News

Mapping how Americans talk

11 December 2013

Research by Dr. Bert Vaux (Dept. of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics) into regional variations in American English as part of the 2003 Harvard Dialect Survey has been used as the basis for a short film called Soda Pop Coke. Find out more here. http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2013/11/soda-vs-pop-vs-coke-mapping-...

Mapping How Americans Talk

27 November 2013

A film based on a 2003 survey of U.S. dialects by Dr. Bert Vaux in the Dept. of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics has just been published. The film uses heat maps to show the distribution of regional variants in pronounciation and vocabulary (for example, the differnt ways to prounce the word 'pecan'; 'soda' versus 'pop...

English for the Future: assessing, learning, teaching and using the global language

25 September 2013

Cambridge English Centenary Conference English language learning is experiencing one of its most dramatic periods of growth, and English is now one of the primary curriculum subjects for many children around the world. It is vital that the assessment community understands this landscape so that it can develop the right...

Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics

25 September 2013

Professor Geoffrey Khan in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies is celebrating the publication of the Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics , for which he was Editor-in-Chief. This is now the most authoritative and comprehensive reference tool for research on the Hebrew language. http://www.brill.com/...

Cambridge to launch new institute for Automated Language Teaching and Assessment (ALTA)

18 April 2013

Following on from the English Profile programme, Cambridge English Language Assessment will fund a new institute to undertake research on Automated Language Teaching and Assessment (ALTA), to be launched in October 2013. The institute will be administered by the Computer Laboratory but includes principal investigators from...

John Trim, 1924 - 2013

25 January 2013

John Trim, the founder of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Cambridge and its first Director from 1958-1978, died peacefully on 19 January at the age of 88. Among the many achievements in a long and distinguished career he was Director of the Centre for Information on Language Teaching from 1978-1987, and...

Listen up! at the Science Museum

21 January 2013

Being able to hear small acoustic differences between spoken words is vital for comprehension. Although this may be effortless in your native language it can be very difficult to hear similar differences between spoken words in a second language, particularly if you learn that language in adulthood. In order to learn more...

Voiceprints aren't fingerprints

13 December 2012

Professor Francis Nolan and Dr Kirsty McDougall from the Phonetics Laboratory (DTAL) and other forensic speech experts discuss their research on speaker characteristics in a recent BBC Radio 4 programme. The programme considers the increasing role played by forensic phonetics in the digital age, and looks at new...

New evidence supports Anatolia hypothesis for origins of English

30 August 2012

A recent study published in Science , and reported by news agencies including the BBC, backs a hypothesis about the origins of the Indo-European languages (including English) first proposed by the distinguished Cambridge archaeologist Professor Colin Renfrew (Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn) in 1987. Professor Renfrew's...

Making sense of noisy speech

13 August 2012

Recent research by scientists at the MRC-CBU has shown how subtitles not only aid our understanding of speech, but also provide the illusion that the speech is actually clearer. We are all familiar with the huge benefit that television subtitles provide to hearing-impaired individuals, and their use in aiding comprehension...

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