Department of Linguistics

Block Reference
Read article: Syntactic Variation from Individuals to Populations; New Monograph from Jonathan Dunn
Syntactic Variation from Individuals to Populations; New Monograph from Jonathan Dunn
We are excited to announce that UIUC's Jonathan Dunn has a new monograph entitled, Syntactic Variation from Individuals to Populations: Language as a Complex System,  published by Cambridge University Press. This work is part of a series called Elements in Construction Grammar....
Read article: SOSY 7: Call for Papers
SOSY 7: Call for Papers
We are excited to announce that UIUC will host the 7th Sociolinguistics Symposium on April 4th, 2026. SOSY is a graduate-student run conference that offers a key forum for scholarly exchange across language-related fields.  This year's theme is Between...
Block Reference
Read article: Celebrating PhD Student Conference Presentations Fall 2025
Celebrating PhD Student Conference Presentations Fall 2025
This semester, many students from the UIUC Linguistics department presented their research at conferences near and far.  Let’s take the time to congratulate each of them for their dedication to their work and their excellent representation of our department!In August, Cory Lemke...
Read article: Call for Papers: UIUC to Host 33rd Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference
Call for Papers: UIUC to Host 33rd Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference
We are excited to announce that the 33rd Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference will be held at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, from August 7 to August 9, with a pre-conference workshop/tutorial planned for August 6, 2026. The invited speakers for the...
Read article: PhD Candidate Huiying Cai awarded TIRF's 2025 Doctoral Dissertation Grant
PhD Candidate Huiying Cai awarded TIRF's 2025 Doctoral Dissertation Grant
We are excited to announce that Huiying Cai has been awarded TIRF's 2025 Doctoral Dissertation Grant. The International Research Foundation for English Language Education (TIRF) is an international, non-profit organization devoted to English language education. Each year, the foundation offers...
Block Reference
Jonathan Dunn

Faculty Spotlight: Jonathan Dunn

For me, the advantage of computational methods is precision and scale: First, we can describe language with a level of detail that no human could keep in their memory. Second, we can observe this precision at a scale that allows us to see how language functions as a complex system. My particular focus is the interaction between how language emerges within individuals and how it varies across populations. I’m working on a joint model of these two problems that can be tested at scale in realistic computational simulations.

Block Reference

Calendar