The 10th edition of the World Congress of African Linguists (WOCAL), hosted by Leiden University, will be held online from 7 – 12 June. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) researchers give us an insight into how important and special this event actually is.

Gorlaeus Gebouw, Einsteinweg 55, 2333 CC, Leiden

Making use of social media is a good way to meet others or to hear about the latest news and developments. But it also has its downsides: disinformation, trolling, disrespectful comments and even the misuse of (personal) data.

Words originally intended to indicate space, such as ‘out’, are also regularly used to indicate cause and effect. Why does this happen? And how does it work in other languages? PhD candidate Camil Staps decided to find out.

Every year Leiden University organises a number of events where our researchers share their knowledge with an audience of all ages. We are also involved as a partner in a number of local and national events. Fancy joining in? See who to contact below.

Universities, companies, organisations and societies are increasingly facing enormous quantities of data. It is a great challenge to transform these Big Data into knowledge, which is why Leiden University has launched a University-wide Data Science Research Programme.

How do you fulfill a chairing position during a team meeting? How do you visualise a dataset for a presentation? How do you write the introduction to a scientific article? All Science students can find the answers to these and many more questions in the 100+ skill modules on the digital Science Skills…

Russian literature is awash with disputes, riots and intense political debates. In the new Dutch podcast Schandaal en Controverse in de Russische literatuur, senior lecturer Otto Boele and film maker and journalist Kay Mastenbroek discuss the most talked-about Russian books published in the past two…

Research

Every year Leiden University organises a number of events where our researchers share their knowledge with an audience of all ages. We are also involved as a partner in a number of local and national events. Fancy joining in? See who to contact below.

Welcome to the Science Teacher Platform. Here you will find information about everything related to teaching within this faculty: from the practical matters you need to arrange, to innovating your course.

Festival

Wetenschapsmiddag

Professor Jenny Doetjes has received an NWO grant to research the cross-linguistic properties of quantity expressions and our brain's influence on language.

Each month, we publish an article showcasing how social science research and education contribute to solving societal challenges. Researchers, lecturers, students, and societal partners work together to make knowledge accessible and to make a difference. Through open science and engaged education, we…

During the second Arthur Docters van Leeuwen Lecture on 2 December, AIVD Director Erik Akerboom underlined how the changing threat landscape demands reflective leadership, transparency where possible and close cooperation to protect the democratic legal order.

The city centre of Leiden is covered in them: wall poems. When roaming around, you come across poetry written in the Latin alphabet, but also in scripts that might be more difficult to understand for the average person living in Leiden. In a new series of videos, Tijmen Pronk talks more about this.

During an evacuation, all employees and students gather at the front or backside of the Pieter de la Court Building.

Communication, Research, Transferable skills

Slowly but surely Open Science is becoming a standard in scholarly research, making it more open, collaborative, transparent, and after all FAIR, from its planning stages to publishing and re-use of data.

Morena Skalamera is Assistant Professor of Russian and International Studies. She is a familiar face at Leiden University since August 2018. Morena introduces herself below.

Fifteen knowledge institutions and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science have signed the covenant for Open Science NL. Leiden University has also joined the covenant, via the Universities of the Netherlands. This marks the start of the Dutch Research Council’s and brings the transition to open…

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and researchers talk about their passion for their field. PhD candidate Meike de Boer knows everything about the word ‘uh’.

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and researchers talk about their passion for their field. Professor of African Linguistics Maarten Mous explains the importance of hearing your language at school.

Research, Transferable skills

How did Scottish speakers sound hundreds of years ago? University lecturer Mo Gordon thinks the answer to that question can be found in church archives. 'It can be a boost to your identity to know the history of your language.'

How would you convert Egyptian hieroglyphs into Latin script? And what is actually the correct translation of dishes on a Vietnamese menu? On Saturday 28 January, high school students from all over the Netherlands will come to Leiden to ponder a series of language-related puzzles. Their goal? To win…

University lecturer Alex Reuneker has won the Frans van Eemeren Prize for his paper 'Assessing classification reliability of conditionals in discourse'.

Transferable skills, Research

Lecture, YAL & Studium Generale

Yuchen Lian defended her thesis on AI and language evolution at Leiden University.

Lecture

In a conversation, you provide all sorts of information to the listener. For example, you can indicate that you're certain about something, or that you heard it through someone else. Associate Professor Jenneke van der Wal has been awarded a Vici grant to investigate whether the way people do this is…

‘If it rains later, then I’ll take the car.’ In order to reason, we use sentences containing ‘if’ every single day. But how does that work exactly in the Dutch language? Alex Reuneker wrote his 628 page dissertation on the subject. Ceremony on 26 January.

Social

Who was professionally involved in language between 1550 and 1650? And what were the financial returns of this language sector? Assistant Professor Alisa van de Haar has received an ERC Starting Grant to map out the situation in Northwest Europe between 1550 and 1650.

The PDI-SSH grant will be used by Meuwese to create a web portal and collection of tools and resources, named ‘WetSuite’, that will help researchers apply Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods to legal textual data from public bodies.

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and researchers talk about their passion for their field. University lecturer Maria Del Carmen Parafita Couto speaks about bilingualism.

Minister Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science) has appointed Ionica Smeets and Alex Verkade as coordinators of a new national centre for science communication. The centre will foster a dialogue between researches and society and will gather and share expertise to make science communication more…