Is it possible to learn a new language well enough in just two weeks to conduct linguistic research on it? This is an entirely standard practice for linguists, according to Sasha Kozhukhar and Liza Vostokova, both students in the Linguistic Theory and Language Description master’s programme. This past summer, Sasha and Liza went on an expedition to Guatemala to study Kaqchikel, an indigenous Mayan language.
The website ‘web-corpora.net’, which hosts corpora, tools for text automatic processing and other linguistic resources created at HSE, has been redesigned and updated.
On September 15th, 2016, a presentation of the research web service ‘Textograph’ for the digital processing of texts was held in the House-Museum of Anton Chekhov. Boris Orekhov, Associate Professor at the School of Linguistics, is one of the system developers.
What causes variation between languages, and what do they have in common? How is language embedded in our general cognitive system? These are some of the questions that Eric Reuland, Faculty Professor of Language and Cognition at the Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (OTS) (Utrecht University), will address in a lecture course entitled ‘Syntactic approaches to anaphora’ that will be held at HSE Moscow from September 12 till 22, 2016. Professor Reuland recently spoke with the HSE news service about his research interests, his upcoming visit to Moscow, and some books he recommends for those interested in gaining exposure to the field of linguistics.
Elizaveta Vostokova and Alexandra Kozhukhar, students at the School of Linguistics, took part in the expedition to Guatemala in June 2016. The event was organized by the University of Maryland and was dedicated to research into the Kaqchikel Maya people. The expedition was led by Maria Polinsky, Professor of Linguistics, Omer Preminger, Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics, and Pedro Mateo, Assistant Research Professor at the Maryland Language Science Center. During the first two weeks of the expedition, the participants studied the Kaqchikel language, the rest of the time they spent working with native speakers.
A new English-taught master’s programme ‘Linguistic Theory and Language Description’ starts in the new academic year. Ekaterina Rakhilina, Head of the School of Linguistics, told us about some details of the programme, project work and the potential for international cooperation.
From November 14 - 24th a series of lectures on 'Diversity and Uniformity in Linguistic Sound Systems' by Ian Maddieson, Adjunct Research Professor at the University of New Mexico, Adjunct Professor Emeritus at the University of California was held at the HSE School of Linguistics. The course was dedicated to the phonetic diversity of languages and included eight lectures. During the series, Professor Maddieson talked to HSE English News Editor, Anna Chernyakhovskaya’s questions about his research into the relations between language and environment.
On April 27 John F. Bailyn, Professor at the Department of Linguistics, State University of New York will speak on ‘Language, Fire, Music and Chess: Thoughts on the Evolution and Acquisition of Cognitive Systems’. The event is organized by HSE School of Linguistics.
