Dr Rebecca Woods, ‘What’s a question to start with?’ + Q&A

To investigate, research, and scrutinise the world around us, we must be able to formulate a question. But this begs the (meta)question: how do we learn to recognise and form questions in the first place?

In this talk Dr Woods takes us right back to the beginning – the nursery. She will first illustrate what a child learning English needs to know in order to ask a question, and take a close look at what kinds of questions they hear from their caregivers. She’ll then explore why English questions are so weird, how some 'questions' aren't questions at all, and why "why" is such a hard question to ask like an adult.

We hope this talk will leave you wondering, "What is a question after all?"

Dr Rebecca Woods is a Senior Lecturer in Language and Cognition at Newcastle University. Her work on the nature of questions is part of her research into how children become aware of the syntax of their first language and how they identify how they are supposed to use these structures to create meaning, a complex process which, particularly when it goes ‘wrong’, reveals much about the nature of the human language attribute.

The talk will last for 50 minutes, followed by a 20-minute break, followed by a question-and-answer session.