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Linguistics Program - Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants (Ling-DDRI)

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NSF 20-538

Important information about NSF’s implementation of the revised 2 CFR

NSF Financial Assistance awards (grants and cooperative agreements) made on or after October 1, 2024, will be subject to the applicable set of award conditions, dated October 1, 2024, available on the NSF website. These terms and conditions are consistent with the revised guidance specified in the OMB Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance published in the Federal Register on April 22, 2024.

Important information for proposers

All proposals must be submitted in accordance with the requirements specified in this funding opportunity and in the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) that is in effect for the relevant due date to which the proposal is being submitted. It is the responsibility of the proposer to ensure that the proposal meets these requirements. Submitting a proposal prior to a specified deadline does not negate this requirement.

Supports doctoral research on human language — encompassing investigations of the properties of individual human languages and natural language in general — and the intersections of linguistics with cognition, society and other areas of science.

Supports doctoral research on human language — encompassing investigations of the properties of individual human languages and natural language in general — and the intersections of linguistics with cognition, society and other areas of science.

Synopsis

The Linguistics Program supports basic science in the domain of human language, encompassing investigations of the grammatical properties of individual human languages, and of natural language in general. Research areas include syntax, linguistic semantics and pragmatics, morphology, phonetics, and phonology.

The program encourages projects that are interdisciplinary in methodological or theoretical perspective, and that address questions that cross disciplinary boundaries, such as (but not limited to):

  • What are the psychological processes involved in the production, perception, and comprehension of language?
  • What are the computational properties of language and/or the language processor that make fluent production, incremental comprehension or rapid learning possible?
  • How do the acoustic and physiological properties of speech inform our theories of language and/or language processing?
  • What role does human neurobiology play in shaping the various components of our linguistic capacities?
  • How does language develop in children?
  • What social and cultural factors underlie language variation and change?

The Linguistics Program does not make awards to support clinical research projects, nor does it support work to develop or assess pedagogical methods or tools for language instruction.

DDRI proposals to document the linguistic properties of endangered languages should be submitted to the Dynamic Language Infrastructure (DLI-DDRI) Program:  https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2019/nsf19607/nsf19607.htm.

Program contacts

Rachel M. Theodore
Program Director
rtheodor@nsf.gov (703) 292-4770 SBE/BCS
Jorge Valdes Kroff
Program Director
jvaldesk@nsf.gov (703) 292-7920 SBE/OAD
Wilson De lima Silva
Program Director
widelima@nsf.gov (703) 292-7096 SBE/BCS
Kenyatta Johnson
Program Specialist
kenjohns@nsf.gov (703) 292-4850 SBE/BCS

Awards made through this program

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