Mgr. Nikola Paillereau, Ph.D.

Institute of Psychology
The Czech Academy of Sciences
Pod Vodárenskou věží 1143/4
182 00 Prague 8
Phone: +420 266 053 855
E-mail: Paillereau@praha.psu.cas.cz

Research interests

My research area includes phonetic acquisition of mother tongue and foreign language. I am currently focusing on how new-born babies and several months old babies perceive human speech. It is generally stated that after birth children are universal listeners because their perception is not yet influenced by the language environment surrounding them. However, recent research studies reveal the influence of the mother tongue during the prenatal period. The question is what the child has learned when she was in the womb, and to what extent she is really a universal listener right after birth. In an effort to answer these questions, we examine what language input foetuses are exposed to (acoustic analysis of the mother's speech) and how they respond to the phonological contrasts of the mother tongue after birth (neuroscience research based on EEG of neonates). Next, we try to find out how perception progresses during the first year of life (behavioural approach, where we perform perceptual tests of infants).

Education

2016: Qualification to the position of “Associate professor” (maître de conférence)
Approved by the National Council of Universities, France, Section 07 – Language Sciences
2008-2015: PhD in Language Sciences, specialization Phonetics (summa cum laude) Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University, Laboratory of Phonetics and Phonology, France
Ph. D. thesis: Perception and Production of French Oral Vowels in Pre-Service Czech Teachers of French as a Foreign Language (FFL)
Supervisor : prof. Jacqueline Vaissière Jury : M. Adda-Decker, J.-Y. Dommergues, T. Duběda, P. Hallé, R. Sock, J. Vaissière, F. Wioland
2010: Habilitation to correct written and oral tests of DELF DALF exams, levels B1, B2, C1 et C2
International Centre for Educational Studies, France
2009-2010: Complementary course in Didactics of French (University degree)
Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University, France
2006-2008: Master degree in Language Sciences, specialization Phonetics and Phonology
Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University, France
2002-2006: Degree in Language Sciences, specialization Languages and Models
Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University, France

Employment

since 07/2018: researcher - Institute of Phonetics, Centre for Human Studies, Charles University, Faculty of Arts
from 05/2018: post-doc researcher - Institute of Psychology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
2017: post-doc researcher - Université Lumière Lyon 2, Excellent Laboratory - Advanced Studies of Language Complexity (LabEx - ASLAN)
2016 - 2017: post-doc researcher - CNRS / Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, Paris, Excellent Laboratory - Empirical Basics of Linguistics (LabEx - EFL)
2008 - 2012: research assistant - Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3, Department of French as a Foreign Language
2008 - 2012: teaching assistant, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3, Department of French as a Foreign Language and Institute of General and Applied Linguistics and Phonetics (ILPGA)

Funding

2018 – 2020: Acquiring a quantity language: infants' input and perceptual processing of vowel length (team member, from Charles University)
2018 – 2020: The effect of talker accent on speech sound acquisition (team member, from Czech Science Foundation GACR)
2008 – 2012: Scholarship from French government for doctoral project in phonetics (PI)

Selected publications

Paillereau, N. & Skarnitzl, R. (in press). An acoustic-perceptual study on Czech monophthongs. In P. Kosta & T. Radeva-Bork (Eds.), Current developments in Slavic Linguistics. Twenty years after. Germany: Peter Lang.
Paillereau, N. (2017). Maîtrise phonétique du français langue étrangère chez les enseignants non-natifs : Décalage entre connaissances théoriques et prononciation effective. In C. Cuet, M. A. Dat, C. Granget, D. Guedat-Bittighoffer (Eds.), SHS Web of Conferences, volume 38 (198 – 210), Nantes, France.
Paillereau, N. (2016). Patrons de coarticulation des voyelles françaises quantiques /i, a, u/ prononcées par des apprenants tchécophones. Illustration du logiciel VisuVo. Actes de la conférence conjointe JEP-TALN-RECITAL, volume 9: ELTAL (89-102). Paris: Atala/ AFCP.
Paillereau, N. (2016). Do Isolated Vowels Represent Vowel Targets in French? An Acoustic Study On Coarticulation. Actes du CMLF 2016 – 5^e Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française, publié par EDP Sciences (www.linguistiquefrancaise.org).
Paillereau, N. (2016). ‘Identical’ vowels in L1 and L2? Criteria and implications for L2 phonetic teaching and learning. In S. Liszka, P. Leclercq, M. Tellier & G. D. Véronique (Eds.), EUROSLA Yearbook 2016 (144–178). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Paillereau, N. (2016). Assessing the phonetic level in L2 vowels production with the VisuVo software: Case of Czech learners acquiring contrasts between French mid vowels e/ɛ, ø/œ and o/̼ɔ. Actes de la conférence PTLC2015 (67-70), Londres: UCL.
Paillereau, N. (2015). Perception et production des voyelles orales du français par des futures enseignantes tchèques de Français Langue Etrangère (FLE). Thèse de doctorat non publiée, Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3.
Georgeton, L., Paillereau, N., Landron, S., Gao, J., & Kamiyama, T. (2012). Analyse formantique des voyelles orales du français en contexte isolé: à la recherche d’une référence pour les apprenants de FLE. Actes de la conférence conjointe JEP-TALN-RECITAL, volume 1 (145-152), Grenoble: Atala/ AFCP.
Landron, S., Paillereau, N., Nawafleh, A., Exare, C., Ando, H., & Gao, J. (2010). Le corpus PhoDiFLE: un corpus commun de français langue étrangère pour une étude phonétique des productions de locuteurs de langues maternelles plurielles. Cahiers de Praxématique, 54-55, 73-86.