Research

Research in the UCSD Linguistics Department combines theoretical linguistics with empirical language research. Faculty and graduate students are involved in theory construction, experimental research (language acquisition, phonetics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics and neurolinguistics) and fieldwork data collection. With its instructional and research program, the department is actively working toward a synthesis of the basic insights and findings of diverse theoretical and experimental perspectives.

The department houses laboratories devoted to empirical studies of language with focus on:

• computational linguistics
• computational psycholinguistics
• experimental syntax
• fieldwork
• language acquisition and sign languages
• language and brain
• phonetics

The focus of experimental research in the department is the mutual dependence between mechanisms of language processing and theories of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and discourse. Graduate students are often affiliated with a lab and conduct research within the labs. In addition to departmental labs, graduate students may have access to experimental laboratories concerned with language issues in other departments. Most faculty are affiliated with the Center for Research in Language. Some students hold CRL training grants and many participate in the weekly CRL talk series.

The range of languages represented in faculty research encompasses American Sign Language (ASL), Quebec Sign Language (LSQ), Chinese, Finno-Ugric, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Niger-Congo, Romance (particularly Spanish), Semitic (particularly Ethiopian/Eritrean), and Slavic (particulary Russian). The departmental concern with the empirical facts of language is reflected in a field methods requirement for graduate students as well as in the graduate student language requirement (conversational and reading ability in one language other than English). Recent field methods languages include Somali, Moro and Vietnamese. The department has a tradition of working with native speakers of a wide variety of languages.