Projects
Adolescent chat language in Flanders: the language geography of Flemish (sub)standardization processes againts the background of the international chat scene. University of Antwerp
The interplay between language contact and language change in a fragmentary linguistic area: the Italic peninsula in the first millennium B.C.E. KU Leuven
This research project focuses on the languages spoken in the Italic peninsula in the first millennium B.C.E. (in particular, Latin, Etruscan, Oscan and Umbrian) and the insights they can provide into the process of language change. Linguists have long recognised that the spread of language innovations from one language variety to another is an integral part of all language change, but the conditions which determine whether or not an ...
Gathering Language. Language atlases, comparative grammars, and ethnolinguistic classification in the long 19th century KU Leuven
In the 19th century, language became the object of a 'science of language', i.e. linguistics. My research is concerned with how the languages of the world were mapped and made part of that science. This requires an analysis of how linguistic fieldwork and language classification overlapped with geography and ethnic (racial) classification, in an ethically problematic context. Thus my research contributes to a global history of knowledge from ...
The ubiquity of multilingual interaction: Self- and other-categorization in openings of service encounters as displayed through language and embodied conduct KU Leuven
This thesis, supervised by Elwys De Stefani (KU Leuven) and Lorenza Mondada (U. Basel), is part of the research project The first five words: Multilingual cities in Switzerland and Belgium and the grammar of language choice in public space, funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
It examines how unacquainted individuals use a great variety of both vocal and embodied resources ...
Finish your plate and clean up your language! A mixed methods approach to Colloquial Belgian Dutch and Standard Dutch variation in child-directed speech at Flemish dinner table conversations. KU Leuven
This project studies variation in the way parents address their children, focusing on parents’ selection of Colloquial Belgian Dutch (‘tussentaal’, e.g. gij ‘you’) or Standard Belgian Dutch forms (e.g. jij ‘you’).
Through structured variation between standard and vernacular, parents implicitly teach their children which language features (and varieties) to use in which context, hence at the same time revealing which language features ...
Finish your plate and clean up your language! A mixed methods approach to Colloquial Belgian Dutch and Standard Dutch variation inchild-directed speech at Flemish dinner table conversations. KU Leuven
This project studies variation in the way parents address their children, focusing on parents’ selection of Colloquial Belgian Dutch (‘tussentaal’, e.g. gij ‘you’) or Standard Belgian Dutch forms (e.g. jij ‘you’). Through structured variation between standard and vernacular, parents implicitly teach their children which language features (and varieties) to use in which context, hence at the same time revealing which language features they ...
What can language variation tell us about insubordination? A comparative analysis of independent complement clauses in geographical and stylistic varieties of Spanish. University of Antwerp
Context-sensitive synonymy identification for the study of language variation. KU Leuven
Understanding accents: the intelligibility of regional and non-native accents to English as a Foreign Language learners. Ghent University
Listening to a language which is not one’s own native language can be surprisingly difficult, even for advanced learners. This is especially so when the speaker has an unfamiliar regional or non-native accent. While listeners can easily deal with variation in their native language, coping with accent variation in a non-native language is more difficult. In the case of English, with its millions of native and non-native speakers, language ...