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CLCG Midterm Review (2004-2006)

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

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CLCG Midterm Review (2004-2006)

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  1. CLCG Midterm Review (2004-2006) Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats May 23, 2008

  2. 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)

  3. 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!

  4. Structure • 10 min. CLCG, John Nerbonne • 10 min. discussion • 5 minutes/group, Group Leaders • 5 min. Discussion/group • 30 min. General, Plenum

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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)

  8. 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

  9. 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?

  10. 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? • …?

  11. 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

  12. 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)

  13. 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)

  14. LANSPAN Threats • Teaching load of tenured staff • No formal sabbatical system • High pressure on and fierce competition for national and international funding resources

  15. LANSPAN Strategy, Questions • Better protection of research time • Strengthen relations with BCN, Etoc • Partnerships with external research groups institutes and agencies

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. 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)

  19. 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

  20. 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

  21. Neurolinguistics 2004-2006

  22. 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

  23. 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

  24. Weaknesses • small, so vulnerable group • dyslexia • highly dependent on soft money

  25. Opportunities • joint PhD program with Universität Postdam, aiming for EM status • two applications for NWO program grants

  26. Threats • too heavy teaching load • very small group

  27. 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

  28. Syntax and Semantics: Weaknesses • Key positions in Modern Languages Departments not (yet?) filled • Not complemented by strong presence of morphology/phonology research

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

  30. Syntax and Semantics: Threats • Understaffing • Increasing gap between research and teaching • Dwindling critical mass of graduate student applications

  31. 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

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