News

Newly-arrived pupils who speak English as an additional language (EAL) often make ‘mixed’ linguistic and academic progress during their first years in British schools, which need a proper framework to give them sustained support, a study suggests.At the moment, it is often left to individual teachers or schools to decide how to handle the challenge…

A review funded by the Cambridge Language Sciences Incubator Fund and recently published in the International Journal of Bilingualism, highlights the positive link between bilingualism and children’s well-being.The review on Bilingualism in the Family and Child Well-being is part of an ongoing collaboration between Dr Napoleon Katsos (Theoretical a…

Congratulations to the following Cambridge Language Sciences members on their recently announced academic promotions, which will take effect from 1 October 2020ProfessorshipsNigel Collier, Professor of Natural Language ProcessingHenriëtte Hendriks, Professor of Language Acquisition & CognitionBrechtje Post, Professor of Phonetics & PhonologyUnivers…

Do you have any interactive online resources that you have developed, or that you would recommend to other researchers in the language sciences? If so, please let us know.Cambridge Language Sciences are compiling an inventory of interactive online tools and resources related to language sciences research or for use by researchers in the language sc…

Jacqueline Rowe, a recent graduate in linguistics from Cambridge, reflects on the complexity of post-colonial language policy based on her fieldwork in Guinea-Bissau.Jacqueline Rowe graduated from the Section of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics in 2019. Her dissertation project, supervised by Dr Henriette Hendriks, considered the role of Portugu…

This year the June Symposium for Early-Career Researchers moved online for the first time.The event, now in its third year, celebrates work by early-career researchers working in the field of language sciences and is open to all researchers at the University of Cambridge.The live plenary and poster sessions took place on 18 June via video conferenc…

A team from Professor Mark Gales' Speech Research Group and the ALTA Institute recently took part in the INTERSPEECH 2020 Shared Task on Automatic Speech Recognition for Non-Native Children's Speech.There are limited resources available of children's speech data and even less of non-native speakers. Children's speech differs from that of adults due…

Mélanie Gréaux is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education. She is co-supervised by Dr Jenny Gibson and Dr Napoleon Katsos, and funded by the ESRC-DTP Cambridge in partnership with Autistica. Her doctoral research is looking at the potential of collaborative and cross-cultural professional learning opportunities to foster inclusive healthcare se…

Dr Andrew Caines is a Senior Research Associate in the Natural Language and Information Processing Research (NLIP) Group at the Computer Laboratory, and has been a member of the Automated Language Teaching & Assessment Institute (ALTA) since its foundation in October 2013. Prior to that he was a data analyst in the Literature Services team at the E…

Mandy Wigdorowitz is a PhD candidate in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. She is researching the psycholinguistic and cognitive effects of language experience in multilinguals with a focus on language and interaction from linguistic, social, cognitive and psychological perspectives. In addition to her doctoral research, she is a registered Resea…

Jonathan R. Goodman is a doctoral student at the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies researching human social evolution, mimicry, and the evolution of exploitative behaviours. He is particularly interested in understanding why communication is so complex across species, and how some aspects of communication are exploited, through mimic…

Congratulations to Prof. Anna Korhonen and her team at the Cambridge Language Technology Laboratory (LTL) on being awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept grant of €150,000 for their project, 'Enabling Multilingual Conversational AI'.Proof of Concept grants are part of the EU's research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, and…

In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and Government advice, all University staff except those needed for business-critical activity, are now working remotely. This includes Cambridge Language Sciences staff and many members of our research community.We realise that during this time of remote working, for many of us it is more importan…

Congratulations to Cambridge Language Sciences network member Dr Kirsty McDougall and her team on securing Economic and Social Research Council funding worth £880,000 for their new project on ‘Improving Voice Identification Procedures’ (IVIP).IVIP is an exciting 3-year interdisciplinary project on earwitness evidence and voice parades – the identif…

The Cambridge Language Sciences Annual Symposium is an annual meeting of minds, giving members of the Cambridge Language Sciences research community the opportunity to meet for an afternoon of talks, poster presentations and informal networking.          This year’s Annual Symposium on Language Change took place on 19 November at Cripp’s Court, Mag…