clcg midterm review (2004-2006) strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, & threats may 23, 2008
TRANSCRIPT
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