News

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…

It's a funny time to be working on language and AI. A year ago, this might have seemed like a niche interest, but these days ‘large language model’ is practically a household term. I recently had the chance to speak about language and AI at an event run by the Centre for Science and Policy, and I thought I would write a summary, because it seems a …

The new Cambridge Global Humanities: Multilingualism website is part of the Global Humanities initiative set up by the School of Arts and Humanities in 2020.The site offers information about research and events in languages, multilingualism and language contact at Cambridge.It also features related research projects on themes including endangered l…

A workshop organised by Cambridge Language Sciences (CLS) brought together language researchers and local clinicians for an afternoon of networking and knowledge exchange.The aim was to learn more about each other’s work and explore opportunities for collaboration as a route to research impact.The workshop was attended by speech and language therap…

We are delighted to announce that four projects have been awarded funding through the newly established Language Sciences Impact Fund.The Fund, which ran for the first time this year, supports impact-related activities in the language sciences. The aim is to increase engagement with non-academic partners such as health and education practitioners, …

We are delighted to announce that two new projects have been awarded seed funding through the Language Sciences Incubator Fund.The successful applicants from the latest call were announced on 29 March 2023.We would like to congratulate all concerned and thank the reviewers for giving their time to evaluate the proposals. Posters on the funded resea…

In a paper selected for the front cover of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) James Burridge and Bert Vaux present a new method for the low dimensional measurement of vowels using machine perception.This method could eventually improve our ability to measure how the set of vowel sounds varies between different people, allowing …

The interdisciplinary Cambridge Festival will take place from 17 March - 2 April 2023 with a mixture of on online, on-demand and in-person events covering all aspects of the world-leading research happening at Cambridge.The folllwing is a selection of language sciences-related events at this year's festival. For a full list of events and to book pl…

What does language diversity mean for the past, present and future of humankind?This ‘moonshot’ question was the focus of this year’s Language Sciences Annual Symposium which took place at Cripps Court, Magdalene College on Thursday 24 November.The moonshots are ambitious questions of societal importance developed as part of Cambridge Language Scie…