Congratulations to graduate student Xu Zhao who presented a poster at Boston University’s 36th annual Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 36). Her topic was “Are markedness constraints universal? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese speakers.” Xu is a graduate student in the department’s Phonology and Reading Lab, directed by Dr. Iris Berent.

Xu’s area of research focuses mainly on whether the language system is shaped by a universal set of structural constraints, and the extent to which the system is specialized for language. She is also interested in investigating language abilities in dyslexics.