Support Team

Patricia Makaure
PhD (Linguistics, Languages and Literature)
Postdoctoral Fellow: General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

Patricia’s research interests are in early child language and literacy development. Her areas of expertise include phonological processing and literacy development in monolingual and multilingual children. As part of her MA and PhD studies, she produced language and literacy assessment tests in Sepedi (Northern Sotho), one of South Africa’s official languages.Patricia also has a deep passion for Data Science and its application in child language development and acquisition.

Chelsea Brönn
PhD candidate (General Linguistics), Stellenbosch University
Research Coordinator: General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

Chelsea’s research examines types of language socialization and patterns of interaction between caregivers and children in the home and daycare. Her study will allow us to identify the types of linguistics input and socialization practices that are associated with greater vocabulary sizes for males and females in early language acquisition in low-SES South African communities. This data can be used to identify the types of socialization practices that can be used to improve language outcomes of children in South Africa, and to inform culturally sensitive intervention programs for young children diagnosed with language delays.

Atshilaho Viola Nethathe
PhD Student (Computer Science), University of Cape Town
Research Assistant: General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

Atshilaho Viola’s research explores whether children and language models acquire language through similar mechanisms, with the goal of uncovering more data-efficient approaches to model development. In particular, her research focuses on African languages, which remain underrepresented in current AI research, to understand how limited exposure can still yield rich linguistic competence. By drawing parallels between human language acquisition and machine learning, I hope to contribute toward building more inclusive, efficient, and context-aware language technologies.

Anisha van Staden
MA (General Linguistics), Stellenbosch University
Research Assistant: General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

Anisha’s study aims to validate the Afrikaans adaptation of the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings’ Cross-Linguistic Lexical Task (LITMUS-CLT, or CLT). The CLT is a picture-based vocabulary task which assesses the lexical knowledge in young children. Assessing lexical knowledge in young children is very necessary because vocabulary size has been shown to predict later language proficiency. By validating the Afrikaans CLT, her thesis will play a role in ensuring speech-language therapists have a valid tool with which to identify language impairment/delay in young Afrikaans-speaking children. The Afrikaans CLT’s validation is especially important because there are currently very few standardised and validated assessments to measure the lexical knowledge in young Afrikaans-speaking children.

Emma Thom
MA (General Linguistics), Stellenbosch University
Research Assistant: General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

Emma’s research topic investigates the noun or verb bias across the 11 spoken South African languages using existing data from the norming phase of the South African Communicative Development Inventories (SA-CDI). The Noun Bias Hypothesis refers to the well-documented tendency in early language acquisition for children to learn and produce more nouns than verbs or other word types. By examining whether this bias appears consistently (or varies) across South Africa’s linguistically diverse context, this thesis will provide insight into how language structure, culture, and input shape early lexical development. Understanding these patterns can contribute to more inclusive theories of language acquisition and support the development of culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment tools for South African children.