Yuzhen (Rainy) Dong

rainy
DPhil Candidate
Experimental Psychology
yuzhen.dong@psy.ox.ac.uk

I am a third-year DPhil candidate in ReadOxford. My DPhil research focuses on the interplay between language and emotion and how this unfolds over development. By combining data-driven corpus analysis and experimental work, I aim to understand the emotional content in childrne's written language and how emotional contexts influence the learning of novel vocabulary. Learn more about my DPhil research here. 

 

I am passionate about children and how they develop their language and reading. This passion motivates me to engage in a range of child-related volunteering and work. Now I am excited to do research about how children learn and use emotional language and how it is associated with their emotional development. Honestly speaking, I did not start as a keen reader when I was little, but I gradually came to appreciate the beauty of reading especially when the movies or other media could not capture what words in the books create. I am hoping to better understand this irreplaceable process of reading, with a special focus on emotion words and language.

My favourite word

The word that first came to my mind is actually “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, a nonsensical word that is sometimes used to describe something as being great or extraordinary. It is indeed surprising that I, learning English as a second language in primary school, remembered this long multisyllabic word so well, until now! I guess what makes it so special, is that it’s really fun to say this word and I can sing to it. There is also nothing negative about learning this word, no spelling test and no one to judge! Pure fun!

My favourite childhood book

Thomas the Really Useful Engine was one of the first English books I “read” (or maybe “played with” in kindergarten, because I was barely able to speak English then!) But I had very fond memories exploring the book, especially pressing the sound button to hear Thomas puff on his way! It was definitely the book to share when friends come to visit and I could retell the stories to them. It shows that reading can be a multi-sensory and collaborative process, and most of all, FUN!