Sociolinguistic Lab Cologne

The Sociolinguistic Lab at the University of Cologne is dedicated to interdisciplinary research in the intersection between linguistics and social sciences. Its founder Aria Adli and his team aim at investigating spontaneous speech by using modern statistical and computer-assisted methods. Areas of interest are, among others, linguistic diversity, ongoing language change, the identification of subtle but critical differences in language use and lifestyle, or language contact and migration in megacities.

The Lab Team

Meet our team — the people behind our work. Click here to learn more about who we are.

Prof. Dr. Aria Adli

Amalia Canes Nápoles (Postdoc)

Dr. Eric Engel

Zahra Farokhnejad (M.A.)

Data, Corpora and Computation

Here you can find information about our research activities and ongoing and completed projects. This includes the sgs corpus, a multilingual database that comprises annotated spontaneous speech data, gradient acceptability judgments as well as social metadata for every participant, collected by Aria Adli in 2004-2005 and 2008, our Sonification project, an approach to a new method for exploratory corpus analyses, and a student project that investigates the role of individual social networks in language maintenance and shift in immigrant communities in Germany.

Our Events

Browse our past events, including our recurring Cocktail Lecture Series that regularly brings prominent speakers to the region to discuss current issues related to language, society, and multilingualism. The series is a joint initiative of our Lab and the Sociolinguistics Lab of Duisburg-Essen. You will also find information about our symposia on Sounds and Structure in Language and Music, as well as our talks, workshops, and other activities.

International Collaborations

The Lab places a strong emphasis on building and maintaining international collaborations in order to promote academic and cultural exchange between universities. Our activities include joint teaching initiatives, such as our collaboration with NYU, as well as our research and exchange project MISOGRA with the universities of Tehran and Sanandaj. In this context, we organize exchange programs as well as Spring and Summer schools together with our international partner universities and in close collaboration with the Department of Oriental Studies.

Contact