S1 E8: Basque – Prof. Itziar Laka

Much Language Such Talk

In this episode, we talk with Professor Itziar Laka, a researcher at the Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, and the director of The Bilingual Mind research group at the University of the Basque Country. Itziar completed her PhD at MIT and was an Assistant Professor in Linguistics at the University of Rochester in New York before returning to Europe where she has been an invited professor at the Universities of Vienna, Utrecht, Naples and Río de Janeiro, and an invited research fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities, and the Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset, among others. She is Member of Jakiunde, the Basque Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, and corresponding member of Euskaltzaindia, the Academy for the Basque Language. Itziar has also written a book on Basque, A Brief Grammar of Euskara, the Basque Language, which was published in 1996 and is freely available on the internet. Her current research combines theoretical linguistics and experimental methods from psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics to inquire into the neural representation and processing of language, with a strong focus on syntax and bilingualism.

At the Bilingual Mind research group, they conduct research on the effects of bilingualism and plan to complete research on healthy older adults in the future. In the past, many of their studies looked at the effects on young adults and older adults who have cognitive impairments. So The Bilingual Mind will soon venture into new, exciting territory.

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Recorded on 16/12/2020

Music: Arc of the Sun by The 126ersssssss