Research

Research in the Linguistics Department covers a broad range of areas of inquiry. The department is home to many flourishing research groups and collaborations among faculty and students. Members of the department also collaborate with colleagues from many other departments and universities around the world. This page highlights some of these groups and collaborations.

Standing Research Groups

These standing research groups typically meet weekly and have their own course numbers.

  • CCAL: Research group for computational and cognitive approaches to linguistics (7890.12)
  • Changelings: Research group for language change, historical, sociolinguistics, and contact linguistics (LING 7890.06)
  • Clippers: Research group for computational linguistics (LING 7890.08)
  • Computational Cognitive Modeling Lab: Research group for computational cognitive modeling
  • Lacqueys: Research group for language acquisition (LING 7890.05)
  • LLIC: The Logic, Language, Information and Computation Reading Group (LING 7890.09)
  • Pragmatics Working Group: Research group for pragmatics (LING 7890.04)
  • Phonies: Research group for phonetics and phonology (LING 7890.03)
  • SoMean: Research group for social meaning, sociolinguistics, anthropology, and semiology (LING 7890.11)
  • Synners: Research group for syntax, semantics and morphology (LING 7890.02)
  • Psycholinguistics Laboratory Group: Research group for psycholinguistics, experimental methods and design (LING 7890.07)

Each of these groups has its own mailing list, which is included on the Public Mailing List page, a listing of all the public mailing lists on mail.ling.ohio-state.edu.

Research Projects and Resources

  • Buckeye Speech Corpus
    The Buckeye Corpus of conversational speech contains high-quality recordings from 40 speakers in Columbus OH conversing freely with an interviewer. The speech has been orthographically transcribed and phonetically labeled. The audio and text files, together with time-aligned phonetic labels, are stored in a format for use with speech analysis software (Xwaves and Wavesurfer). Software for searching the transcription files is currently being written. 
  • Convergent Grammar
    Convergent Grammar (CVG) is a type-theoretic framework for linguistic analysis under development at the Ohio State University and INRIA-Lorraine.
  • The Herodotos Project
    The OSU Herodotos Project is an ongoing collaborative archive for the ethnography of the ancient (Western) world.
  • Learning to Talk
    The Learning to Talk research program is a collaboration among investigators at three different universities: Mary Beckman at the Ohio State University; Jan Edwards at the University of Wisconsin–Madison; and Benjamin Munson at the University of Minnesota. The currently funded project is a longitudinal study of relationships between children’s word knowledge and knowledge of the sound structure of language, with a strong outreach component. The collaboration began in 1996, with an NIDCD-funded project on Assessing Phonetic Skills in Misarticulating Children, and continued with a continuation grant in 2003 for A Cross-Linguistic Investigation of Phonological Development. There was also a set of NSF Collaborative Research grants in 2008 that funded a spin-off project on Using Machine Learning to Model the Interplay of Production Dynamics and Perception Dynamics in Phonological Acquisition.
  • Metathesis Project
    Metathesis is the phenomenon whereby two sounds that appear in a particular order in one form of a word occur in the reverse order in a related form of the word. This database is the result of work supported by a National Science Foundation grant to Elizabeth Hume when she was a member of the OSU Department of Linguistics faculty. We are in the process of transferring the site for the database to the University of Canterbury.
  • The Nationwide Speech Project
    The Nationwide Speech Project (NSP) corpus is a corpus of spoken language containing recordings of young male and female talkers from six regions of the United States. Speech samples include isolated words, sentences, passages, and interview speech. The purpose of the Nationwide Speech Project was to develop a corpus of spoken language that can be used in acoustic and perceptual studies of regional dialect variation in the United States (Clopper & Pisoni, 2006).
  • Ohio Speaks
    Ohio Speaks integrates research and pedagogy by involving undergraduate students every step of the way. Undergrads act as research participants, students, research assistants, fieldworkers and fellow researchers. The big research question that the project addresses is how coming to OSU changes student’s speech, with a focus on two influences: changing identity and exposure to other language varieties. Kathryn Cambell-Kibler's TEDxOhio talk about about "Accents -- Where and Why?" explains the role of Ohio in defining General American in the middle of the last century and the changes that are taking place in how Ohio speaks today.

Affiliated Research Centers and Facilities

Buckeye Language Network - The Buckeye Language Network (BLN) is a network of departments and people that was developed with the mission of encouraging interactions among faculty, scholars and students engaged in language-oriented research. The BLN is the administrative home of the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in the Language Sciences and of the COSI Language Pod. The BLN also supports workshops and symposia and offers competitive awards in support of undergraduate research.

Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences - The Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences is one of the premiere cognitive science programs in the United States with nearly 100 affiliated faculty spanning 24 departments and 8 colleges. Ohio State is the largest university in the nation and supports signature programs in linguistics, psychology, philosophy and computer science making for a vibrant cognitive science community. The Center offers undergraduate and graduate minors and provides state of the art research facilities, including eye tracking and electrophysiology laboratories for use by affiliated faculty and students. It grants seed funding for interdisciplinary research, supports graduate summer fellowships, and promotes the exchange of ideas through speaker series and CogFest - our annual cognitive science conference.

COSI labs in life - The Buckeye Language Network Language Pod is a research lab at the Columbus Center of Science and Industry (COSI) dedicated to the study of language and the dissemination of knowledge about language sciences. The COSI research pods (called the Labs in Life) are a part of a larger COSI exhibit on the life sciences, and they are glass-enclosed research spaces where museum visitors can observe actual scientific research as it is occurring. COSI is the only science center in the country that has working research laboratories housed within its walls, allowing visitors a firsthand exposure to the research process. The Labs in Life showcase Ohio State research, creating excitement in children about science and encouraging careers in science.

Undergraduate Research Opportunities

  • Linguistics Outside the Classroom
    Information about Linguistics Outside the Classroom requirement for Linguistics 2000, 2051, and 3701.
  • Internships
    Faculty and graduate students have a number of research projects that are suitable for interns to work on and learn about the research topic. You can learn about internship opportunities by attending LOC talks, asking your favorite linguistics instructor, or talking to your advisor. Most intern positions have some pre-requisite, depending on the level of work expected. 
  • Independent study
    If you have an interesting idea for a research project, you may want to approach a linguistics faculty member to help you set it into action.
  • Undergrad Research Seminar
    Students pair up with a faculty member and develop and execute a plan of research.
  • Denman Forum
    The Forum is an opportunity to showcase outstanding student research and encourage all undergraduates to participate in research as a value-added element of their education.

Publications and Resources

  • Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
    The Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages (JPCL) aims to provide a  forum for the scholarly study of pidgins, creoles, and other contact  language varieties, from multi-disciplinary perspectives. 
  • Language Files
    Language Files is an introductory textbook prepared by the faculty and students of the Ohio State Department of Linguistics. It is used here at OSU and many other colleges and universities throughout the world.
  • OSU Working Papers in Linguistics
    Working Papers in Linguistics is an occasional publication of the Department of Linguistics of Ohio State University and usually contains articles written by students and faculty in the department. Below is an indication of the contents of each volume.
  • Eastern States Conference on Linguistics
    The Proceedings of ESCOL '86 through ESCOL '91 were published by the Department of Linguistics at OSU and copies are still available for order.