NORDIC PROJECT: EDUCATING LINGUISTS IN COLLABORATION WITH THE UNIVERSITIES OF NORTHERN EUROPE

The linguists at TSU together with their colleagues from Finland (University of Turku) and Norway (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) are planning to exchange opinions on the mechanisms of speech acquisition in Russian, Finnish and Norwegian. The researchers are going to share their experience and methods in language studies that are advanced at their universities. Another aim is to promote cooperation in the sphere of joint educational programs.

Russian, Finnish, and Norwegian are languages of distinct types. The collaboration opens up perspectives of testing linguistic hypotheses using data from all three languages, which is unprecedented up to now. The project is coordinated by the Laboratory for Cognitive Studies of Language (part of the International Centre for Research in Human Development at TSU).

We are planning to work in two directions: education and science, says professor Zoya Rezanova, project coordinator. Our educational goal is to develop joint MA and PhD programs. The main scientific goal is cooperation in the research of human linguistic ability using data form Russian, Finnish and Norwegian and by applying psycholingistic methods and linguistic methods proper.

In the cooperation program, a number of study and research visits are scheduled for teaching staff and students.

TSU will organize joint scientific projects with the Finnish research group headed by Jukka Hyona. His research focuses on the eye-tracking method, which allows to measure eye movements and record gaze direction when viewing a visual object. The group uses it to study cognitive functions that are connected to visual perception, such as reading and understanding, tracking multiple objects, and capture and recognition of stimuli in the periphery of the visual field.

Norwegian researchers, headed by Ute Barbara Gabriel, professor of the Department of Psychology at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Ute Gabriel is an eminent researcher in the field of experimental psychology, neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics. She takes special interest in grammatical phenomena, referential gender specification of speech and bilingualism.