General Linguistics

General Linguistics is primarily concerned with what is common to human languages and with general questions about how languages should be analysed and described. It thus complements specialised language subjects, which focus on individual languages or groups of related languages. Languages are explored both as mental and social phenomena. Important questions are how people acquire languages and how languages develop in a longer historical perspective.

At Uppsala University, the following profile research themes can be discerned:

• First and second language acquisition: In this profile area the focus is on naturalistic and experimental studies of child and adult (second) language learners in a variety of languages, concerning the lexicon, morpho-syntax and discourse pragmatics, typically in close collaboration with scholars abroad, and with colleagues in the Scandinavian languages department. Such empirical work constitutes basic research for previously unresearched language combinations, including children at risk for language impairment, but also serves to assess and develop theories of grammar, language processing, and language acquisition theory.
• Language documentation, typology and (largely quantitative) research on patterns of distribution and change of languages and linguistic structures is another profile area. The focus here is on some previously undescribed and endangered languages of the Americas, Eurasia, Africa, Papua New Guinea and South Asia. This documentation work also feeds into our research on language contact and language change, dialect/language variation and typologically oriented studies, including large-scale statistically based investigations, also allowing us to participate actively in large international collaborations.
• Comparative Indo-European Linguistics is a subject closely associated with General Linguistics. The research is concerned with the phylogeny, subgrouping, and cladistics of the Indo-European languages and is based on evidence from linguistics, archaeology, and genetics. Sanskrit (including Vedic) and Tocharian languages and literatures are also central themes. This research involves on the one hand linguistic and cultural aspects of contacts between the Buddhist world and neighbouring peoples along the Silk road, and, on the other, literary, stylistic and linguistic studies regarding views on nature and landscape in the oldest Vedic texts.