Ivan Au

Research interest

Human interactions are given meanings by the interplay between our constant manipulations of words and the subsequent interpretations. I am interested in the psychology and pragmatics of word meanings. My research has brought together and evaluated perspectives from quite different but related disciplines: the relevance-theoretic work on meaning modulation in context and the ‘conventions-constrained-by concepts’ model in psycholinguistics. 

The study of polysemy, which brings about lexical flexibility, has always been of great interest to me. My work set out to examine polysemy — a phenomenon shown to be beneficial to children’s lexical and conceptual development, as they learn to make inferences about the polysemous words and their meanings. Through my current project, I aim to conduct a systematic investigation into: (i) the degree to which children readily leverage the learning advantage of polysemy when acquiring lexical flexibility, (ii) the empirical significance of such mastery in experimental settings, and (iii) its implications for the pragmatic theoretical model of word meaning representation in the brain.

Short biography:

I am now convening the Applied Linguistics Seminar at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, under the supervision of Prof Elizabeth Wonnacott. Outside the lab, I have a concurrent role as a doctoral researcher in two projects on EAL students' academic attainment in the UK and artificial intelligence in science. Previously, I have taken up lecturerships in a number of universities in Hong Kong and have delivered Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Education Sociolinguistics, and Academic English courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Prior to joining Oxford, I received my teacher-training in Hong Kong and my postgraduate training in Linguistics (with a specialisation in pragmatics) at University College London.