CLCG Midterm Review (2004-2006)

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats

May 23, 2008

Who (today)? John Nerbonne, Dir., 2004-2006 Kees de Bot, Deputy Dir.

Roelien Bastiaanse, Neurolinguistics (NL) Markus Egg, Discourse & Communication (D&C) Kees de Glopper, LANSPAN Gertjan van Noord, Computional Linguistics (CL) Muriel Norde, Language Variation & Change (LVC) Jan-Wouter Zwart, Syntax & Semantics (S&S)

Goals of Discussion

Reflect on 2004-2006 Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats & Opportunities

Formulate Strategy for 2008-2011 Expertise needed (hiring preferences) Policies, esp. w.r.t. graduate student awards

Obtain other advice No guidelines here!

Structure

10 min. CLCG, John Nerbonne 10 min. discussion

5 minutes/group, Group Leaders 5 min. Discussion/group

30 min. General, Plenum

CLCG Strengths CL, LANSPAN, NL, and S&S strong, active

Publications, regular group meetings, project acquisition, professional visibility

Faculty structures 35% research for UD’s (up from 30%) Rewards for outstanding research, incl.

promotion, discretionary funds Critical mass, incl. >40 grad students

Annual recruitment PhD’s professionally active

CLCG Weaknesses

No influence over structural decisions How many & what sorts of positions

LVC still inactive 2004-2006 Problems w. acquisition, project completion Promising signs, however

2007 meetings 2008 RF fellow Lenz

CLCG Opportunities

Discourse & Communication still attractive, now also much stronger in research

LANSPAN stronger due to RF fellow Schmid

2 Erasmus Mundus programs in Linguistics Lang. & Communication Technology (CL-D&C) Clinical Linguistics (NL)

Threats to CLCG

Dependence on student numbers 30% drop in staffing since 1999 Left: Been, Behrens, de Graaf, Pouw, Sanchez,

Schaeken, Vet, van Zonneveld, Zwarts No replacement or lateral moves as replacement Administrative absences (dean, vice-dean, NWO board)

NL, CL, too small, vulnerable Vacancies not filled

Strategy, Questions Protecting research time

More student assistants, … Emphasize research in promotion schemes

Fostering excellence Graduate/Undergraduate faculty distinction? Assign advisors to faculty Ph.D. projects only to

researchers with recent grant submissions? Targeting complementary expertise

Statistics, 1st lg. acquisition?

What should we be asking?

Should we try to emphasize central themes more, e.g. processing?

Are there opportunities we’re poised for, but not seeing?

…?

LANSPAN Strengths

Fruitful theoretical perspectives Opportunities for fundamental and applied

research Considerable activity in developing grant

proposals BCN excellent reserach environment Etoc important partner for applied work RF fellow Monika Schmid

LANSPAN Weaknesses

Limited number of sponsored PhD positions within CLCG/Faculty of Arts, however: New NWO-project De Bot/Schmid on

development of bilingual proficiency with Farah Jamjam and Gulsen Yilmaz as PhD’s

PhD position fellowship Monika Schmid: Hanneke Loerts

New bursary PhD positions: Myrte Gosen (interaction and learning) and Veerle Baaijen (writing-to-learn)

LANSPAN Opportunities

Attractive MA-program Applied Linguistics and subprogram Language, literacy and learning (Dutch Language and Culture)

High interest area of research Extend research scope to whole life span

(language, literacy and aging)

LANSPAN Threats

Teaching load of tenured staff No formal sabbatical system High pressure on and fierce competition for

national and international funding resources

LANSPAN Strategy, Questions Better protection of research time Strengthen relations with BCN, Etoc Partnerships with external research groups

institutes and agencies

LVLC Strengths

Leading experts (e.g. dialectology, Finno-Ugric studies, grammaticalization)

PhD defense: Blokland 2005, Bakker 2007 External funding: Norde 2004-2005 (KNAW) Expertise in most branches of IE languages Other activities

Popularization (e.g. Groningen dialects, Low Saxon handbook)

Textbooks (e.g. German grammar) International conferences

LVLC Weaknesses

Less opportunities for joint activities no common paradigm publications partly in foreign languages

All members in language/culture departments -> much non-linguistic teaching

No major external funding since 2006

LVLC Opportunities

Two new senior members (Norde 2004, Lenz 2008)

Three PhD-students (two 2007, one 2008) Monthly meetings (as of 2007) New reading group on grammaticalization (as

of 2008)

Threats to LVLC

Increasing teaching loads since new BA-programme

No chair of Old Germanic studies since Hofstra left 2008

Still no external funding in near future

LVLC Strategy

Complementary expertise needed, theoretically-oriented historical linguistics sociolinguistics usage-based accounts of grammar

More PhD projects Participation in joint linguistics courses

(‘samenwerkingsmodules’), ReMa

Neurolinguistics

2004-2006

Goals & Means

to formulate theories on how and where language representation in the brain

aphasiology focus on crosslinguistic research to grammatical

deficits neuro imaging

focus on language processing by the right hemisphere (ambiguity; idioms)

language acquisition disorders focus on grammatical deficits and dyslexia

Strengths

internationally recognized work, especially on aphasiology and neuro imaging

excellent educational system: EMCL relatively many PhD students

many peer-reviewed papers in international journals not all in self study

Weaknesses

small, so vulnerable group dyslexia highly dependent on soft money

Opportunities

joint PhD program with Universität Postdam, aiming for EM status

two applications for NWO program grants

Threats

too heavy teaching load very small group

Syntax and Semantics: Strengths Vitality: success in attracting promovendi and

postdocs Relevance: advancing understanding of the

faculty of language in original ways High activity level: syntax seminar,

Acquisition Lab Visibility: presence in international

conferences, intl. peer reviewed journals Continuity: ‘young’ tenured faculty

Syntax and Semantics: Weaknesses Key positions in Modern Languages

Departments not (yet?) filled Not complemented by strong presence of

morphology/phonology research

Syntax and Semantics: Opportunities A chance to produce high impact research Increased visibility (output, platforms) International collaboration

Syntax and Semantics: Threats Understaffing Increasing gap between research and

teaching Dwindling critical mass of graduate student

applications

Syntax and Semantics: Strategy Develop and foster successful research lines Keep high activity level (seminars,

presentations, output) Increase national/international collaboration Reflect on common ground in research

interests and research agendas