CRC 1646
First Summer School on Linguistic Creativity 2025
We are delighted to announce that the first summer school on linguistic creativity will be taking place at Bielefeld University between July 21st and 25th, 2025. The summer school offers a variety of both theoretical and hands-on workshops that pertain to the research foci investigated in Collaborative Research Centre (CRC 1646: “Linguistic creativity in communication”). The summer school is directed at early career researchers (doctoral researchers & postdocs). Participants in the summer school will have the unique opportunity to engage in in-depth discussions on creativity-related topics across linguistic subfields, while also acquiring proper training on different methods of data collection and analysis. The language of instruction is English. The participation is free of charge.
The summer school programme is organised as (morning) workshops, (afternoon) working groups, and (evening) social events. These sessions are designed to foster both academic exchange and networking in a relaxed, collaborative environment.
Workshops
There will be three types of workshops: Theory Workshops, Method Workshops, and Workshops on Fundamentals. Theoretical workshops will discuss topics of creativity in syntax, semantics, and interaction. Method workshops will focus on the practical aspects of conducting research by providing hands-on training on data collection and analysis. The three Theory Workshops run in parallel on Monday and Tuesday mornings, followed by the three Method Workshops running parallel on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. The three Methods Workshops will be taught, again, concurrently on Wednesday and Thursday morning. Workshops on Fundamentals will be taught on the last day of the summer school, and will also run in parallel. In these workshops, participants will receive training on practical research skills, such as data visualisation and verbal protocols.
|
Theory Workshops |
Methods Workshops |
Fundamentals Workshops |
|
A: Creativity in Syntax |
A: Corpus Analysis |
Course Title: |
- Abstracts - Theory Workshops
Workshop Bob van Tiel
Creativity in Semantics/Pragmatics - Scales and Scalarity
If the food was okay, does that mean it was not delicious? If the performance was not bad, does that mean it was good? If you broke a finger, does that mean you didn't break your thumb? If you got some of the questions right, does that mean about 30%? In this class, we will address these questions by studying the semantics and pragmatics of scalar expressions such as 'okay', 'not bad', 'a finger', and 'some'.
- Abstracts - Methods Workshops
Workshop Nils Reiter
Corpus Analysis: Annotation for Linguists ← What, What for and How?
Annotation plays a crucal role in computational and non-computational linguistics, and is used for training and testing automatic systems, understanding linguistic phenomena, statistically analysing experimental data, and others. The workshop looks at annotation as a research practice, and covers how do it when starting from scratch. We will discuss the role of annotation guidelines, how to evaluate annotations and what this evaluation means, and how to set up annotation rounds in practice. We will also look at ways of improving annotation speed with the help of machine learning models.
Workshop Thomas Weskott
Collecting Acceptability Judgments in an Experimental Setting
Acceptability judgments are one of the main sources of evidence in linguistics, and knowing how to tap into this source under controlled experimental conditions is an increasingly important skill. The goal of this course is two-fold: firstly, it aims to provide a basic understanding of the method, and how and to which linguistic domains it may be applied (day 1); and, secondly, to give a rough sketch of the analytical tools needed to make sense of judgment data (day 2). Participants are assumed to have basic command of elementary statistics.
Workshop Hans Rutger Bosker
Methods for Investigating Multimodal Communication
Human conversations involve much more than just exchanging sounds: we move, nod, and gesture to the rhythm of our speech. In this course, I'll introduce some of the methods in the study of multimodal communication, focusing on gesture-speech synchrony from both a production perspective (how do we time our gestures to our speech?) and perception (how does a (mis)aligned gesture change what we hear?). But the best way to grasp these methods is to apply them yourselves! Therefore, we will run our very own gesture-speech integration experiment during this course. So don't forget to bring your (fully charged) laptop!
- Abstracts - Fundamentals Workshops
Workshop Lena Heine
Verbal Protocols and Introspection
Verbal protocols are an established means to investigate mental processes, procedural skills and reasoning and are frequently used in areas such as reading, testing and problem solving research. This workshop will present different forms of verbal protocol data and discuss their qualities. Questions of validity in analysis will be addressed and effects of different elicitation designs on data quality will be presented. A special focus will be laid on data elicitation in multilingual settings. The participants will be involved in some hands-on activities.
