Schafer, A.J. & Jun, S.-A. (2002). Effects of accentual phrasing on adjective interpretation in Korean. In M. Nakayama (Ed.) Sentence Processing in East Asian Languages (pp. 223-255). Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Schafer, A.J., Carlson, K., Clifton, C., & Frazier, L. (2000). Focus and the interpretation of pitch accent: Disambiguating embedded questions. Language and Speech, 43, 75-105.
Schafer, A.J. & Jun, S.-A. (2000). Prosody in spoken language processing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea, 19, 7-10.
Schafer, A.J., Speer, S.R., Warren, P., & White, S.D. (2000). Intonational disambiguation in sentence production and comprehension. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29, 169-182.
Schafer, A.J. & Tuttle, S. (2000). Editors, UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, 99.
Warren, P., Schafer, A.J., Speer, S.R., & White, S.D. (2000). Prosodic resolution of prepositional phrase ambiguity in ambiguous and unambiguous situations. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, 99, 5-33.
Speer, S.R., Warren, P., Schafer, A.J., White, S.D., & Kneale, J. (1999). Situational constraints on the prosodic resolution of syntactic ambiguity. In Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 1301-1304).
Schafer, A.J. (1998). Bounded projection: The effect of prosodic phrasing on focus interpretation. In E. Benedicto, M. Romero & S. Tomioka (Eds.) University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 21: Proceedings of the Workshop on Focus (pp. 227-241). Amherst: GLSA.
Schafer, A.J. (1997). Prosodic Parsing: The Role of Prosody in Sentence Comprehension. University of Massachusetts Doctoral Dissertation.
Schafer, A.J., Carter, J., Clifton, C. & Frazier, L. (1996). Focus in relative clause construal. Language and Cognitive Processes, 11, 135 - 163.
Schafer, A.J. (1993). Editor, Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 23, Amherst: GLSA.
Schafer, A.J. (1993). The syllable structure of Tamil nouns. In T. Sherer, (Ed.) University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 16: Phonological Representations (pp. 247-274). Amherst: GLSA.
Aliya Slayton, (in progress). Ph.D. Dissertation: Interjections: A typological analysis and experimental investigation.
Olivia Bianchini, (in progress). Ph.D. Dissertation: Interjections: A typological analysis and experimental investigation. (Co-chair with Shelece Easterday.)
Jacob Hakim, (2024). Ph.D. Dissertation: A prosodic description of Nasal: Investigating Stress and Intonation in an Endangered Sumatran Language. (Co-chair with Brad McDonnell.)
Amber Camp, 2024. Ph.D. Dissertation: The Perception and Production of the Interaction of Tone and Intonation in Thai. Current position: Assistant Professor of Data Science Analytics and Visualization, Chaminade University of Honolulu.
Ivan Bondoc, 2020. Ph.D. Dissertation: Probabilistic and Predictive Parsing in Tagalog Voice Alternations). First & current position: contractual Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, U. of Toronto.
Yukie Hara, 2014. Ph.D. Dissertation: Sentence Comprehension of Event Structure in English and Japanese: An Evaluation of the Interaction between Grammatical Aspect and Lexical Aspect. First position: Project Associate Fellow, Ochanomizu University. Current position: Assistant Professor, Nagasaki University.
Heeyeon Dennison, 2010. Ph.D. Dissertation: Processing Implied Meaning through Contrastive Prosody. [Soundfiles] This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0921696. First & current position: Defense Language Institute.
Manami Sato, 2010. Ph.D. Dissertation: Message in the "Body": Effects of Simulation in Sentence Production. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0950290. First position: Postdoctoral researcher at Hiroshima University. Current position: Associate Professor, Department of British and English Language and Culture, Okinawa International University.
Kyuseek Hwang Jackson, 2008. Ph.D. Dissertation: The Effect of Information Structure on Korean Scrambling. (Co-chair with William O'Grady.) First position: Instructor at Kapiolani Community College. Current position: Instructor of Korean, Honolulu.
Aya Inoue, 2008. Ph.D. Dissertation: Copula Variability in Hawai‘i Creole Continuum. (Co-chair with Jeff Siegel; supervision led by Andrew Wong.) First position: Researcher at the Charlene Sato Center for Pidgin, Creole and Dialect Studies. Current position: Associate Professor, Music Department, Aichi University of Arts.
Annie Tremblay, 2007, Second Language Studies, Ph.D. Dissertation: Bridging the Gap between Theoretical Linguistics and Psycholinguistics in L2 Phonology: Acquisition and Processing of English Word Stress by French Canadian L2 Learners. (Co-chair with Bonnie Schwartz.) First position: Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois. Current position: Associate Professor, Linguistics, University of Kansas.
