Associate Professor
University of Groningen, Department of Information Science
Martijn Wieling
Martijn Wieling is an Associate Professor at the University of Groningen, and Affiliated Research Scientist at Haskins Laboratories. His research focuses on investigating language variation and change quantitatively. He uses both large digital corpora of text and speech, as well as experimental approaches to assess differences in the movement of the tongue and lips during speech. Since April 2018, Martijn Wieling is the vice-chairman of De Jonge Akademie.
- +31 6 100 950 21
- m.b.wieling@rug.nl
- Room nr.: 1311.434
- @martijnwieling
Academic positions
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Present 2018
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2018 2015
Assistant Professor (with tenure)
University of Groningen, Department of Information Science
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2015 2013
Post-doctoral researcher (NWO Veni)
University of Groningen, Department of Information Science
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2013 2012
Post-doctoral researcher (NWO Rubicon)
University of Tübingen, Department of Quantitative Linguistics
Education & Training
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Ph.D. 2012
Ph.D. in Linguistics (cum laude)
University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts
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M.Sc.2007
Master (research) of Science in Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences (cum laude)
University of Groningen, Faculty of Science and Engineering
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M.Sc.2007
Master of Science in Computing Science
(cum laude)University of Groningen, Faculty of Science and Engineering
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B.Sc.2005
Bachelor of Science in Computing Science
(cum laude)University of Groningen, Faculty of Science and Engineering
Honors, Awards and Grants (>€25,000)
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EYRAEuropean Young Research Award (2016)
In 2016, Wieling was awarded the European Young Research Award for post-doctoral researchers. This prestigious award is granted every two years to researchers demonstrating outstanding research performance and leadership. It aims to inspire early stage researchers to incorporate a European dimension and perspective into their research. Wieling was the first awardee from the Humanities. -
YAGFounding Member of the Young Academy Groningen (2016)
In 2016, Wieling was selected as one of the 18 founding members of the Young Academy of Groningen for a period of five years. The Young Academy Groningen is a club for the University of Groningen’s most talented, enthusiastic and ambitious young researchers. Members come from all fields and disciplines and have a passion for science and an interest in matters concerning science policy, science and society, leadership and career development.
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DJAMember (2015) and vice-chairman (2018) of De Jonge Akademie
Wieling was selected as one of the youngest members of De Jonge Akademie (DJA) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in April 2015 for a period of five years. In 2018, Wieling was elected as vice-chairman of De Jonge Akademie for a period of two years.The Young Academy is a dynamic and innovative group of 50 top young scientists and scholars with outspoken views about science and scholarship and the related policy. The Young Academy organises inspiring activities for various target groups focusing on interdisciplinarity, science policy, and the interface between science and society.
YSPLisa Lena Opas-Hänninen Young Scholar Prize (2014)
At the Methods in Dialectology XV conference, Wieling was awarded the Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen Young Scholar Prize for his poster presentation on Validating and using the PMI-based Levenshtein distance as a measure of foreign accent strength.2018-2019CIT Data Science Project Grant (€ 35,000; co-PI: Dr Nanna Hilton)
This one-year data science grant was awarded to Wieling and Hilton by the Centre for Information Technology of the University of Groningen for their project "Automatic recognition of Frisian speakers: Using computers to discriminate the Frisian accent and voice".2017-2021YAG Interdisciplinary PhD Grant (€ 120,000; co-PI: Prof. Michel Vols)
Together with Prof. Michel Vols, Wieling was awarded one of the three yearly interdisciplinary Young Academy of Groningen PhD grants for a project with the goal of automatically predicting court judgments.2017-2018Digital Humanities Explored Project Grant (€ 50,000)
This one-year data science grant was awarded to Wieling by the Centre for Digital Humanities of the University of Groningen for his project "Identifying Dutch accents automatically".2016-2017VIVIS Research Grant (€ 50,000)
This one-year research grant was awarded to Wieling by the Vereniging van Instellingen voor mensen met een VISuele beperking for his project "Automatic speech recognition for congenitally blind speakers".2013-2017NWO Veni Grant (€ 250,000)
This four-year research grant was awarded to Wieling by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for his project "Improving speech learning models and English pronunciation with articulography". Only 15.5% of the submitted project proposals were granted.
2012-2013NWO Rubicon Grant (€ 60,000)
This one-year research grant was awarded to Wieling by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for his project "Investigating language variation physically". Only 12% of the submitted project proposals were granted.
