Zwaartekracht Project 'Language in Interaction'

ILLC is one of the three partners in the project 'Language in Interaction', which has been granted a total of 27.6 million euro for a period of 10 years, as part of a huge investment by NWO's Gravity (Zwaartekracht) programme in top research in the Netherlands. Johan van Benthem is co-applicant, other ILLC people involved are Rens Bod (workpackage leader) and Michiel van Lambalgen. The project entails a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen), the F.C. Dondersinstituut (Nijmegen) and the ILLC.

Project Summary: Human language is the most powerful communication system that evolution has produced to date. In all its manifestations - over 6000 languages are spoken worldwide - it is the basis of our social and cultural life. At the same time, language is firmly embedded in our brain. In order to understand this characteristic fully, we need to examine language from the level of genes and the brain, to the level of social interaction and linguistic structures. This is the aim of the consortium Language in Interaction.

For more information, see http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOP_922FNK.