CLCG Mission Statement

The mission of CLCG is to conduct and support high-quality linguistic research and disseminate the results of this research to the national and international scientific community and to society at large. Research in CLCG focuses on the dynamics of language. From a variety of monodisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives, CLCG studies computational processing of language, processes in discourse and communication, neurolinguistic processing and language development across the lifespan, and variation and change in linguistic structure and meaning. The aim is to uncover the processes that underlie the use of language in individuals and society.

CLCG aims to realise these goals by setting the following priorities:

• CLCG actively contributes to the University of Groningen’s societal themes (Energy, Healthy Ageing and Sustainable Society). In particular, CLCG contributes to the theme of Healthy Ageing with its research on typical and atypical language development, use across the lifespan and health communication. CLCG also contributes to the theme of Sustainable Society with its research on multilingualism, mutual understandability between languages, literacy development and language teaching.
• CLCG fosters interdisciplinary approaches to the study of language. The contribution of CLCG to the cognitive neurosciences is reflected in the affiliation of several CLCG members with the Research School of Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences (BCN).
• Linguistic research in CLCG is closely connected to the instructional needs of the faculty, e.g., in the languages spoken in modern Europe.
• CLCG has a special responsibility for the Dutch languages and dialects, especially those spoken in the northern Netherlands (Dutch, Frisian and Lower Saxon, including Grunnings).