Research
Research Summary
My research generally focuses on quantitatively investigating patterns in language variation and change. While I mostly investigate dialect variation, I also study the pronunciation of second language learners, congenitally blind speakers, or speakers with dysarthria (such as Parkinson's disease). Besides investigating pronunciation, I am interested in identifying patterns in large, digitally available corpora of text. For example, in collaboration with the law department, we are currently investigating how we may predict court judgments on the basis of various legal and linguistic characteristics of the court transcripts. This project also emphasizes the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of my research (see also projects, below).
For investigating patterns in speech, I generally take two approaches. The first approach is to analyze phonetically transcribed data using new quantitative, dialectometric techniques (see publications in Language, Journal of Phonetics, Annual Review of Linguistics, Language Dynamics and Change and PLOS ONE). The second approach is to track the movement of speakers' tongue and lips using (e.g.,) electromagnetic articulography (see several publications in Journal of Phonetics, and Journal of the Acoustical Society of America).
In terms of techniques, I am frequently using (and teaching courses about) generalized additive modeling, a flexible non-linear regression technique which can be used to model the influence of geography on dialect variation, but also to model time series data (such as collected using articulography, eye-tracking or EEG experiments). See this extensive tutorial (accepted in Journal of Phonetics), but also publications in Language, Journal of Phonetics and PLOS ONE.
Research projects
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(Post-doc: Aki Kunikoshi, Data scientists: Herbert Kruitbosch and Arya Babai, Collaborator: David van Leeuwen)
In this project we aim to automatically detect Dutch accents on the basis of data from the Sprekend Nederland data. Particularly, we are interested in identifying the acoustic and segmental characteristics of the different accents. This project is funded by the Centre for Digital Humanities of the University of Groningen.
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(Co-PI: Nanna Hilton, Post-doc: Aki Kunikoshi, Data scientists: Herbert Kruitbosch and Arya Babai)
In this project, we will study the effects of one language on another in our voices, by considering how recognizable Frisian phonological traits are in speakers' production of their first language, Frisian, as well as in their second language, Dutch. This project is funded by the University of Groningen (Data Science Projects 2017).
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(PhD student: Masha Medvedeva, Co-PI: Michel Vols)
Law is everywhere: almost every human activity is regulated. Buying a sandwich, renting an apartment or going to a hospital, all these activities involve legal rules and consequences. For a stable and sustainable society it is essential that its laws are predictable. People need to know what a legal rule means and what likely outcome a potential court case will have. Authorities have tried to improve the law's predictability and transparency by publishing court judgments. For decades, summaries of judgments were published in written journals, which were not easily accessible for the public. Nowadays, courts publish their judgments online. For example, approximately 370,000 individual court judgments can be found on the website of the Dutch judiciary (www.rechtspraak.nl). Similarly, another 52,000 court judgments are published online by the European Court of Human Rights (http://hudoc.echr.coe.int). Each of these judgments contains a detailed and rich description of the facts, procedure, reasoning of the parties and outcome of the case. Of course, public availability of case law will help to improve predictability and transparency, but to analyse hundreds of thousands of legal documents, we need other approaches than the traditional and labour-intensive 'doctrinal analysis' (i.e. close reading of a single or a small number of judgments) conducted by legal researchers.
The goal of this PhD project is therefore to combine two distinctly separate disciplines, law and computational linguistics, in developing and evaluating quantitative, computational approaches to improve the predictability and transparency of the law. Techniques from computational linguistics would (for example) enable the automatic extraction, syntactic and semantic analysis of the judgment texts. The extracted features may be used in quantitative analyses identifying common patterns (see Wieling, 2012 for examples, albeit in a different field), which can subsequently be used to predict the outcome of a judgment. Such an approach would clearly be beneficial for the field of law. Surprisingly, a recent study (Vols & Jacobs, 2016) showed that between 2006 and 2016 fewer than 25 publications in Dutch legal journals were published involving statistics to analyse case law. While a quantitative approach to analysing case law is more prevalent in the US, it is primarily focused on specific American legal issues, and frequently contains serious methodological flaws (Epstein & King, 2002; Epstein & Martin, 2014).
