Ocke-Schwen Bohn (born in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 14 May 1953 ) is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

of English Linguistics at Aarhus University in Denmark. He specializes in

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

and psycholinguistics, especially second language and cross-language speech perception, foreign accented speech, and infant speech perception, and he has also conducted work on the phonetics of an

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...

(

Föhr North Frisian Föhr Frisian, or ''Fering'', is the dialect of North Frisian spoken on the island of Föhr in the German region of North Frisia. ''Fering'' refers to the ''Fering'' Frisian name of Föhr, ''Feer''. Together with the Öömrang, Söl'ring, and ...

), on interlanguage intelligibility, and on language in autobiographical memory. Bohn currently serves as member of the editorial board of

Journal of Phonetics The ''Journal of Phonetics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers topics in phonetics and phonology. It was established in 1973 and appears six times a year. It is published by Elsevier and the current editor-in-chief is Taehong Cho ( ...

and Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics. He also organized the 2016 edition of the ''International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech (New Sounds)'' conference.

Biography

Bohn received an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

(“Staatsexamen”) in English and Geography from

Kiel University Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in ...

in 1979, and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(”dr. phil.”) in English Linguistics from Kiel University in 1984. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship on an NIH grant (PI: James E. Flege) at the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and largest of the publi ...

at Birmingham in 1989. Since 1996, he has been professor of English Linguistics at Aarhus University in Denmark.

Research

Bohn is internationally recognized for his research on infant speech perception, cross-language speech perception, vowel perception, and second language speech.Interview i
Organon:Cardoso, W., & Alves, U. K. (2015). "Interview with Ocke-Schwen Bohn". ''Organon'', 30(58), 321-239.
/ref> Bohn's collaborations in these areas have resulted in the influentialWayland, Ratree. Preface. (2021). In R. Wayland (Ed.), ''Second Language Speech Learning: Theoretical and Empirical Progress'' (pp. Xxiii-Xxvi). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108886901.001 Speech Learning Model and its revision, in insights on infant, native, and cross-language vowel perception (with Winifred Strange and with Diane Kewley-Port), in the discovery of universal patterns of infant vowel perception (with Linda Polka), and in the study of cross-language perception of a range of consonants and vowels (with Catherine Best and with Terry Gottfried). Bohn is probably best known for his Desensitization Hypothesis and for his work (with Linda Polka) on the Natural Referent Vowel framework. His work on second language speech has provided support for the assumption that the capacity for phonetic category formation remains intact over the life-span.

References

External links

Aarhus University profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bohn, Ocke-Schwen 1953 births Living people Academic staff of Aarhus University Writers from Kiel Linguists from Germany University of Kiel alumni German expatriates in Denmark