Personal information

language acquisition, psycholinguistics, language education
Germany

Biography

My research focuses on child first and second language acquisition. I am particularly interested in language acquisition at the semantics-syntax interface, i.e. how children assign meaning to linguistic forms (words and sentences), and in the relationship between linguistic and cognitive development. To this end, I experimentally investigate how certain linguistic and gestural expressions affect language comprehension. My research covers a variety of linguistic phenomena, including adjectives, negation and complex sentences (especially causal connectives).
I am also interested in how findings from language acquisition research can be transferred to language teaching.

Activities

Employment (1)

Goethe University Frankfurt: Frankfurt am Main, DE

2019 to present | Postdoc / Research associate (Psycholinguistics and Didactics of German)
Employment
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Education and qualifications (1)

Goethe University Frankfurt: Frankfurt am Main, DE

PhD / Dr. phil. (DFG Research Training Group "Nominal Modification")
Education
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Professional activities (7)

Symposion Deutschdidaktik: Wiesbaden, DE

Membership
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education: Frankfurt am Main, DE

Ethics committee
Service
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft: Konstanz, DE

Membership
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Center for Research on Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk: Frankfurt am Main, DE

Membership
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Goethe University Frankfurt: Frankfurt am Main, DE

2022 to 2022 | Organizing committee 15th Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition conference
Service
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft: Konstanz, DE

2020 | Wilhelm von Humboldt Award for the best dissertation in linguistics
Distinction
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft: Konstanz, DE

2020 to 2020 | Program committee for the 43rd annual meeting of the DGfS
Service
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Funding (4)

Negation beyond language: interactions between verbal and non-verbal negation

2024-04 to 2027-12 | Grant
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bonn, DE)
Part of GRANT_NUMBER:

CRC 1629 Negation in Language and Beyond

Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Die Rolle kausaler Konnektoren für das Textverstehen in der Grundschule

2023 to 2024 | Grant
Center for Research on Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk (Frankfurt am Main, DE)
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

The role of semantic complexity for the acquisition of adjectives

2018 to present | Grant
Minerva Stiftung (Munich, DE)
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Causal connectives: forms and their function for text comprehension

Grant
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bonn, DE)
GRANT_NUMBER:

554330661

Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Works (9)

Empirical and Theoretical Approaches to Language Acquisition

Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2024-09-27 | Edited book
Contributors: Merle Weicker; Rabea Lemmer; Andrea Listanti; Angela Grimm
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Wipe the table clean – German speakers construe telicity differently in adjectival resultatives and transitives

Glossa: a journal of general linguistics
2024-04-25 | Journal article
Contributors: Merle Weicker; Lea Heßler-Reusch; Petra Schulz
Source: check_circle
Crossref

Children and adults privilege linguistic over visual information when creating comparison classes for prenominal gradable adjectives

Glossa: a journal of general linguistics
2024-03-15 | Journal article
Contributors: Merle Weicker; Petra Schulz
Source: check_circle
Crossref

Multimodal aspects of sentence comprehension: Do facial and color cues interact with processing negated and affirmative sentences?

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
2023-12-14 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 1939-1285
Part of ISSN: 0278-7393
Contributors: Emanuel Schütt; Merle Weicker; Carolin Dudschig
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker
grade
Preferred source (of 2)‎

Not Everything Needs to Be Big or Small: Evidence from Children’s Interpretation of Vague Adjectives

BUCLD 44: Proceedings of the 44th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development
2020 | Book chapter
Contributors: Merle Weicker; Petra Schulz
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Not all gradable adjectives are vague – Experimental evidence from adults and children

Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
2020-09-18 | Journal article
Contributors: Merle Weicker; Petra Schulz
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

The role of semantic complexity for the acquisition of adjectives

2019 | Book
Contributors: Merle Weicker; Petra Schulz; Thomas Ede Zimmermann
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker via Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB)

Red train, big train, broken train - Semantic aspects of adjectives in child language

Three Streams of Generative Language Acquisition Research
2019-04-15 | Book chapter
Part of ISSN: 0925-0123
Contributors: Merle Weicker; Petra Schulz
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Is clean the same as not dirty? On the understanding of absolute gradable adjectives

BUCLD 42: Proceedings of the 42th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development
2018 | Book chapter
Contributors: Merle Weicker; Petra Schulz
Source: Self-asserted source
Merle Weicker

Peer review (10 reviews for 5 publications/grants)

Review activity for Applied psycholinguistics. (1)
Review activity for Cognitive processing. (1)
Review activity for First language. (1)
Review activity for Journal of psycholinguistic research. (1)
Review activity for Language acquisition. (6)