DanTIN runs the homepage samtalegrammatik.dk, on which we build a comprehensive, descriptive grammar of Danish talk-in-interaction. The basis for this work is two corpora (our own, AULing, and Samtalebank, from the Talkbank project) that contain recordings and transcriptions of naturally occurring interactions in Danish. Apart from constructing the homepage and running seminars about the grammar work, DanTIN also publishes the web journal Skrifter om Samtalegrammatik (SOS), in which we publish research on the grammar of Danish talk-in-interaction, typically student essays, MA theses and PhD theses. Occasionally, DanTIN also arranges presentations and workshops on the grammar of Danish talk-in-interaction for schools, teachers of Danish as a second language, etc. From 2019-2023, the project GEL (Grammar in Everyday Life), finansed by the Independent Research Fund Denmark, has worked on specific parts of the grammar and contributed to the development of it.
The English version of the online grammar is to be found at https://samtalegrammatik.dk/en/.
The research unit for psycho- and neurolinguistics represents a quantitative, experimental approach to linguistic research. In the neurolinguistic domain, this research includes studies with different types of neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, MEG, EEG) of how language is represented and processed in the brains of healthy language users, as well as studies of how language is affected by brain damage (aphasia) and various cognitive disorders. In the psycholinguistic domain, the focus is on behavioral experiments, including studies on language comprehension, perception, acceptability judgments, and reaction time measures in response to the processing of different types of linguistic structure, complexity, and variation (syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, and phonetics). The research in the unit also includes studies on the relationship between language and information structure, communication and interaction, and corpus studies, as well as the interplay between language and cognition, working memory, perception and thought, and language acquisition and learning.
This research group brings together students and faculty members who share interests in the sounds of language(s) and speech. As such, we are interested in phonetics and phonology and their interfaces, which we approach empirically. This focus reflects our research interests, which include phonetic theory, phonological theory, the phonetics-phonology interface, sociophonetics, articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, speech perception, language acquisition and bilingualism, foreign-accented speech, typology, the phonetics and prosody of naturally occurring interaction, forensic phonetics, and others.
The research unit in language acquisition and pedagogy deals with first, second and foreign language acquisition, with language pedagogy, language policy and the training of language teachers. The research unit includes researchers from several departments and schools at Aarhus University and from other Danish universities, who work with different methods, theories, and languages. Chinese, Danish, English, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish are represented in the research group.
Furthermore, the Danish National Center for Foreign Languages participates. www.viden.ncff.dk
The unit organizes regular meetings, seminars, PhD courses and webinars, where there are good opportunities for networking and sparring with colleagues. At the same time, the unit's activities are open to language teachers with the intention of creating a fruitful synergy between researchers and practitioners.
The following research projects are currently attached to the unit:
The Intercultural Pragmatics and Semantics research unit brings together researchers of all career stages with an interest in how people use language to communicate intra- and inter-culturally. The research unit has interests in how meaning is constructed within social groups as well as how meanings change across contexts. We use a variety of research methods and analysis approaches, incorporating quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. We take a broad view of culture and of pragmatics and value new perspectives on the field.
The unit organizes regular meetings, seminars, and webinars, where there are good opportunities for networking and conferring with colleagues from both within the university and internationally.
The research unit works within the framework of enunciation linguistics, the central theoretical assumption of which is that linguistic meaning is coded in the language, and that the linguistic form provides instructions on the enunciation, both with regards to reference as well as to the sender and receiver and their points of view. In this way, semantic-pragmatic issues are combined with literary and interpretive issues.
The academic objective is to develop linguistic and semantic-discursive tools for interpreting meaning in different contexts and in translations. These theoretical tools are essential for understanding various discourses, including political and social discourses and narratives. Concepts such as (linguistic) polyphony, focalisation, argumentation, political discourse, narratives, the implicit and the untranslatable as well as reception/reading have been selected as particularly important areas, because they all contribute important information about the meaning and interpretation potential of discourses.
The research unit's activities include workshops and research seminars with the participation of (inter)national researchers, literary translators and representatives from the publishing industry.
Language and Society (L&S) is a forum for mutual exchange and inspiration for researchers working on phenomena reflecting connections between linguistic and societal factors, including linguistic variation over time and across different geographical areas and social groups, contexts, etc. This can include research in fields such as language history, dialectology, sociolinguistics, and related (sub)branches of language and cultural studies. L&S is broadly concerned with societal issues related to spoken and written language, which are examined based on both linguistic data and extralinguistic factors, and expansion of the area of interest is welcomed. L&S prioritizes the creation and support of a conducive environment for a research community aimed at both junior and senior researchers to openly discuss research ideas and ongoing projects. Meetings are held, for example, on current research projects, and knowledge exchange with researchers from other institutions, such as through guest lectures and workshops with both internal and external participants, are prioritized.
This research unit focuses on sentences, words and their form, structure and component parts – from complex sentences down to individual morphemes. One central area involves the study of syntactic and morphological variation – both synchronously (within a single language or across several languages) and diachronically (over time). This also includes the relationship between language-specific and universal elements. In other words, this research unit covers all versions of and theoretical approaches to the structure of sentences and/or words in the broadest possible sense, irrespective of which labels might be attached to this, including “syntax”, “morphology”, “grammar”, “wordorder”, “constituent order”, “clause structure”, and “sentence structure” (and similar labels in Danish and other languages).