In computational linguistics, specific characteristics of legal texts have been studied (see Francesconi, Montemagni et al. (eds.), 2010), but hardly any studies have attempted to use linguistic characteristics to predict judicial decisions. A very recent exception (also illustrating the timeliness of the project idea) by Aletras et al. (2016) reported an accuracy of 79% in predicting the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. However, they focused only on a small sample (600 judgments) and used simplistic linguistic features (such as word frequency). The goal of this PhD project is therefore to take a more comprehensive, linguistically-oriented approach incorporating all available data, thereby developing a system which is able to detect common patterns in legal big data and use these to predict the outcome of a judgment.
This project is funded by the Young Academy Groningen.
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(PhD student: Jidde Jacobi, Co-supervisors: Roel Jonkers, Michael Proctor, and Ben Maassen)
In this IDEALAB-funded project, we investigate speech articulation in Parkinson's disease. Parkinsons disease is a degenerative neurological disorder that is characterised by a decay of motor function. Due to a loss of dopaminergic cells in the substantia nigra, both motor control as well as initiation deteriorate over time, which frequently leads to difficulties in speech producation, a phenomenom that is known as hypokinetic dysarthria. Previous acoustics studies have shown that pitch height and variation, articulation of both vowels and consonants and voice quality are often affected in hypokinetic dysarthria. So far however, the role of kinematics in hypokinetic dysarthria has not been given much attention. Yet, thanks to the recent development of electromagnetic articulography (EMA) it is now possible to track and measure the kinematic movements of the lips, the tongue and the jaw during speech production. This means that a more fine-grained analysis of the articulation difficulties in hypokinetic dysarthria can be performed. In this future study, the velocity, amplitude and coordination of kinematic gestures will be under investigation. Specifically, the temporal overlap of speech gestures will be studied as well as the location and rate of contractions within the vocal tract. In total, 30 Parkinson’s patients with hypokinetic dysarthria will be included. Another 30 participants will serve as healthy controls. In doing so, a detailed view of coordination in hypokinetic dysarthria will be obtained which will lead to a better understanding of the speech disorder. Moreover, it will shed new light on leading theories that have only approached speech from an acoustic viewpoint. Ultimately, the knowledge that will be obtained within this study can improve a early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and also dramatically improve speech therapy. In addition, it will also provide more general insight into the kinematics of speech.
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(Research assistant: Lisanne de Jong, Collaborator: Johan van Hattum)
In this project we aim to investigate how visualizing tongue movements using ultrasound may be used to help a learner to improve his or her pronunciation in a second language (L2). This project is funded by the Groningen University Fund and De Jonge Akademie.
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(Researcher: Pauline Veenstra, Collaborator: Royal Dutch Visio)
In this project we investigate if the speech of congenitally blind speakers differs from that of sighted speakers, both from an articulatory as well as an acoustic perspective. Specifically, we investigate if automatic speech recognition performance differs between the two groups. This project was funded by VIVIS. The results of the project were presented at several conferences (e.g., see here: page 88), and are currently in the process of being written down.
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(Collaborators: Patti Adank, Mark Tiede, Andrea Weber, R. Harald Baayen and others)
In this project we are investigating articulatory differences between Dutch and German speakers' pronunciation of English versus those of native English speakers. Furthermore, we are assessing how visual feedback of the speech articulators may help improve non-native speakers' pronunciation of English. This project was funded by NWO (Veni grant). Results of the project can be found in several publications.
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(Collaborators: R. Harald Baayen and team members in Tübingen)
In this project (conducted at the University of Tübingen) we have investigated Dutch dialect variation using articulography. This project was funded by NWO (Rubicon grant). Results of the project can be found in several publications.
Lab facilities
I have the following equipment available for research projects in my lab:
- NDI Wave 16-channel 400 Hz portable articulography device
- Articulate Instruments Micro portable Ultrasound Intraoral Imaging device
- Server with 2 (Nvidia-funded )Titan X GPUs for deep learning calculations
- High performance computing facilities (e.g., a 36-core server)
- Various types of audio and video recording equipment
Team
Interested in joining my lab?
I am always looking for excellent PhD candidates or research assistants. If you are interested in the field of dialect or language variation, speech production research, or computational linguistics, please contact me.
Publications
Regional Dialectology: Quantitative Approaches using R
Book Cambridge University Press. Book contract signed: May 2017.
Back from the future: nonlinear anticipation in adults and children's speech
Journal paper Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research.
