A project on phonology, phonetics, and the space between them.

This project examines how speakers store and process regular pitch variation.

The main question of this research project concerns the extent to which light verbs in West Germanic languages participate in processes of language change.

Humanities, Centre for Linguistics

A theoretical project on the insights gained by human (including infant), nonhuman animal and computational studies on artificial grammar learning; identifying the critical questions for future research by developing novel experimental and computational approaches to address these issues.

The Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics offers a varied program of specialised courses in Descriptive linguistics, in Chinese, Germanic, Indo-European, Indian, Iranian, Semitic languages and linguistics, as well as a number of introductory linguistic courses.

In this project, the hypothesis that language contact crucially impacts the development of spatial grammar and phonology is investigated.

How did nineteenth century scholars evaluate each other and each other’s work through more or less informal practices of peer review?

The Laiseang archiving project ensures the preservation of unique records of languages in the region which have been gathered by more than two dozen linguists at, and in collaboration with Dutch universities over the last 40 years.

This book presents an in-depth grammatical description of Kumzari, a mixed language spoken in remote villages on the Musandam Peninsula in northern Oman.

Conference

On Friday, the 24th of April 2015, the Junius Symposium voor Jonge Oudgermanisten, a symposium for junior researchers in the field of language, culture and history of the (early) medieval Germanic tribes, was organized by Peter Alexander Kerkhof (LUCL) and Thijs Porck (LUCAS).

Teachers of English as a foreign language in China and the Netherlands have different notions of themselves as teachers in relation to cultures associated with the English language. This is stated in the doctoral thesis of Dadi Chen, who graduates from the Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching…

1000 Years of World History in 100 Old Maps.

The aim of the project is to understand the process of formation of Bon religious identity in Tibet at the turn of the first millennium AD.

The CNaVT exam is the official, international exam of Dutch as a Foreign Language for all who learn Dutch all over the world. The Catholic University of Leuven organises the exam. The Dutch Language Union has commissioned this collaboration.

PhD defence

Dissertation

Thijs Porck, expert in medieval English, has won the LUCAS Public Prize because he has made his research and education visible to a wider audience. Thijs has reached the national media, secondary schools and a lot of views with his blogs and videos. The prize consists of a certificate, trophy, 1000…

Research has shown that the impact of feedback can be very powerful on second language acquisition. However, how to provide adaptive feedback on speaking skills in foreign languages and how to provide differentiated support in secondary schools in regular secondary schools classes of often 25-30 students?…

Alternative perspectives and sources of colonial literature haven’t received much attention before now. School books have long ignored the violence that accompanies colonialsm. How can we paint an honest picture?

Public management scholars have long debated public and private sector differences. However, the generalizability of empirical results has been limited due to the shortage of cross-national studies.

This collection considers such issues as the cognitive, linguistic and emotional benefits of speaking two languages, the perceptions, attitudes and issues relating to identity in minority language areas, and the number of grammatical aspects amongst those who speak these minority languages.

The aim of this thesis was to study the link between hearing loss, language skills, and social functioning in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children. Sufficient language skills are an essential prerequisite to develop appropriate communication skills, in order to join in conversations with others.…

There is a linguistic hypothesis that states that all languages from Europe to India originate from a single mother language: Proto-Indo-European. This language is thought to have been spoken thousands of years ago. Researcher Alwin Kloekhorst plans to use linguistic genealogy to study the very first…

On February 19th, Arum Perwitasari succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Arum on this great result.

This dissertation aims at enhancing our knowledge of whether a CI provides sufficient access to auditory speech input to acquire verbal morphology by comparing outcomes of CI children to those of their normal hearing peers and to those of children with specific language impaired (SLI).

Thijs Porck, teacher at English Language and Culture, has won the faculty teaching prize. He was lauded for his enthousiasm, his creative ways of teaching, and his commitment to his students.

The impact of war extends beyond destroyed buildings and torn families. In bilingual Ukraine, the ongoing war with Russia is a major driver for increasingly discarding the Russian language. What does this mean for the position of Russian in Ukraine?

This project aims at describing the Khoisan languages !Ora (Korana/Griqua) and !Ui of South Africa.

The Leiden HANDS!Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies hosts research activities in the area of sign language linguistics and Deaf studies, with a focus on Africa. In addition to various research projects, we have our Deaf studies lecture Series in International Sign and offer various regular and…

This project contests the assumption of criminologists that gender differences in recorded crime are static over time and that women are in general less likely to commit a crime than men.

In the Netherlands approximately 130 out of 700 secondary schools offer a bilingual stream. However, research about CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is limited. With her dissertation Evelyn van Kampen (PhD student at ICLON) wants to contribute to the understanding of the nature and range…

On the 12th of December, Eleanor Dutton successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Eleanor on this achievement.

Knowledge and culture subproject 2:

The project aims at highlighting and strengthening Dutch research into the diversity of the world’s languages from a historic and a cognitive perspective.

Teachers of English as a foreign language in China and the Netherlands have different notions of themselves as teachers in relation to cultures associated with the English language.

Taxonomy as a science has accumulated data and knowledge for more than 250 years.

Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries presents a ground-breaking comparative approach to the study of multicultural literature.

This project focuses on two Mayan languages in contact: Awakateko and K’iche’. With the aim to create a database to be accessible to researchers, students, and indigenous activists interested in Mayan languages, this project will train Mayan speakers on transcription, translation, and analysis of…

Currently the focus of the project is the development of a tool that utilizes dimensionality reduction techniques in order to analyze and interpret the lexical and phonological variation between different sign languages. Additionally, the application of deep learning techniques for the extraction of…

The project examines the political conflict in the Red River Valley of Louisiana between the majority-black Republican Party and the overwhelmingly white Democratic Party by studying the composition and actions of each party.

This dissertation the role of the English dissenting minister Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) as a grammarian is studied.

What can languages spoken in the Lesser Sunda Islands today tell us about the histories of its various population groups?

On the 10th of November, Sara Petrollino succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Sara on this great result.

This dissertation presents a description of Sandawe, a Khoisan language spoken by approximately 60 000 speakers in Dodoma Region, Tanzania.