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Xuanda Chen [ɕᶣɛn˨ta˨ ʈʂʰən˨]

PhD student in linguistics

Hello! I am a fifth-year PhD candidate in Linguistics at McGill University. I'm also affiliated with the Centre for Brain, Language, and Music, and was a member of Mila - Quebec AI Institute.

xuanda.chen@mail.mcgill.ca

News

I am currently on the job market and seeking postdoctoral opportunities!

2024 Nov. - Presented at BUCLD in Boston

2024 Aug. - Awarded Paula Menyuk Award

2023 Nov. - Awarded Schull Yang International Experience Award

2023 May. - Awarded IPA Student Award, International Phonetic Association

2023 Apr. - Awarded CRBLM graduate student stipend

Research

Language is fundamental to human cognition. My research investigates how the human brain and computational models represent linguistic knowledge, addressing two core questions: (i) how acoustic signals are transformed into abstract representations, and (ii) how these representations support language understanding. Combining behavioral experiments, neuroimaging, and computational modeling, I study cross-linguistic speech perception, neural encoding of phonological features, and computational approaches to language acquisition. My goal is to bridge human cognition and AI, uncovering universal principles of language representation.

Publications

When Word Order Matters: Unraveling Redundancy and Sequence Sensitivity In Language Models Through Information Theory

Chen X., Reddy, S., O'Donnell, T. | ARR rolling review, 2024
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Grammar Induction Pretraining For Language Modeling In Low Resource Contexts

Chen X., Portelance, E. | Proceedings of the BabyLM Challenge at the 27th Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning, 2023
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L1 Effects On Naive Perception and Production Of [Ʉ] By Mandarin and Italian Speakers

Chen X., Clayards, M., Goad, H., & Kim, D. | Proceedings of The International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2023
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Replay-Attack Detection Using Features With Adaptive Spectro-Temporal Resolution

Liu, M., Wang, L., Lee, K. A., Chen X., & Dang, J. | International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 2021
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Measuring Prosodic Transfer In Vector Space By Weighted Tonal Events

Chen X., Jia, Y., & Xiong, Z. | International Symposium on Chinese Spoken Language Processing, 2018
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The Trajectory Of Voice Onset Time With Vocal Aging

Chen X., Xiong, Z., & Hu, J. | Proceedings of Interspeech, 2018
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Phonological Effects On Perceptual Distinctiveness: Evidence From High Vowel Discrimination By Mandarin and Italian Speakers

Chen X., Goad, H., Clayards, M., Shanks, D., Kim, D. | Submitted

Effect Of Auditory Precision On L2 Speech Learning Is Partially Mediated By Learning Target and Instruction Form

Chen X., Zeng. L, Li, Y. | Submitted

Presentation

2024. Chen, X., Goad, H., Clayards, M. Feature Fission as a Mechanism of Redeployment Beyond Fusion: High Vowel Perception in L2. The 49th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development.

2023. Chen, X., Clayards, M., Goad, H., & Kim, D. The Discrimination and Imitation Of [Ʉ] By Mandarin and Italian Speakers. The Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto-Hamilton Phonology/Phonetics Workshop.

2022. Chen, X., Reddy, S., O'Donnell, T. When Does Word Order Matter and When It Doesn't? MILA-NLP.

2016. Chen, X., Wu, Q., & Hu, J. The Dialect Effect on English Stop Acquisition Between Mandarin and Wu Children. The Phonetic Conference of China. [Best Student Paper]

Contact

© Xuanda Chen. This website was updated in Nov, 2024.