Abstract
This study focuses on an essential precondition for reproducibility in computational linguistics: the willingness of authors to share relevant source code and data. Ten years after Ted Pedersen's influential ``Last Words'' contribution in Computational Linguistics, we investigate to what extent researchers in computational linguistics are willing and able to share their data and code. We surveyed all 395 full papers presented at the 2011 and 2016 ACL Annual Meetings, and identified if links to data and code were provided. If working links were not provided, authors were requested to provide this information. While data was often available, code was shared less often. When working links to code or data were not provided in the paper, authors provided the code in about one third of cases. For a selection of ten papers, we attempted to reproduce the results using the provided data and code. We were able to reproduce the results approximately for half of the papers. For only a single paper we obtained the exact same results. Our findings show that even though the situation appears to have improved comparing 2016 to 2011, empiricism in computational linguistics still largely remains a matter of faith (Pedersen, 2008). Nevertheless, we are somewhat optimistic about the future. Ensuring reproducibility is not only important for the field as a whole, but also for individual researchers: below we show that the median citation count for studies with working links to the source code are higher.
Abstract
We conduct the first experiment in the literature in which a novel is translated automatically and then post-edited by professional literary translators. Our case study is Warbreaker, a popular fantasy novel originally written in English, which we translate into Catalan. We translated one chapter of the novel (over 3,700 words, 330 sentences) with two data-driven approaches to Machine Translation (MT): phrase-based statistical MT (PBMT) and neural MT (NMT). Both systems are tailored to novels; they are trained on over 100 million words of fiction. In the post-editing experiment, six professional translators with previous experience in literary translation translate subsets of this chapter under three alternating conditions: from scratch (the norm in the novel translation industry), post-editing PBMT, and post-editing NMT. We record all the keystrokes, the time taken to translate each sentence, as well as the number of pauses and their duration. Based on these measurements, and using mixed-effects models, we study post-editing effort across its three commonly studied dimensions: temporal, technical and cognitive. We observe that both MT approaches result in increases in translation productivity: PBMT by 18%, and NMT by 36%. Post-editing also leads to reductions in the number of keystrokes: by 9% with PBMT, and by 23% with NMT. Finally, regarding cognitive effort, post-editing results in fewer (29% and 42% less with PBMT and NMT respectively) but longer pauses (14% and 25%).
Abstract
When courts started publishing judgements big data analysis (i.e. large-scale statistical analysis and machine learning) within the legal domain became possible. By taking data from the European Court of Human Rights as an example, we investigate how Natural Language Processing tools can be used to analyse texts of the court proceedings in order to automatically predict (future) judicial decisions. With an average accuracy of 75% in predicting the violation of 9 articles of the European Convention on Human Rights our (relatively simple) approach highlights the potential of machine learning approaches in the legal domain.
Abstract
In phonetics, many datasets are encountered which deal with dynamic data collected over time. Examples include diphthongal formant trajectories and articulator trajectories observed using electromagnetic articulography. Traditional approaches for analyzing this type of data generally aggregate data over a certain timespan, or only include measurements at a fixed time point (e.g., formant measurements at the midpoint of a vowel). In this paper, I discuss generalized additive modeling, a non-linear regression method which does not require aggregation or the pre-selection of a fixed time point. Instead, the method is able to identify general patterns over dynamically varying data, while simultaneously accounting for subject and item-related variability. An advantage of this approach is that patterns may be discovered which are hidden when data is aggregated or when a single time point is selected. A corresponding disadvantage is that these analyses are generally more time consuming and complex. This tutorial aims to overcome this disadvantage by providing a hands-on introduction to generalized additive modeling using articulatory trajectories from L1 and L2 speakers of English within the freely available R environment. All data and R code is made available to reproduce the analysis presented in this paper.
Exploring the role of extra-linguistic factors in defining dialectal variation patterns through cluster comparison.
Book chapter In: Martijn Wieling, Martin Kroon, Gertjan van Noord, & Gosse Bouma (eds.) From Semantics to Dialectometry. Festschrift in honor of John Nerbonne. Tributes 32, London: College Publications, pp. 241 - 251. [Note: not peer-reviewed].
