Which teacher has the talent to really motivate their students or is able to combine current research in their lectures? These are important qualifications for winning the yearly university wide Teaching Prize. Dr. Karène Sanchez, lecturer French language and culture, is one of the nominees.

In this blog post, Linda Slapakova discusses the various roles that AI plays in counter-disinformation efforts, the prevailing shortfalls of AI-based counter-disinformation tools and the technical, governance and regulatory barriers to their uptake, and how these could be addressed to foster the uptake…

Lecture, Anthropological & Descriptive Discussion Group

The research programme Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics brings together LUCL researchers who focus mainly on descriptive and comparative linguistics.

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.

The Academic Language Centre is part of the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) and provides language services to students and staff of Leiden University and the Leiden University Medical Centre.

To what extent is creative ownership in contemporary (graphic) design practices changing now that we are co-creating with machines? And can machines have copyrights, too?

This volume provides a sample of the most recent studies on Spanish-English codeswitching both in the Caribbean and among bilinguals in the United States.

Leiden Anglicist Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade is one of the seventeen new members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Tieken is Professor of Historical Sociolingusitics of English.

Emphasizing on the key role of polysemy in forming the lexicon is the main goal to be achieved in this dissertation paper. The paper suggests a qualitative evaluation of polysemy in comparing it with other relations that form the lexicon. The research confirms that the polysemic links must not be modeled…

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?

Do humans and zebra finches share cognitive mechanisms that are important for speech perception?

Investigation of 1.) The whereabouts of the epistemological dissonances in art criticisms on Post-war contemporary art from Japan between two different language realms, in this case in English and Japanese; and 2.) What the dissonances disclose, disturb, and contribute in the process of the establishment…

Conference

On July 5th, Mulugeta Tarekegne Tsegaye succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Mulugeta on this great result.

Lecture

Lecture, Com(parative) Syn(tax) Series

Lecture, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics (CIEL) Seminars

Arts and Culture, Middle Eastern Culture Market

What are the advantages of speaking a second language? Why do some people find it easier to learn a second language than others? Does a dialect count as a first language? On 20 May, Leiden University is organising an English-speaking public symposium on bilingualism: Twee Talen - één BeTalen.

Linguist Wataru Uegaki received an NWO Grant of 58400 Euro for his research project 'In search of semantic universals in the modal domain'. With this money Wataru can compile a database and organise workshops. An interview with Wataru:

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium Series

Lecture

Conference, Leiden University Nationalism Network

Sandy Overgaauw has been awarded a 25,000 euro grant from the LUF for her research into PTSD in Syrian refugee children in the Netherlands. The research should lead to a screening method that can be used to determine which children are at higher risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD…

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.

LUCL is pleased to announce that Bobby Ruijgrok has been awarded a PhD-position within the NWO PhDs in the Humanities Programme. His project is entitled 'Tapping into semantic recovery: an event-related potential study on the processing of gapping'. LUCL congratulates Bobby on this beautiful result.

Can dynamic testing provide us with insight in children’s potential for learning?

Imagine that you have a chronic skin condition, characterized by red patches of itchy, scaly skin. You regularly notice people staring at your skin and sense their reluctance to shake your hand. Or imagine that you have Parkinson's Disease, causing your hands to tremble and making it difficult for you…

Religious minorities and their languages in the emerging nation states of the Middle East (1920–1950)

Over the course of the Latin American Studies programme you will learn to understand the here and now of this region by engaging with the most recent academic debates.

On the 21st of September, Carlos Benítez-Torres successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Carlos on this achievement!

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

On Wednesday 27 January, EU Careers, an organisation that on behalf of the Dutch government offers assistance with job applications at EU institutions, and the Europa Institute organised a Q&A session for the students of the LLM European Law on the Blue Book Traineeship at the European Commission.

Humanities, Centre for Linguistics

Unlike Dutch and English, most languages employ melody not only to add nuance to sentences but also to differentiate between words. How languages do this remains largely unknown. This project will investigate the linguistic, psychological and neural processes underlying the parallel communication of…

What made the early Islamic empire so successful and have we missed the story by neglecting crucial evidence? The 7th-century Arab conquests changed the socio-political configurations in the Mediterranean and Eurasia forever. Yet we do not really know how the Arabs managed to gain dominance of this…

Lecture

Lecture

Oxford University Press has published a revised and expanded edition of The Morphology of Dutch (first edition published in 2002).

Science, Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS)

Science, Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS)

Did we spark your interest in the Leadership Programme (LLP) and are you looking forward to take on this challenge in the coming academic year? Apply now! The LLP starts once every year, on the 7th of November, and ends in June.

How do social and political developments influence the process of meaning-making in different parts of the world? Why is a particular discourse interpreted in numerous ways depending on the context it is produced and propagated? And how are culture, politics, history, and language intertwined?

No fewer than three Leiden University Humanities scholars have been awarded funding from the NWO’s Free Competition in the Humanities programme: two grants of 750,000 euros and one of 705,000 euros. In total, twelve researchers have received a grant in the NWO Social Sciences and Humanities domain.