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Jean-Marc Dewaele is Honorary Professor at the Institute of Education, University College London and Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at Birkbeck, University of London. His research spans social sciences and applied linguistics and focuses broadly on the effects of individual differences – often interacting with context…

Cambridge Language Sciences hosted a hybrid seminar in Cambridge on 15 March on the use of artificial languages to better understand second language learning.The event showcased findings of an ongoing research collaboration between researchers in Theoretical & Applied Linguistics at Cambridge and at the Institute of Cultural Sciences at Chuo Univer…

We are delighted to announce that three new projects have been awarded seed funding through the Language Sciences Incubator Fund.The successful applicants from the latest call were announced on 11 April 2024.We would like to congratulate all concerned and thank the reviewers for giving their time to evaluate the proposals. Posters on the funded res…

A new language sciences related project on improving language equity is one of five winners of AI-deas funding supporting artificial intelligence innovations to address critical societal issues.Dr Matt Davis, Cambridge Language Sciences co-Director and Programme Leader at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (MRC-CBU), will lead a project call…

‘Language and Mental Wellbeing’ was the theme of this year’s Language Sciences Annual Symposium which took place on 16 November at Cripps Court, Magdalene College.This year’s event was inspired by the ‘moonshot’ question ‘How can language use allow us to understand and predict mental health conditions?’.The moonshots are ambitious questions of soci…

Police officers, legal professionals and forensic speech scientists joined academics from the Improving Voice Identification Procedures (IVIP) research team for a day of knowledge exchange at Selwyn College on 22 September.The event was an opportunity to share findings from IVIP – an interdisciplinary project on earwitness evidence and voice parade…

Cambridge Language Sciences are offering seed funding of up to £5,000 to support interdisciplinary research in the language sciences through the Language Sciences Incubator Fund. The next call will open on 20 November 2023. The Language Sciences Incubator Fund is an opportunity to: Develop new ideas and collaborationsRun pilot studies that could le…

A series of impact events on the science of learning were hosted by the NTU-Cambridge Centre for Lifelong Learning and Individualised Cognition (CLIC) in Singapore this summer.The events, attended by over 1,500 people, including school children, teachers, and government agencies, were an opportunity to share CLIC’s latest research and engage with p…

A new research project involving Cambridge Language Sciences (CLS) members and colleagues at Chuo and Utsunomiya Universities in Japan, is using artificial languages to shed light on learnability issues in second language acquisition. The focus of the research is on first-language speakers of Chinese, English, and Japanese. The team will share thei…

Cambridge Language Sciences welcomed early-career researchers from across the University to an afternoon of networking skills training hosted by comedian and public-engagement consultant Dr Steve Cross. The event took place at Newnham College on 4 October. It was attended by post-doctoral researchers, PhD students and those in the early stages of t…

The Gibraltar Literature Symposium on ‘Llanito, culture and writing’ brought together Gibraltarian writers and international academics to consider Gibraltar’s endangered Llanito language and what it means for Gibraltarian identity.The event was organised in collaboration with Gibraltar’s Ministry for Culture, and co-sponsored by Cambridge Language …

Oliver Lemon is Professor of Computer Science at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, where he is also Director of the Interaction Lab, and Academic Co-Lead of the National Robotarium. He also co-founded the Conversational AI spin-out company Alana AI.His research involves Artificial Intelligence techniques related to novel human-computer interfaces …

Rosemary Varley is Professor of Acquired Language Disorders at University College London (UCL). Her research focuses on the cognitive neuroscience of speech and language, in particular language disorders in post-stroke aphasia and dementia, and the role of language in non-verbal cognition.Her work uses a range of methods, including behavioural inve…

Exploring connections between musical heritage, art, archaeology and the ethnolinguistics of the Americas was the focus of a recent workshop co-sponsored by the Language Sciences Impact Fund.The Multicoloured and Melodious Dimensions of the Americas workshop, co-sponsored by the Language Sciences Impact Fund and CRASSH, the Cambridge Centre for Art…

Micol Spitale is a postdoctoral researcher at the Cambridge Affective Intelligence and Robotics Laboratory (AFAR Lab). Her research focuses on different aspects of affective computing and human-robot interaction. Her postdoctoral research at Cambridge has been on developing a Socio-emotionally Adaptive Robotic (ARoEQ) platform to foster wellbeing t…