One of the national newspapers recently published an article about the spectacular changes at the Gwendoline van Putten school for secondary education in St. Eustatius (Dutch Caribbean), since the implementation of a new language policy in the education system. https://www.trouw.nl/samenleving/zonder-nederlandse-boeken-slagen-scholieren-op-sint-eustatius-wel~a3c6f796/ As I participated in the team that carried out the research project leading to the…

We are happy to announce the sixth edition of the Sociolinguistics Circle conference which will be held at Utrecht University, on 5 April 2019. The Sociolinguistics Circle consists of a group of sociolinguists representing most – if not all – universities in the Netherlands and Flanders. Its main objective is to organize an annual one-day…

We are happy to announce the sixth edition of the Sociolinguistics Circle conference which will be held at Utrecht University, on 5 April 2019. The Sociolinguistics Circle consists of a group of sociolinguists representing most – if not all – universities in the Netherlands and Flanders. Its main objective is to organize an annual one-day…

We are happy to announce that Franca Wesseling will defend her dissertation titled There is more: Variation in expletive constructions in Dutch on Tuesday, November 6th, 2018. The defense will take place at 14.30 in the Senaatszaal of the Academiegebouw (Domplein 29) in Utrecht. 1. Workshop at A.W. de Grootkamer (Trans 8, room 0.19) On…

In two recently published paper (Engesser et al. 2016 in PNAS and Suzuki et al. 2016 in Nat Comm) biologists have claimed that songbirds are able to associate meaning with sound, comparable to what humans do. More specifically, they argue that songbirds have ‘compositional syntax’. This has triggered debate in the journal PLoS Biology: Bolhuis,…

Dear all, Last week, an article appeared that I wrote together with my partners from the Stichting Leerplanontwikkeling (SLO) and Institute for Educational Measurement Cito. In the article, we present and discuss the teaching activities that we’ve developed as part of my research project ‘Moedertaal in NT2’ (the native language in education of Dutch as…

Dear colleagues, Last year, I received two starting grants for the project ‘Moedertaal in NT2’ (MoedINT2). The project involves the development of an app that informs teachers of Dutch as a second language of properties of the L1s of their students, in order to help them make use of the full linguistic repertoire of their…

Doctor Solace Yankson (KNUST/Radboud University of Nijmegen) succesfully defended her dissertation titled ‘Language contact and change in linguistically heterogeneous urban communities: the case of Accra” on March 26. The research was generously supported by NUFFIC. The project was supervised by Pieter Muysken and Margot van den Berg. Her dissertation is available via the LOT website: https://www.lotpublications.nl/language-contact-and-change-in-lingistically-heterogeneous-urban-communities

This is how the people at SeDyL (Structure et Dynamique des Langues, CNRS) in Paris prepare themselves for the upcoming ‘visitatie’. They have made posters on which they base their presentation for the committee. The attached photos are examples. Sorry for the quality but the idea remains clear! Could this be something for us?? Jacomine

Heidi Klockmann is nominated for the AVT-anela dissertation prize. The prize will be awarde during the Grote Taaldag tomorrow!! Fingers crossed for Heidi. https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/avt/nieuws/genomineerden-bekend-voor-avt-anela-dissertatieprijs  

The Challenges of Researching Linguistic Diversity Programme: The 2018 edition of the Language Sciences Day will focus on the study of linguistic diversity… in all its diversity! The program comprises two series of (brief) presentations, themed ‘Problems and solutions in researching linguistic diversity’ and ‘Integrating methodologies and celebrating diversity’, respectively. Each of these will be…

On December 19th, Jan Casalicchio presented his work on the variation in gerunds and infinities in Spanish and Italian at the Seminars of Linguistic Variation: Morphology and Syntax  

This special issue of Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews arose out of an Academy Colloquium, ‘The Biology of Language,’ held in the ‘Trippenhuis’, Amsterdam in Dec 2014. The Colloquium was organised by Johan Bolhuis, Martin Everaert and Riny Huybregts, under the auspices of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. Our aim for this special issue is…

