Research Opportunities

To see active research projects in the department, and apply to join eligible projects, click here.

Language Learning and Development Lab (LangDev Lab)

The Language Learning and Development Lab (a.k.a., the LangDev Lab) examines language learning in infants and young children, as well as in adult learners who are studying a new language. The goal of the LangDev lab, is to understand the relation between language learning and human perception and cognition.  We try to understand how language learning changes the way that we perceive the world, and also try to identify the optimal conditions for accelerating language learning and development.

Language and Brain Lab (LAB Lab)

The LAB Lab focuses on the study of language and speech, including its perception, production, and acquisition, as well as cognitive and neural processing. The LAB Lab conducts behavioral, electro-physiological, and neuro-imaging research with both adults and children, across a variety of languages.

Phonological Processing Lab

The Phonological Processing Lab is interested in the ways children and adults process the sounds of their language. In considering how people represent words in their minds and how they recognize the words they hear, the lab explores the connection between phonological theories and real-language use.

Experimental Syntax Lab (XSyn lab)

The Experimental Syntax (Xsyn) Lab focuses on the study of natural language syntax and its interface to semantics, using data obtained through controlled experimentation from both adults and children, and statistical patterns found in naturally occurring corpora. The lab also does research on computational applications of linguistic theories, using mathematically well-defined grammar formalisms such as Tree Adjoining Grammars.

The Language Production Lab

The Language Production Lab engages in theoretical analysis of language, linguistic fieldwork, psycholinguistic experimentation, and computational modeling of language to examine how complex linguistic systems are learned and used in speech.

First Nations Language Centre

The First Nations Language Centre maintains and develops ongoing partnerships with First Nations communities engaged in language revitalization efforts, provides academic support for community-based efforts to revitalize endangered languages in First Nations communities throughout BC and neighbouring areas, and facilitates communication between First Nations communities and the University.

Discourse Processing Lab

Our lab studies discourse from linguistic and computational points of view. We examine and empirically test the role of discourse structure in different areas of language. In past work, we have focused on conversation (coherence, genre, turn-taking), and now we mostly work on written text. Current projects involve computational analysis of opinion (sentiment analysis), and studies of rhetorical/coherence relations.

Corpus Pragmatics and Prosody Lab (CPP Lab)

The Corpus Pragmatics and Prosody Lab investigates relationships between aspects of the phonological, morphologial and syntactic form of particular expressions and constructions and aspects of their semantic meaning and pragmatic use in extended spoken, signed and written natural discourse.