Psycholinguistic research

This research programme brings together LUCL researchers focusing on theoretical and experimental linguistics. By using theoretical, experimental and digital tools and methods, these researchers seek to understand the nature of language, language acquisition, language variation, and how language is…

The research programme Formal Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics brings together LUCL researchers who focus mainly on formal theoretical and experimental linguistics.

This study investigates the perception and production of emotional prosody by native and non-native listeners and speakers, i.e. Chinese and Dutch listeners and speakers, including Dutch L2 learners of Chinese.

This project employs a systematic experimental approach to examine the interaction of these two hitherto independent lines of research (tone sandhi and focus realization) in six dialects of Chinese, which lie on a continuum between dialects with dense tonal distributions and sparser distributions. In…

The goal of the field of Applied Linguistics is to apply the findings and the techniques from research in linguistics to solve practical language-related problems in society.

Theoretical linguistics seeks to understand the underlying principles of the nature of human language.

The one-year master’s in Linguistics is concerned with the knowledge, structure and use of language, studied from a wide range of perspectives. It trains students to systematically identify, describe and analyse language phenomena and to apply this knowledge to a specific area of interest.

There are over 7,000 languages in the world and over half of the world’s population is bilingual. But how do all these people use their language? And how do these languages differ from one another? Under the slogan of ‘Interconnecting linguistic diversity,’ the researchers from the Leiden University…

German Language and Linguistics at Leiden University offers in-depth knowledge of German linguistic theory and practice.

This dissertation provides an account of polar questions in Italian dialects from a typological, theoretical and empirical perspective.

This dissertation aims at discussing the nature and the linguistic factors assumed responsible for speech intelligibility problems of Sudanese learners of English.

The Linguistics specialisation is a one-year programme within the master's degree in Linguistics at Leiden University. In the course of the programme you will be able to focus on a specific thematic or disciplinary route, reflecting the linguistics expertise present at Leiden University. In addition,…

Research at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) focuses on linguistic variation and diversity.

Describing a new language for the first time is an exciting and challenging intellectual experience.

The research master’s programme in Linguistics at Leiden University combines leading expertise with a flexible programme format.

The linguistic project constitutes the connection between the two other subprojects. It consists of two parts.

In this study Lilie Roosman describes the effects of prominence and boundary marking on the temporal and melodic structures of two regional languages of Indonesia, viz. Toba Batak, a stress language, and her native language Betawi Malay, a non-stress language.

Experimentalism has emerged as a prominent approach for addressing environmental problems. Christopher Ansell (Berkeley) and Martin Bartenberger (Leiden University) survey the diversity of experimentation methods, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and suggesting possibilities for fruitfully…

This study examines the mutual intelligibility between all 225 pairs of 15 Chinese dialects, in two main branches, i.e., six Mandarin dialects and nine non-Mandarin (Southern) dialects.

This thesis aims at contributing to our understanding of the semantic and prosodic properties of object foci in Greek, employing theoretical and experimental tools.

This thesis investigates durational aspects of the Italian mobile diphthongs with respect to other rising diphthongs and monophthongs and it shows to what extent the monophthong/diphthong alternation still occurs in contemporary Italian.

This thesis discusses the constructions relevant to Object Shift from the intonational perspective, by presenting experimental data from all the Scandinavian languages.

If you want to follow a full academic programme, the next step after obtaining your bachelor’s is a master’s degree (MA) at a Dutch or international university. And there may be no better place for your further master’s study than Leiden University!

The project’s main aim was to build a reconstruction of a prehistoric house plan, without using any metal tools. How effective are tools made of stone, flint, bone, antler and wood? What are the constraints imposed by the various building materials? How much labour do we need and how much knowledge…

The aim of the project is to unravel the genetic and contact relations between the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica (Mexico and western Central America) and the Middle Andes region (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia), as part of a larger endeavor to understand the historical process of the peopling of the Americas…

The zebrafish is a promising vertebrate model organism in early drug discovery and development.

How is social cognition shaped by our knowledge of language and stories?

On 4 June 2018, students of the Forensic Speech Science master’s course visited the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) in The Hague. They were presented with practical examples, such as speech research with voice recordings of suspects. Forensic phonetics is a young, rapidly developing discipline…

This project aims to open up the pre-Islamic linguistic history of Arabia through the systematic study of the Thamudic inscriptions within a digital humanities framework.

This thesis attempts to describe the entire corpus of Latino-Punic inscriptions, found in Tripolitania.

Fokelien Kootstra defended her thesis on 23 April 2019

For a brief period Leiden University was the hub of the world of linguistics. The 48th annual conference of the Societas Linguistica Europaea was held here at the start of September. Almost 600 linguists came from all corners of the world to the city of discoveries to attend this prestigious event.

The programme for the Modern Languages specialisation is a one-year programme in which you can choose to focus on one of five language themes, or a combination thereof: Chinese Linguistics, English Linguistics, French Linguistics, German Linguistics or Italian Linguistics. The programme prepares you…

A central and much debated topic in the study of language acquisition concerns the nature of the learning mechanisms that are required. Are the computational and learning mechanisms that guide learning about language structure special and specific to language or humans?

This thesis describes the use of the evolutionary approach in the study of language change, aiming to provide a better insight in the mechanisms that play a role in language change and to validate this approach in the field of language change.

LIAS researchers working in the field of linguistics hold dual appointments in LIAS and the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL).

Prof.dr. Vincent van Heuven has been appointed as a member of the Royal Academie of Dutch Sciences (KNAW).

The master's programme in Linguistics is a one-year programme that offers a wide range of perspectives on the history, structure and use of language, and teaches you to contribute to this broad field in your own area of interest.

Chinese Linguistics at Leiden University offers you an excellent opportunity to concentrate on the different aspects of the languages of China, especially their sounds and syntax.

Lecture

English Language and Linguistics at Leiden University focuses on English language usage and linguistics around the world, including in countries where English is spoken as a second language or as part of a mixed language.

French Language and Linguistics at Leiden University offers a wide array of courses covering theoretical and applied linguistics, including language acquisition, syntax, and semantics.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and an important way of understanding what it means to be human. The BA in Linguistics is your chance to explore the world through this fascinating lens at one of the world’s leading institutes in the field.

Italian Language and Linguistics at Leiden University draws on diachronic and synchronic perspectives to bring you an advanced qualification in Italian linguistics.

The research article ‘Anatomy of a notch. An in-depth experimental investigation and interpretation of combat traces on Bronze Age swords’ is one of the most downloaded articles on the Journal of Archaeological Science website. This journal is one of the best for impact factor in the field. The article,…