Workshop Elen Le FollVisualisation in R: The Grammar of Graphics
This hands-on workshops provides an introduction to both the syntax and the semantics of the Grammar of Graphics, as implemented in the popular R library, ggplot2. We will see how ggplot2 can be used to build customised plots layer-by-layer that allow us to visualise our data and the results of our analyses in a wide range of effective and informative ways.
Working Groups
The summer school offers afternoon working group sessions where participants can present their current research and receive valuable feedback. Attendees in the working groups will have the opportunity to keep up to date with recent work on creativity and engage in fruitful discussions.
There will be two 45-minute working group sessions per day where participants will be able to work together in groups of 10 to 15. The working groups will be assigned based on similar research topics or methods. Presenters will have 20-30 minutes to introduce their work, followed by feedback and discussion.
While presentations are optional, we strongly encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity. If you would like to present your work and receive feedback, please indicate this in your application. Details on how to present your work can be found under the application process section.
Social Events
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, as the adage goes, and we certainly want to avoid this! To ensure your experience will be both informative and enjoyable, our summer school's evening program is full of social events, like Biergarten outings, a board game evening and other activities where you can continue your morning discussions in a more relaxed atmosphere and get to know better your fellow participants.
Join us for both stimulating exchanges and memorable experiences!
- Application Process
To participate in the summer school, you need to apply via our Online Application Form (opens April 15, 2025). Please have the the following information and documents prepared:
- Motivation statement on why you are interested in the School of Creativity. This could include sharing with us: How does your research align with our program? Which specific skills or knowledge do you hope to gain from the summer school? Etc.
- Three Keywords related to your research (e.g., linguistic subfield, research topics, methods, etc.).
- Workshop Preferences (one Theory, one Method and one Fundamentals Workshop)
- Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Abstract (Optional): If you would like to present your research, submit a short abstract of your work (max. 500 words, excluding references) related to the summer school topics.
Please do not send us any documents via email, but upload them in the respective folders in the online application process.
The Summer School Committee will review applications and select participants if the demand exceeds the workshops’ capacities. You will be notified of the decision by May 15th. We look forward to welcoming you to the summer school!
- Programme
- Venue and Directions
Map of Campus The Summer School is held on the campus of University Bielefeld. All activities will be in building X (number 14 on the map above).
For navigation, please use:
Bielefeld University
Universitätsstraße 25
D-33615 Bielefeld
Directions:
- by train:
You can reach Bielefeld by long-distance trains and regional trains. They will take you to the mainstation, Bielefeld Hauptbahnhof.
From Bielefeld Hauptbahnhof take tram line 4 in the direction of Lohmannshof to the stop Universität (journey time 7 minutes; every 10 mins).
For the timetable for your time of arrival, check here.
- by car:
From the north:
Motorway A2: Exit Bi-Ost, Detmolder Str. direction Zentrum (6 km, approx. 10 min). Way via Kreuzstr., Oberntorwall, Stapenhorststr., Kurt-Schumacher-Str. (is signposted).
From the south:
Motorway A2: At the Bielefeld junction, take the A33 towards Bi-Zentrum, exit at Bi-Zentrum, follow the signs to the city centre on Ostwestfalendamm (B61), exit at Universität, follow Stapenhorststr., Kurt-Schumacher-Str. (is signposted).
- by plane:
Closest airports are Düsseldorf (190 km from Bielefeld), Dortmund (110km from Bielefeld), Hanover (110 km from Bielefeld), Cologne-Bonn (200 km from Bielefeld) and Frankfurt am Main (320 km from Bielefeld). All of them can be reached (with mostly only one change) by train. For more details, click here .
- by train:
- Accommodation
- Assistance
The venue of the summer school is barrier-free. Do you need mobility assistance on the day of the event? Please do not hesitate to contact us.
There is also an app available helping you navigate around campus with maximised accessibility: UniMaps.
Please note that there will be no childcare provided by us.
- Visa Letter Request
For Visa Letter Requests and any questions concerning Visa, please contact crc1646-rtg@uni-bielefeld.de.
- Contact
If you have any questions or require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us: crc1646-rtg@uni-bielefeld.de.