I am very happy to announce that my project ‘Moedertaal in NT2’ has been awarded a prepatory grant of €20.000 by focus area Education for Learning Societies (ELS). ELS is an interdisciplinary research programme, combining the efforts of researchers in psychology, economy, linguistics, and pedagogy to improve education. In Moedertaal in NT2 (MoedINT2), an app is…

Promotie Mo Gordon: de ontwikkeling van Standaardengels in Bristol (1400-1700) Op 21 november verdedigde Mo Gordon (Language structure: variation and change) haar proefschrift waarin ze taalvariatie en -verandering onderzocht in teksten uit het Bristol van de late middeleeuwen en de vroegmoderne tijd. Met haar onderzoek werpt Gordon nieuw licht op het ontstaan van het geschreven…

UitnodigingSymposiumTaalvariatieinhetNederlands   Taalkunde in de praktijk Bomen tekenen, LF-formules maken, uitvogelen wat het subject of object van een zin is… Hartstikke leuk, maar wat kán je hier eigenlijk mee? Als je Nederlands studeert en geïnteresseerd bent in taalkundige onderwerpen, heb je je dat vast al weleens afgevraagd. Het antwoord? Heel veel!   Wat? Op dinsdag…

Several members of the research group will be present at the Drongo-festival next week Friday and Saturday (29-20 september)! Come and see among many others: Speed Course Moroccan Arabic – Jacomine Nortier Tolkien en de talen van Middenaarde – Aaron Griffith Herken je het accent? – Anne-France Pinget Taal in de rechtszaal – Marijana Marelj,…

The book ‘Language and Slavery. A social and linguistic history of the Suriname Creoles’ by Jacques Arends (1952-2005) is now available. It is published posthumously in collaboration with Norval Smith, Eithne B. Carlin, S. de Haan, Adrienne Bruyn and Margot van den Berg. It discusses largely underexplored historical texts in and on the Surinamese Creoles and…

I am very pleased to tell you that the project ‘Moedertaal in NT2 (MoedINT2)’ has been awarded a ‘Startimpuls’ grant by the Nationale Wetenschapsagenda. The project involves the development of an app that will enable teachers of Dutch as a second language to address learning problems that have to do with their students’ first languages….

  Defense & Workshop Heidi Klockmann (28 June 2017) Wednesday, June 28th (2017) at 10.30 sharp, Heidi Klockmann will be defending her dissertation entitled The Design of Semi-lexicality: Evidence from Case and Agreement in the Nominal Domain at the Academiegebouw, Domplein 29, Utrecht.   We cordially invite you to attend Heidi’s defense, and to join…

  We are very pleased to announce that Erin Pretorius will be defending her dissertation entitled Spelling Out P: A Unified Syntax of Afrikaans Adpositions and V-Particles on June 2nd 2017 at 10.30in the Senaatzaal of the Academiegebouw, Domplein 29, Utrecht. We cordially invite you to attend Erin’s defense, and to join her at the…

The World of Reflexives: Universal Principles and a Typology of Variation -Introduction; Alexis Dimitriadis, Martin Everaert & Eric Reuland – Why is Reflexivity so Special? Understanding the World of Reflexives; Eric Reuland – A Formal Typology of Reflexives; Rose-Marie Déchaine & Martina Wiltschko Reflexives Markers in Oceanic Languages; Claire Moyse-Faurie – Reflexivity in Two Zhuang…

Beste collega’s,   Via deze e-mail nodigen we u graag uit voor de workshop Historical Literary Variation as a Mirror for Language Change op donderdag 13 april 2017. Deze workshop combineert letterkunde en taalkunde op het gebied van taalvariatie en -verandering. Jonge onderzoekers verzorgen lezingen over hun werk, en bespreken verschillende talige en taalkundige elementen vanuit verschillende perspectieven….

Together with Marten van der Meulen (co-author of my popularizing blog), I have written a book (in Dutch) on language and linguistic research. In 30 chapters we discuss a broad variety of groundbreaking and recent linguistic discoveries, ranging from the discovery of the universal word ‘huh?’, to language acquisition in songbirds, to teaching humor to…

Please like the UiL OTS Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/uilots/ Do you have an announcement, a call for papers, are you looking for informants? Please send me an email and let me post it for you! Jacomine Nortier – j.m.nortier@uu.nl