Abstract
In this study, we investigate crosslinguistic patterns in the alternation between UM, a hesitation marker consisting of a neutral vowel followed by a final labial nasal, and UH, a hesitation marker consisting of a neutral vowel in an open syllable. Based on a quantitative analysis of a range of spoken and written corpora, we identify clear and consistent patterns of change in the use of these forms in various Germanic languages (English, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Danish, Faroese) and dialects (American English, British English), with the use of UM increasing over time relative to the use of UH. We also find that this pattern of change is generally led by women and more educated speakers. Finally, we propose a series of possible explanations for this surprising change in hesitation marker usage that is currently taking place across Germanic languages.
Abstract
The present study uses electromagnetic articulography, by which the position of tongue and lips during speech is measured, for the study of dialect variation. By using generalized additive modeling to analyze the articulatory trajectories, we are able to reliably detect aggregate group differences, while simultaneously taking into account the individual variation of dozens of speakers. Our results show that two Dutch dialects show clear differences in their articulatory settings, with generally a more anterior tongue position in the dialect from Ubbergen in the southern half of the Netherlands than in the dialect of Ter Apel in the northern half of the Netherlands. A comparison with formant-based acoustic measurements further reveals that articulography is able to reveal interesting structural articulatory differences between dialects which are not visible when only focusing on the acoustic signal.
Abstract
In this study we investigate the effect of age of acquisition (AoA) on grammatical processing in second language learners as measured by event-related brain potentials (ERPs). We compare a traditional analysis involving the calculation of averages across a certain time window of the ERP waveform, analyzed with categorical groups (early vs. late), with a generalized additive modeling analysis, which allows us to take into account the full range of variability in both AoA and time. Sixty-six Slavic advanced learners of German listened to German sentences with correct and incorrect use of non-finite verbs and grammatical gender agreement. We show that the ERP signal depends on the AoA of the learner, as well as on the regularity of the structure under investigation. For gender agreement, a gradual change in processing strategies can be shown that varies by AoA, with younger learners showing a P600 and older learners showing a posterior negativity. For verb agreement, all learners show a P600 effect, irrespective of AoA. Based on their behavioral responses in an offline grammaticality judgment task, we argue that the late learners resort to computationally less efficient processing strategies when confronted with (lexically determined) syntactic constructions different from the L1. In addition, this study highlights the insights the explicit focus on the time course of the ERP signal in our analysis framework can offer compared to the traditional analysis.
Abstract
Dialectometry applies computational and statistical analyses within dialectology, making work more easily replicable and understandable. This survey article first reviews the field briefly in order to focus on developments in the past five years. Dialectometry no longer focuses exclusively on aggregate analyses, but rather deploys various techniques to identify representative and distinctive features with respect to areal classifications. Analyses proceeding explicitly from geostatistical techniques have just begun. The exclusive focus on geography as explanation for variation has given way to analyses combining geographical, linguistic, and social factors underlying language variation. Dialectometry has likewise ventured into diachronic studies and has also contributed theoretically to comparative dialectology and the study of dialect diffusion. Although the bulk of research involves lexis and phonology, morphosyntax is receiving increasing attention. Finally, new data sources and new (online) analytical software are expanding dialectometry's remit and its accessibility.
Abstract
This study uses a generalized additive mixed-effects regression model to predict lexical differences in Tuscan dialects with respect to standard Italian. We used lexical information for 170 concepts used by 2,060 speakers in 213 locations in Tuscany. In our model, geographical position was found to be an important predictor, with locations more distant from Florence having lexical forms more likely to differ from standard Italian. In addition, the geographical pattern varied significantly for low- versus high-frequency concepts and older versus younger speakers. Younger speakers generally used variants more likely to match the standard language. Several other factors emerged as significant. Male speakers as well as farmers were more likely to use lexical forms different from standard Italian. In contrast, higher-educated speakers used lexical forms more likely to match the standard. The model also indicates that lexical variants used in smaller communities are more likely to differ from standard Italian. The impact of community size, however, varied from concept to concept. For a majority of concepts, lexical variants used in smaller communities are more likely to differ from the standard Italian form. For a minority of concepts, however, lexical variants used in larger communities are more likely to differ from standard Italian. Similarly, the effect of the other community- and speaker-related predictors varied per concept. These results clearly show that the model succeeds in teasing apart different forces influencing the dialect landscape and helps us to shed light on the complex interaction between the standard Italian language and the Tuscan dialectal varieties. In addition, this study illustrates the potential of generalized additive mixed-effects regression modeling applied to dialect data.
