The department's research strengths cover three broad areas, all of whih are closely integrated with the others.
The central theme of the department's research efforts is a search for the fundamental cognitive, computational, and neural building blocks that underlie human language diversity. The department recognizes that such an enterprise requires a coordinated effort from experts in multiple areas.
The department has a long-standing strength in theoretical linguistics (syntax, semantics, phonology), with a particular strength in syntax-semantics. Four faculty have Syntax as a primary focus (Tonia Bleam, Norbert Hornstein, Howard Lasnik, Juan Uriagereka), and a number of others hve a primary specialization in other areas but have done significant work in syntactic theory (Jeff Lidz, Colin Phillips, Amy Weinberg). Semantics is a key current growth area in the department, with a focus on the foundations of semantics and its interfaces with syntax, conceptual structure and logic. Paul Pietroski (Linguistics and Philosophy) and Valentine Hacquard have a research focus in semantics; Norbert Hornstein has authored important books in this area; and Jeff Lidz and Colin Phillips explore semantic aspects of language development and processing. In partnership with Philosophy the department is engaged in a new Language and Logic initiative that is bringing additional faculty in semantics and philosophy of language to Maryland in 2008-9. The department's research activities in phonetics and phonology (Bill Idsardi, David Poeppel) are closely linked to efforts in computational linguistics and psycho-/neurolinguistics, where they take advantage of Maryland's outstanding strength in neural and computational aspects of speech and acoustic processing, plus resources in language development and machine learning.
The department is a key contributor to Maryland's strength in computational linguistics. Amy Weinberg and Philip Resnik direct large projects on Natural Language Processing and Machine Translation in the CLIP Lab and the LAMP Lab, together with colleagues from UMIACS and computational linguists in Information Science. The computational linguistics group also has close ties to the Center for Advanced Study of Language. The computational linguistics group has particular expertise in cross-language applications. A growing area of interest in the department is computational modeling of human linguistic processes. Faculty with a current projects in this area include Amy Weinberg and Bill Idsardi. A number of other faculty assist students with projects that bridge computational and experimental research (David Poeppel, Jeff Lidz, Colin Phillips). Growth in faculty coverage in this area is one of the department's immediate priorities.
In recent years the department has undergone rapid growth in psycholinguistics, encompassing work in language acquisition, language processing, and the cognitive neuroscience of language, such that Maryland is now a leading center for research in these areas. In contrast to the traditional lab science model, the department has adopted a model in which there are no individual faculty laboratories, and all facilities are shared and faculty and students are housed together as a part of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language (CNL) Laboratory. The CNL Lab includes 6 faculty (Bill Idsardi, Jeff Lidz, Colin Phillips, David Poeppel, Amy Weinberg, Andrea Zukowski), and all department faculty are involved in its activities in some way, together with many collaborators from other departments and centers (Hearing and Speech Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Psychology, Kinesiology, Second Language Acquisition), in addition to NIH. Research in the CNL Lab covers infants, children, and adults in normal and atypical populations (e.g., Broca's aphasia, Williams Syndrome), and spans acoustics, phonology, lexical, syntactic, and semantic processes. The research in the CNL Lab has a strong cross-language component, with recent experimental studies covering English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Kannada, Korean, ASL, Hindi, Tsez, Amharic, and Portuguese.
(Note to applicants: Dr Poeppel will be moving to New York University's Dept of Psychology in Fall 2009. Although Dr Poeppel will not be accepting new PhD students, the department's resources in the cognitive (neuro-)science of language will not be impacted by this change. In fact, facilities are currently expanding in connection with our new interdisciplinary training program, and new faculty hires are planned.)