A wide variety of linguists are gathering at Rhodes University’s Department of English Language and Linguistics from 25 to 28 March 2013 for South Africa’s first Corpus Week. A corpus is a digitized collection of texts that can be used for many different types of research, from dictionary writing to picking out ideologies and analysing them critically. The aim of the week is to allow experienced corpus linguists and intrigued newcomers to share their knowledge with each other and encourage new research partnerships, according to Sally Hunt, the week’s convenor....read more

Congratulations to Susan Bisset for being awarded the Vivian de Klerk prize for 2013!...read more

William Bennett, the newest addition to the Department of English Language and Linguistics staff, arrived from New Jersey last week. For him, coming to Rhodes is the latest stage in a growing love affair with South Africa and its languages....read more

Rhodes linguists Dr Mark de Vos and Kristin van der Merwe have been awarded a grant of R1,5 million over three years to study foundation phase literacy in African languages. The grant, which comes from the Rhodes University Council's Sandisa Imbewu fund, will be used to fund a post-doctoral research fellow and postgraduate students interested in solving one of South Africa's most pressing educational problems....read more

Amy Richardson a hardworking Master’s student has been awarded Abe Bailey Travel Bursary, a three-week tour of the United Kingdom, all expenses paid. The bursary selects a single candidate from 16 South African Universities for the sole purpose of giving them a unique cultural and international experience....read more

Rhodes linguist Mark de Vos delivered a talk at North-West University on Friday 24 August entitled "The evolution of natural language syntax by natural selection: optimization of the mental
lexicon yields syntax for free". His talk presented an account of the evolution of human language by natural selection that focuses on the evolution of the lexicon. Here is a brief summary of what he said:...read more

At a Departmental Research Seminar on Tuesday 15 May, Rhodes Linguistics Master’s student Sanne Lauriks talked about her plans to compare the ways in which languages are used in two small businesses: one in Grahamstown and one in Amsterdam....read more

Dr Mercy Akrofi Ansah, a visiting scholar from the University of Ghana, took the Rhodes Linguistics department on a virtual tour of a small town in her country as she spoke about language choice in a multilingual community in a Departmental Research Seminar on Tuesday 8 May 2012....read more

The Department of English Language and Linguistics recently celebrated the graduation of its class of 2011. This year's crop of graduands, although relatively small, included some sparkling achievers....read more

Rhodes linguist Ron Simango presented a brief look at the grammar of ciNsenga at a Departmental Research Seminar on Tuesday 22 February. He showed how this language, from the border of Malawi and Zambia, handles subject marking, coordination and noun classes....read more