Patterns of language variation and underlying linguistic features: a new dialectometric approach
Book chapter In: Patricia Bianchi, Nicola De Blasi, Chiara De Caprio, & Francesco Montuori (eds.) La Variazione Nell'italiano e Nella Sua Storia. Varietà e Varianti Linguistiche e Testuali. Atti dell'XI Congresso SILFI. Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore (Società Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Italiana), pp. 879 - 89. [Note: not peer-reviewed].
Presentations
Statistics workshop for linguists
I frequently teach (invited) statistics courses for linguists focusing on mixed-effects regression and generalized additive modeling. The first technique, mixed-effects regression modeling, is the method of choice when analyzing linguistic data where subjects have provided data for multiple items (e.g., reaction times). The second technique, generalized additive (mixed) modeling (GAMs) is important as it allows to model complex non-linear relationships between predictors and the dependent variable (e.g., time-series data such as EEG data). I've been invited to teach these courses at (e.g.,) Cambridge, Montréal and Toulouse. Slides (which are regularly updated) of these courses can be found here. If you are interested in this type of statistics course (generally ranging from two to five days), you are welcome to contact me.
Upcoming presentations
- August 30 - 31, 2018: Generalized additive modeling for phonetics (invited), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für deutsche Sprache und Linguistik, Berlin, Germany.
- September 10 - 14, 2018: Dialectometry (invited), Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
- November 5, 2018: Generalized additive modeling to analyze articulatory data, Department of Information and Communication Engineering, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
- December 3, 2018: Generalized additive modeling, Centre for Language Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
- December 4, 2018: Tutorial on generalized additive modelling to analyze time-series data, 17th Speech Science and Technology Conference, Coogee, Australia.
- December 12, 2018: Generalized additive modeling, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Past invited presentations
- (Mixed-effects) regression and generalized additive modeling (invited course). Universität Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany, May 3 - 4, 2018.
- Statistics for Linguistics (invited course). LOT Winter School, Amsterdam, January 8 - 12, 2018.
- Generalized additive modeling (invited presentation). Institut für Phonetik und Sprachverarbeitung, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany, December 20, 2017.
- Generalized additive modeling (invited presentation). Winter School on Multilingualism, Groningen, November 9 - 10, 2017.
- Quantitative analyses of dialect variation (invited presentation). Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam, October 24, 2017.
- Discovering articulatory patterns using generalized additive modeling (invited presentation). Dynamic Modeling III workshop, Cologne, Germany, July 18 - 19, 2017.
- Generalized additive modeling as a useful tool for dialectometry (invited presentation). Sociolectometry Panel, ICLaVE, Málaga, Spain, June 6 - 9, 2017.
- Statistics for linguists in R (invited course). Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Pisa, Italy, May 2 - 5, 2017.
- Mixed-effects regression and generalized additive modeling (invited course). Centre de Recherche Cerveau & Cognition, Toulouse, France, March 30 - 31, 2017.
- Using generalized additive modeling for analyzing articulography data (and other time series data) (invited presentation). 5th International Winterschool "Speech Perception and Production", Chorin, Germany, January 9 - 13, 2017.
- Modeling the influence of geography in dialect variation (invited presentation). FLAMES-colloquium "Topics for Spatial Statistics", Leuven, Belgium, November 28, 2016.
- Investigating language variation quantitatively (invited presentation). EuroScience Open Forum 2016, Manchester, United Kingdom, July 23 - 27, 2016.
- Pronunciation variation on the tip of the tongue (invited presentation). BCN Winter meeting, Groningen, February 11, 2016.
- Investigating language variation using articulography (invited presentation). Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, October 13, 2015.
- Generalized additive modeling (invited course). McGill, Neurocognition of Language Lab, Montréal, Canada, March 20 - 22, 2015.
- Mixed-effects regression and generalized additive modeling for linguists (invited course). Universität Tübingen, Englisches Seminar, Tübingen, Germany, February 9 - 10, 2015.
- Mixed-effects regression and generalized additive modeling for linguists (invited course). Universität Oldenburg, Institut für Niederlandistik, Oldenburg, Germany, February 2 - 3, 2015.
- Mixed-effects regression and generalized additive modeling for linguists (invited course). University of Cambridge, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Cambridge, United Kingdom, January 13 - 14, 2015.
- Methods in Dialectometry (invited presentation). Ghent University, Department of Linguistics, Ghent, Belgum, October 16, 2014.
- Comparing pronunciations on the basis of transcriptions and articulography (invited presentation). Radboud University, Centre for Language Studies, Nijmegen, October 15, 2014.
