Research Groups and Labs

The Karen Landahl Center for Linguistics Research offers state-of-the-art facilities that provide a convenient meeting place for faculty, students and research associates interested in the nature of language. Housed in the Social Sciences Research Building at the University of Chicago, the Landahl Center is home to four research and teaching laboratories:

  • The Chicago Language Modeling Lab, directed by Jason Riggle, has three primary goals:
    1. To computationally implement linguistic models
    2. To discover and implement learning algorithms for those models
    3. To test the predictions of the models by simulating language learning, use, and change among populations of interacting language-using agents

 

  • The Phonology Laboratory, directed by Alan Yu, is dedicated to the teaching and investigation of phonological typology as well as the variation and change of sound systems. It also functions as the center for language documentation research within the Department of Linguistics at the University of Chicago. The lab, which houses a double-walled sound-attenuated IAC recording booth, is fully equipped to gather and analyze physiological, acoustic, and perceptual data.

 

  • The Language Processing Lab, directed by Ming Xiang, is broadly interested in experimental syntax, experimental semantics and pragmatics, and psycholinguistics. Our research projects aim at identifying the linguistic representations we construct in language comprehension and production, and the way we construct them. We use a broad range of methodologies, including self-paced reading, eyetracking and ERP (Event-related-potential) recordings.

The Karen Landahl Center

  • The Sign Language Linguistics Laboratory, directed by Diane Brentari, is designed to analyze linguistic data from sign languages and gestures pertinent to Dr. Brentari's ongoing research projects, which include two NSF-funded projects and a third award by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society. These projects concern the linguistic structure of sign languages and their expression in conversation, narrative and performance, as well as the gestures of hearing people and homesign systems. Motion capture, as well as a variety of tools for video analysis and transcription, are employed in this work.

 

  • The Language in Time and Space Research Group, directed by Lenore Grenoble, provides a forum for research on underdescribed languages in fieldwork settings, with active engagement in all aspects of language documentation, and is centered around a core set of questions and methodologies. Research projects focus on cross-linguistic analysis, diversity, variation and change, language contact, the language and cognition interface, and how cultural and geographic features might be reflected in language use and discourse. We draw data from a wide variety of languages that vary according to the interests of individual researchers.

 

  • The Slavic Linguistics Research Group, directed by Lenore Grenoble, conducts research organized within the following broad areas:
    1. Synchronic Slavic linguistics
    2. Diachronic and comparative Slavic and Indo-European linguistics
    3. Balkan linguistics
    4. Language contact between Slavic and languages of the Balkans, Caucasus, and Siberia

Having trouble locating the Landahl Center? The full address of the center is as follows:

The Landahl Center is located in the basement of the Social Sciences building. If you're having trouble locating it, you can try navigating with the full address:

Karen Landahl Center for Linguistics Research

Social Sciences Research Building (SS), Basement

1126 E 59th St, Chicago, IL 60637