Dr M. Dingemanse (Mark)

Associate professor - Centre for Language Studies

Why are languages the way they are? Why do our utterances combine multiple modes of representation? What makes complex cooperative communication possible? My research formulates new answers to these questions.

I study how language is shaped by and for social interaction. My work is comparative, cross-cultural, and collaborative: I do fieldwork and experiments in societies I know well, and work together with interdisciplinary teams in Nijmegen and around the world.

In the period 2024-2029 my team focuses on the 'Futures of Language'. We study artisanal and artificial ways of languageing.
My research is generously supported by a Vici-grant from the Dutch Research Council.

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About
Mark Dingemanse carries out field work, experiments and simulations in order to find out why languages are the way they are. In 2020 he was awarded the Heineken Young Scientists Award in Humanities and he also won an Ig Nobel Prize for discovering that the word ‘huh?’ is universal.