Soonja Choi () is a South Korean

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

. She specializes in

language acquisition Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and s ...

semantics Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

, and the linguistics of

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

Education

Choi initially studied

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

language and literature, receiving her BA at Sacred Heart Women's College in

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

in 1972 and her MA at

Seoul National University Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a public university, public research university in Seoul, South Korea. It is one of the SKY (universities), SKY universities and a part of the Flagship Korean National Universities. The university's main c ...

in 1976. After this she went to study in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, and received a master's degree in

applied linguistics Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, Communication stu ...

from

Paris-Sorbonne University Paris-Sorbonne University (also known as Paris IV; ) was a public university, public research university in Paris, France, active from 1971 to 2017. It was the main inheritor of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Paris. In 2018, it m ...

(Paris IV) in 1980. Her PhD in linguistics was awarded in 1986 by

SUNY Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public research university in Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. The university was founded in 1846 as ...

Career

After her doctoral studies, Choi spent some time as a postdoctoral fellow at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

in Canada, before being appointed assistant professor at

San Diego State University San Diego State University (SDSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Diego, California, United States. Founded in 1897, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CS ...

in 1987. She remained at SDSU until her retirement, being promoted to associate professor in 1991 and full professor in 1997. In 2008, she founded the Korean Studies Program at SDSU, and she remains its senior advisor. Choi has retained links with Europe throughout her career. From 1988 to 1996, she was active as a visiting scholar at the

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik''; Dutch: ''Max Planck Instituut voor Psycholinguïstiek'') is a research institute located on the campus of Radboud University Nijmegen in Nijm ...

Nijmegen Nijmegen ( , ; Nijmeegs: ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and the ninth largest of the Netherlands as a whole. Located on the Waal River close to the German border, Nijmegen is one of the oldest cities in the ...

The Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, where she collaborated with Melissa Bowerman. Since 2012, she has also been Research Professor at the Comparative Psycholinguistics Group of the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. In 2019 she was elected as a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

Research

Much of Choi's research has been concerned with the first language acquisition of spatial semantics, especially motion events and spatial categories, and the relationship between language and cognition more broadly. A recurring theme, especially in work with Melissa Bowerman, has been the extent to which these domains provide evidence for or against the hypothesis of

linguistic relativity Linguistic relativity asserts that language influences worldview or cognition. One form of linguistic relativity, linguistic determinism, regards peoples' languages as determining and influencing the scope of cultural perceptions of their surro ...

. Her work has drawn on both naturalistic and experimental evidence, in particular building on comparative work on languages such as Korean, Dutch, English, French and German. More recently, she has worked on evidentiality (linguistic coding of information source) and clause chaining construction in Korean.https://sites.google.com/view/soonja-choi-ph-d-sdsu/home

Selected publications

* Gopnik, Alison, and Soonja Choi. 1990. Do linguistic differences lead to cognitive differences? A cross-linguistic study of semantic and cognitive development. ''First Language'' 10, 199-215. * Choi, Soonja, and Melissa Bowerman. 1991. Learning to express motion events in English and Korean: The influence of language-specific lexicalization patterns. ''Cognition'' 41, 83-121. * Choi, Soonja, and Alison Gopnik. 1995. Early acquisition of verbs in Korean: a cross-linguistic study. ''Journal of Child Language'' 22, 497-529. * Gopnik, Alison, and Soonja Choi. 1995. Names, relational words, and cognitive development in English and Korean speakers: nouns are not always learned before verbs. In Michael Tomasello and William E. Merriman (eds.), ''Beyond Names for Things: Young Children's Acquisition of Verbs'', 63-80. New York: Erlbaum. * Choi, Soonja, Laraine McDonough, Melissa Bowerman, and Jean M. Mandler. 1999. Early sensitivity to language-specific spatial categories in English and Korean. ''Cognitive Development'' 14, 241-268. * Bowerman, Melissa, and Soonja Choi. 2001. Shaping meanings for language: universal and language-specific in the acquisition of spatial semantic categories. In Melissa Bowerman and

Stephen Levinson Stephen C. Levinson FBA (born 6 December 1947)LEVINSON, Prof. Stephen Curtis< ...

(eds.), ''Language acquisition and conceptual development'', 475-511. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Bowerman, Melissa, and Soonja Choi. 2003. Space under construction: Language-specific spatial categorization in first language acquisition. In Dedre Gentner and

Susan Goldin-Meadow Susan Goldin-Meadow is the Beardsley Ruml Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Comparative Human Development, the college, and the Committee on Education at the University of Chicago. She is the principal investigato ...

(eds.), ''Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought'', 387-427. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. * McDonough, Laraine, Soonja Choi, and Jean M. Mandler. 2003. Understanding spatial relations: Flexible infants, lexical adults. ''Cognitive Psychology'' 46, 229-259. * Choi, Soonja. 2006. Influence of language-specific input on spatial cognition: Categories of containment. ''First Language, 26 (2),'' 207-232''.'' * Choi, Soonja. 2011. Language-specificity of Motion event expressions in young Korean children. ''Language, Interaction & Acquisition, 2(1),'' 157-184. * Choi, Soonja, and Kate Hattrup. 2012. Relative contribution of cognition/perception and language on spatial categorization. ''Cognitive Science, 36,'' 102–129. * Yun, Hongoak, and Soonja Choi. 2018. Spatial semantics, cognition, and their interaction: A comparative study of spatial categorization in English and Korean. ''Cognitive Science, 42(6),'' 1736-1776. * Choi, Soonja, Florian Goller, Upyong Hong, Ulrich Ansorge, and Hongoak Yun. 2018. Figure and Ground in spatial language: Evidence from German and Korean. ''Language and Cognition, 10'', 665-700. * Choi, Soonja. 2020. Development of clause-chaining in Korean. ''Frontiers of Psychology,'' ''11'':''256''. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00256 * Choi, Soonja, Florian Goller, Ulrich Ansorge, Upyong Hong, and Hongoak Yun. 2022. Lexical expressions versus grammatical markers for source of information: A contrast between German and Korean. ''Language Sciences, 92.'' * Baier, Diane, Soonja Choi, Florian Goller, Yunju Nam, and Ulrich Ansorge. 2023. Does language determine perception? Testing a radical view of linguistic relativity. ''Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(3),'' 794-824. doi.org/10.1037/sge0001296

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Choi, Soonja Living people Developmental psycholinguists Women linguists Syntacticians South Korean Koreanists University at Buffalo alumni Seoul National University alumni Paris-Sorbonne University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) South Korean expatriates in Austria South Korean women academics Linguists of Korean Linguists from South Korea Academic staff of the University of Vienna South Korean expatriates in the Netherlands South Korean expatriates in the United States San Diego State University faculty