Hyekyung Hwang, 2007. Ph.D. Dissertation: Prosodic Phrasing in Sentence Comprehension: Evidence from Native English Speakers and Native Korean-speaking Second Language Learners of English. First position: Postdoctoral researcher at McGill University.
Michiko Nakamura, 2003. Ph.D. Dissertation: Processing of multiple filler-gap dependencies in Japanese. (Co-chair with William O'Grady.) First position: Postdoc at Nara Institute of Science and Technology. Current position: Associate Professor, School of Systems Information Science, Future University Hakodate, Japan.
Ph.D. committee member for: Cole Flottman (in progress), Bonnie Fox (in progress, EALL), Mayuko Yusa (in progress, SLS), Shirley Mordechai (in progress), Emma Breslow (2026), Carolyn Siegman (2026), Yu-Tzu Chang (2026, SLS), Youngin Lee (2025), A. L. Blake (2024), Kai Ying Lin (2024), Fred Zenker (2024, SLS), Crystal Zhong (2022, SLS), Emily Jo Noschese (2022), Haerim Hwang (2020, SLS), Jarrod Brown (2018, Philosophy), Aya Takeda (2018, SLS), Brad Rentz (2018), Jonny Kim(2018), Mari Miyao (2017, SLS), Kelly Lin (2016, SLS), Zhijun Wen (2015, SLS), Daniel Jackson (2013, SLS), Carl Polley (2012), Nian Liu (2012), Apay Tang (2011), Soyoung Kim (2011), Kaori Ueki (2011), Hunter Hatfield (2010), Hye-Young Kwak (2010), Sunyoung Lee (2009), Kyung Sook Shin (2007), Barbara Schulz (2006, SLS), Hi-Sun Kim (2005, EALL), Tomoko Kozasa (2005), Napasri Timyam (2005), P. J. Seymour (2004, Speech-Language-Hearing, U. Kansas).
Victoria Lapinson, 2025. Final Project: L2 Japanese mora timing sensitivity and English rhythmic sensitivity.
Jezzebella Jimenez, 2024. Final Project: Navigating bilingualism: Understanding language choices in Spanish-English bilinguals.
Amber Camp, 2016. Final Project: Perception of lexical tones across intonational contexts in Thai. Ph.D., 2024, U. of Hawaii Linguistics. Current position: Assistant Professor of Data Science Analytics and Visualization, Chaminade University of Honolulu.
A. L. Blake, 2016. Final Project: Word order choices in Tagalog. Ph.D. 2024, U. of Hawaii Linguistics.
Dillon Smith, 2016. Final Project: Yes/no question intonational contours in speakers of Hawaii English and continental English. Now a Ph.D. student in linguistics, U. of Indiana.
Sunju Kim, 2013. Final Project: Adverb scope and prosodic phrasing in Korean. Now a college-level language teacher in Korea.
Ryan Bungard, 2010. Final Project: Effects of NP-type in the Processing of Japanese Embedded Complement Sentences. Now an application developer, Carnegie Mellon University.
Kathleen Looby, 2010. Final Project: Wait "for" it: A case study of syntactic borrowing from English to Maori.
Julia Wieting, 2010. M.A. Thesis: The Effect of Repeated Measures on Bilingual Lexical Access. Now a Ph.D. student in English, University of Hawaii - Manoa.
Bodo Winter, 2010. Final Project: Robustness as a design feature of language. Ph.D. in Cognitive and Information Sciences, 2016, UC-Merced. Now a Lecturer in cognitive linguistics at the U. of Birmingham, UK.
Katherine R. Perdue, 2009. Final Project: The teaching of linguistic register through pronouns in Thai. Current position: Assistant Systems Librarian, University of Mary Washington.
Jaehoon Jeong, 2007. Final Project: The Role of Prosodic Boundaries in the Comprehension of Korean Pseudocleft Sentences.
Julie Hilliard, 1998. Speech-Language Pathology, University of Kansas. M.A. Thesis: The Perception of Lexical Stress in Auditory Word Recognition. (Co-chair with Shari Speer and Kim Wilcox.)
M.A. Committee member for: Mari Miyao (2007, SLS), Aya Takeda (2006, SLS), Akira Omaki (2005, SLS), Amanda Jones (2001, UCLA).
Haley Churchill, 2024. Honors thesis: The influence of proficiency in Hawai‘i Creole on the identification of polar questions in Hawaiian.
Ivana Matson, 2017. Honors thesis: Accommodation in instant messaging. Now an M.A. student in linguistics, U. of Colorado.