- What the tongue can tell us about dialects? (invited presentation). Frontiers of Language Variation Workshop, Methods in Dialectology XV, Groningen, August 11 - 14, 2014.
- Generalized additive modeling for linguists (invited course). University Leiden, Center of Linguistics, Leiden, July 10 - 11, 2014.
- Mixed-effects regression and generalized additive modeling for linguists (invited course). Universität Oldenburg, Institut für Niederlandistik, Oldenburg, Germany, June 30 - July 1, 2014.
- Introduction to mixed-effects regression for (psycho)linguists (invited presentation). IMS Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany, December 16, 2013.
- Integrating traditional dialectology and sociolinguistics: generalized additive modeling (invited presentation). New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 42, Pittsburgh, USA, October 17 - 20, 2013 [with R. Harald Baayen].
- Inducing and using phonetic similarity (invited presentation). Language Diversity Conference, Groningen, July 20, 2013 [with John Nerbonne].
- A sociolinguistic analysis of linguistically sensitive dialectal word pronunciation distances (invited presentation). Workshop on Computational Approaches to the Study of Dialectal and Typological Variation, ESSLLI 2012, Opole, Poland, August 6 - 10, 2012.
- Mixed-effects regression analyses of eyetracking data (invited presentation). Eye-tracking and EEG workshop, Groningen, July 7, 2011.
Past presentations
- Introductory course on Advanced Regression Methods for Linguistics (course). ESSLLI 2018, Sofia, Bulgaria, August 6 - 10, 2018.
- Articulatory differences between L1 and L2 speakers of English (presentation). Conference on Multilingualism, Groningen, November 6 - 9, 2017.
- Articulatory differences between L1 and L2 speakers of English (presentation). 11th International Seminar on Speech Production, Tianjin, China, October 16 - 19, 2017.
- Dialect-specific articulatory settings (presentation). Methods in Dialectology XVI, Tokyo, Japan, August 7 - 11, 2017.
- Articulatory differences between L1 and L2 speakers of English (poster presentation). 7th International Conference on Speech Motor Control, Groningen, July 5 - 8, 2017.
- Determinants of English Accents (presentation). 6th Conference on Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics, Tübingen, Germany, November 4 - 6, 2015.
- Taalvariatie: patronen in uitspraak en tongbewegingen (guest lecture). De Jonge Akademie meeting, Groningen, September 21, 2015.
- Investigating dialectal differences using articulography (poster presentation). 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Glasgow, United Kingdom, August 10 - 14, 2015.
- Analyzing time series data using generalized additive modeling (course). LSA Institute, Chicago, USA, July 6 - 17, 2015 [with Jacolien van Rij].
- Measuring foreign accent strength (guest lecture). University of Cambridge, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Cambridge, United Kingdom, January 13, 2015.
- Patterns of language variation (guest lecture). Digital Humanities Day 2014, Groningen, October 31, 2014.
- Gabmap tutorial (guest lecture). Ghent University, Department of Linguistics, Ghent, Belgium, October 15, 2014.
- Comparing dialect and accented pronunciations on the basis of transcriptions and articulography (guest lecture). McGill, Center of Research on Brain, Language and Music, Montréal, Canada, September 18, 2014.
- Analyzing linguistic time-series data with generalized additive modeling in R: a case study using ERP data (guest lecture). McGill, Motor Control Laboratory, Montréal, Canada, September 17, 2014.
- Comparing dialect and accented pronunciations on the basis of transcriptions and articulography (guest lecture). Linguistic Data Consortium, Philadelphia, USA, September 12, 2014.
- Generalized additive models in R (guest lecture). Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, USA, September 9, 2014.
- Validating and using the PMI-based Levenshtein distance as a measure of foreign accent strength (poster presentation). Methods in Dialectology XV, Groningen, August 11 - 15, 2014 [best poster award].
- Accessing large dialect databases on RADAR (presentation). Methods in Dialectology XV, Groningen, August 11 - 14, 2014 [with Clive Upton].
- Large-scale analysis of articulatory trajectories using generalized additive modeling (poster presentation). 10th International Seminar on Speech Production, Cologne, Germany, May 5 - 8, 2014.
- Comparing pronunciations on the basis of transcriptions and articulography (guest lecture). University College London, Department of Speech Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, London, United Kingdom, April 8, 2014.
