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

Unlike the predominant and excessive focus on the problems of food production and food insecurity in Africa, this project views African culinary tradition as a vibrant and rich cultural heritage, intertwined with language use.

Anyone who creates a page for a magazine, a PowerPoint presentation, a brochure, a poster or dreams up an idea for an infographic is faced with important questions:

Human language is constantly evolving with its linguistic structure being shaped by language users at both individual and population levels. Focusing on the interplay between processes of language acquisition and communicative need in shaping human languages, this thesis introduces a novel computational…

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?…

The goal of the MODOMA-project is to create a computer model of language acquisition.

An in-depth history of Large Language Models—and what their ubiquity, disruption, and creativity mean from a wider sociopolitical perspective.

The main goal of this project is to answer the question: how did Dutch acquire its own, distinctive linguistic characteristics?

Open access, online talks on African Sign Language Studies, in International sign and English

The molecular mechanisms that instigate a healthy cell to become malignant are fueled by (epi)genetic alterations in so-called driver genes.

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 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…

On the 27th of June, Timothy Mac Hadjah successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Timothy on this achievement!

What is effective viewing behavior for foreign language learners and how can teachers effectively train language learners to apply effective viewing strategies that will maximize their learning when viewing subtitled materials?

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).

There is no human society that does not employ a rich and diverse language. This course introduces you to linguistics, featuring interviews with well-known linguists and with speakers of many different languages. Join us to explore the miracles of human language!

On the 6th of July, Anthony Jakob successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Anthony on this achievement!

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

By documenting lexical and morpho-syntactic patterns among P’urhepecha speakers in Mexico and the US diaspora, this project will investigate the sources of language variation. The ensuing online dialect atlas will serve as an online resource for speakers, learners and researchers of the language.

How do Chinese language teachers negotiate who they are as teachers when they work abroad? This dissertation offers clear, practice-oriented answers. It examines teacher identity - the everyday answer to 'What kind of teacher am I here?' - as it is reshaped through classroom interactions, institutional…

On the 27th of February, Marta Morgado successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Marta on this achievement!

Knowledge and culture subproject 2:

The English Language and Culture study programme is also offered on a part-time basis.

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

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.

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…

L1-oral language education is widely regarded as essential for developing communicative competence and critical thinking. However, as a research domain it remains relatively underexplored. The aim of this study was to identify effective elements and challenges within oral language education and to contribute…

This thesis focuses on data found in the field of computational drug discovery. New insight can be obtained by applying machine learning in various ways and in a variety of domains. Two studies delved into the application of proteochemometrics (PCM), a machine learning technique that can be used to…

A linguistic reconstruction of the migration of the Tocharians from Europe to China

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

The AAM-LR project aims at building a demonstrator of a web service that will help filed researchers to annotate audio- and video-recordings.

The general objective of this thesis is to determine a typology of verbal derivation in Ethiopian Afro-asiatic languages.

Study information

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.…

This dissertation reports on the requirements for the design and development of teacher assessments, and examines the possibility of developing an assessment procedure that complies with the formulated requirements.

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

The goal is to develop educational materials for Dâw, Hupd’äh, and Nadëb Indigenous peoples (Naduhup family; Middle and Upper Rio Negro; Brazilian Amazon). In order to achieve this, first of all, the fieldwork data collected during a collaborative project among anthropologists and linguists (2017-2020)…

Very generally speaking, this study aims at questioning and re-defining the mind-body epistemic problem within contemporary dance and art culture.

This PhD project investigates the argumentative-rhetorical strategies by which the Russian state attempts to substantiate the legitimacy of its war against Ukraine.

In this workshop the focus is our language, our mother tongues, and translation. It consists of two parts. During the first hour, Daniela Vicherat Mattar and Ting Ting Hui will talk about translation. After this introductory part, Nanne Timmer will lead a poetry lab in which “misunderstanding” is the…

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