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Activity Funded

Center of Linguistics of the University of Lisbon

Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa

Reference
UIDB/00214/2020
Project Start Date
2020-01-01
Project End Date
2024-12-31
Principal Investigator
Scientific Area
Humanities
Funding Program
Concurso de avaliação no âmbito do Programa Plurianual de Financiamento de Unidades de I&D (2017/2018) - Financiamento Base

Abstract

10.2 Summary in English for general dissemination purposes The Center of Linguistics of the University of Lisbon (CLUL) is a unit of the School of Arts and Humanities (FLUL) committed to leading research on Portuguese, including Portuguese-related creoles, that combines theory-oriented, applied research and laboratorial investigation. CLUL's team counts 72 integrated PhD researchers and 133 collaborators organized into 5 research groups: Dialectology and Diachrony; Grammar & Resources; Phonetics and Phonology Lab; Laboratory of Psycholinguistics; Philology. These groups are coherently structured so as to contribute to the center's medium-term strategic research plan, while maintaining fruitful internal collaborations in projects calling for the expertise of researchers belonging to different groups, as well as international collaborations in projects and networks. In 2018-2022, CLUL proposes to develop work in strategic areas of its research: the development of language resources and applications for Portuguese; the study of spatial (dialects and Portuguese-related creoles) and historical language variation; research on language processing and reading comprehension, and on audio-visual processing of prosody; the study of first language acquisition of syntax and phonology; and research on language impairments in development and ageing. The allocation of specific funding for human resources in the programmatic funding is one of the means to attain these goals, as well as the strengthening of national and international collaborations, partnerships and partipation in networks. The increasing internationalization of the team has to be supported through the participation in international fora, the organization of scientific events at FLUL, the support to international publications, the open access to its publications in the ULisboa Repository and the distribution of its resources to the scientific community under different types of licenses. CLUL sees service to the community as an important part of its research activities, and plans to continue to develop initiatives to disseminate its current results and to ensure the application of the outcomes of its research to societal demands. Finally, it is crucial that CLUL continues to actively seek international competitive funding. In this sense, the ERC Advanced grant that was allocated to a CLUL researcher should be an inspiration to all the team. The different sections of the current submission specify the main goals of the unit, its specific contributions and the strategic options for their successful implementation. The report on the main achievements of the unit in the previous years is an assurance of CLUL's ability to attain the expected high level research planned for 2018-2022. 10.3 Summary in English for evaluation The Centre of Linguistics of the University of Lisbon (CLUL) is a unit of the School of Arts and Humanities (FLUL) committed to leading research on Portuguese, including Portuguese-related creoles, that combines theory-oriented, applied research and laboratorial investigation. CLUL's team counts 72 integrated PhD researchers and 133 collaborators organized into 5 research groups: Dialectology and Diachrony; Grammar& Resources; Phonetics and Phonology Lab; Laboratory of Psycholinguistics; Philology. These groups are coherently structured so as to contribute to the centre's medium-term strategic research plan, while maintaining fruitful internal collaborations in projects calling for the expertise of researchers belonging to different groups, as well as international collaborations in projects and networks. CLUL's main objectives in 2018-2022 are organized around strategic goals of the unit: (1) to continue to be the leading international centre for the study of Portuguese and Portuguese-related languages, and for the development of language resources and applications; (2) to further develop the study of spatial (dialects and Portuguese-related creoles) and historical language variation, and to attempt a convergence between dialectal and historical data in a multi-layered digital resource; (3) to continue to explore the uses of language in communities of the past and the nature of historical written text in the digital environment; (4) to pursue research on language processing at phonological, lexical and syntactic levels, on reading comprehension, and on audio-visual processing of prosody; (5) to investigate first language (L1) acquisition of syntax, also comparing typical and atypical development, in partnership with the Medical School, Mind-Brain College of the University of Lisbon; to further explore the role of prosodic bootstrapping in typical and atypical development; (6) to develop measures and tools to assess phonetic, phonological and syntactic complexity to be used with typical and atypical populations (in articulation with the interests of the Mind-Brain College), to do research on language impairments in development and ageing (as in Autism, Down Syndrome or Parkinson’s disease); (7) to explore the potential of comparative linguistics in the production of resources for translation and promote connections with the industry in the area of translation; (8) to develop work on formal phonology, lexicon, syntax and semantics that contributes to building an integrated model of grammar (taking into consideration how it is represented in the human mind and how it can be computationally modeled), and also to usage-based approaches to language in context. To attain these strategic goals, CLUL presents a two-fold budget plan under the programmatic funding. On the one hand, CLUL considers it vital to be able to open two contract positions (PhD researchers): one contract position for a PhD in Computational Linguistics, to provide support to ongoing work on the creation and update of resources, and one contract position in experimental linguistics that answers CLUL's needs in language processing and language acquisition, with implications for Clinical Linguistics (§14.2). On the other hand, CLUL presents a proposal for 9 PhD grants in the strategic areas of language processing, language acquisition, Clinical Linguistics, digital humanities, speech and prosody, integrated in 4 PhD programs at FLUL: Linguistics; Cognitive Science; Voice, Language and Communication; Textual Criticism (§14.1). This falls into CLUL's plan to enhance the strong collaboration between the research undertaken at CLUL and the advanced training programs at FLUL by continuing to involve graduate students in research projects and by supervising theses that are consistently aligned with the strategic goals of the unit. Given the need for management and technical support at CLUL, the unit plans to allocate part of its "base funding" for human resources to open 2 fellowships for science management and 1 fixed-term technical contract for a researcher holding a master degree to do lab management work (§16.2). The internationalization of the team will be supported through the participation in international fora, the organization of scientific events at FLUL, the support to prepare international publications (including funding for English language Editing Services), the open access to its publications in the ULisboa Repository and the distribution of its resources to the scientific community under different types of licenses. The participation in COST Actions has also proved to be an excellent mean to participate in international networks. In strategic areas that need to be improved at CLUL, the collaboration with other institutions should be strengthened at national and international level by establishing partnerships with Computer Science Labs and Health institutions. Finally, it is crucial that CLUL continues to actively seek international competitive funding. In this sense, the ERC Advanced grant that was allocated to a CLUL researcher should be an inspiration to all the team. CLUL sees service to the community asan important part of its research activities and plans to continue to develop initiatives such as the publication of reference books for science dissemination, the participation in dissemination actions for prospective undergraduate students and the application of the outcomes of its research to societal demands related to health and education. The different sections of the current submission specify the main goals of the unit, its specific contributions and the strategic options for their successful implementation. The report on the main achievements of the unit in the previous years is an assurance of CLUL's ability to attain the expected high level research planned for 2018-2022.

Institutions

Main Institutions

  • Universidade de Lisboa Centro de Linguística (CLUL)
  • Universidade de Lisboa Faculdade de Letras (ULISBOA FLUL)

Funding 1.501.500,00 €

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - Portugal

1.501.500,00 €