Yifan Yang

yifan yang
DPhil Student
Experimental Psychology

I am a DPhil student supervised by Professors Kate Nation and Kate Watkins. Prior to my DPhil, I obtained a BA in Chinese Language and Literature from Tsinghua University, during which I spent my third year as a Visiting Student (Psychology and Linguistics as part of the PPL programme) at Pembroke College, Oxford. I also worked as a research assistant with ReadOxford in 2023.

 

Reading is one of my favourite ways of setting free all my senses and imagination. When I read, I will put aside my background knowledge about literature theories and immerse myself in the universe created with the joint effort of the author and reader. I will keep an eye on the language of the book as well, in which I often discover fascinating linguistic creations. In my spare time, I also write short stories myself.

 

My research focuses on the behavioural and neural basis of reading, for which I combine brain imaging like MRI with behavioural experiments to investigate the constraining and contributing factors in children’s effortful and fluent reading.

My favourite word

My favourite word is lego, a Latin word meaning “I read”, or “I choose”. For me, reading is also choosing – which world I would like to enter and what life I would like to live there. Besides its classical, literal meaning, I enjoy playing with building blocks (LEGO) too!

My favourite childhood book

My favourite childhood book is Journey to the West, which my parents read to me as bedtime story. It is a fantasy novel composed in the Ming Dynasty (16th Century) by a Chinese author WU Cheng’en. After all those years, I still remember the time when I went to sleep with all the marvellousness and anticipations lingering in my mind.