- Articulography for studying language variation (guest lecture). Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, USA, October 24, 2013.
- Articulography for studying language variation (guest lecture). City University New York, Speech Production, Acoustics and Perception Laboratory, New York, USA, October 16, 2013.
- A cognitively grounded measure of pronunciation distance (presentation). Donders Workshop, Radboud University, Nijmegen, September 23, 2013 - August 22, 2018.
- A cognitively grounded automatic measure of pronunciation distance (presentation). 5th Conference on Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics, Leuven, Belgium, September 12 - 14, 2013.
- Hierarchical spectral partitioning of bipartite graphs to cluster dialects and identify distinguishing features (guest lecture). Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Pisa, Italy, July 17, 2013.
- Comparing pronunciation on the basis of transcriptions and articulography (guest lecture). Università di Pisa, Dipartimento di Filologia, Letteratura e Linguistica, Pisa, Italy, July 16, 2013.
- Mixed-effects regression and generalized additive modeling in linguistics (course). LOT Summer School, Groningen, June 24 - 28, 2013 [with Jacolien van Rij].
- Co-clustering varieties and linguistic features using bipartite spectral graph partitioning (poster presentation). Forum Sprachvariation, Erlangen, Germany, October 14 - 15, 2012.
- Lexical differences between Tuscan dialects and standard Italian: a sociolinguistic analysis using generalized additive mixed modeling (presentation). Leuven Statistics Days, Leuven, Belgium, June 7 - 8, 2012.
- A quantitative investigation of English accents (poster presentation). BCN New Year's Meeting, Groningen, February 2, 2012 [best poster award].
- Segment distances and foreign accents (guest lecture). LOT Winter School, Tilburg, January 12, 2012.
- Gabmap tutorial (guest lecture). Göteborgs Universitet, Gothenburg, Sweden, October 26, 2011 [with John Nerbonne and Therese Leinonen].
- Inducing a measure of phonetic similarity from dialect variation (presentation). Workshop on Comparing Approaches to Measuring Linguistic Differences, Gothenburg, Sweden, October 24 - 25, 2011.
- A sociolinguistic analysis of aggregate dialect distances (presentation). Methods in Dialectology XIV, London (ON), Canada, August 1 - 5, 2011.
- A sociolinguistic analysis of dialect distances (poster presentation). BCN New Year's Meeting, Groningen, February 17, 2011.
- On the sublinear distribution of linguistic variation with respect to geography (presentation). Forum Sprachvariation, Erlangen, Germany, October 14 - 15, 2010.
- Dialectometry and hierarchical bipartite spectral graph partitioning (guest lecture). Makerere University, Department of Machine Learning, Kampala, Uganda, September 23, 2010.
- Text Manipulation and Hidden Markov Models (course). Makerere University, College of Computing and Information Sciences, Kampala, Uganda, September 20 - 22, 2010.
- Modelling geography's influence on language variation: calibrating linguistic measurements (presentation). Cultural Evolution in Spatially Structured Populations Conference, London, United Kingdom, September 13 - 15, 2010.
- Dialectometry in Groningen (guest lecture). University of Alberta, Department of Linguistics, Edmonton, Canada, August 11, 2010.
- Hierarchical bipartite spectral graph partitioning to cluster dialect varieties and determine their most important linguistic features (presentation). TextGraphs-5 ACL Workshop, Uppsala, Sweden, July 16, 2010.
- A graph-theoretic analysis of English dialects (presentation). Bloomsday 2010: Echoes of Albion Workshop, Groningen, June 16, 2010.
- On the sublinear distribution of linguistic variation with respect to geography (presentation). 31st TABU Dag, Groningen, June 3 - 4, 2010.
- Co-clustering varieties and linguistic features using bipartite spectral graph partitioning (presentation). Computational Linguistics in The Netherlands 20, Utrecht, February 5, 2010 - August 22, 2018.
- Understanding Séguy's law: on the sublinear distribution of linguistic variation with respect to geography (presentation). Past and Present Processes of Dialect Convergence: Data and Methods, Amsterdam, February 4, 2010 [with John Nerbonne].
- Bipartite spectral graph partitioning to co-cluster varieties and sound correspondences in dialectology (presentation). TextGraphs-4 ACL Workshop, Singapore, August 7, 2009.
- Tools for detecting geographical and structural affinities (presentation). Workshop on Small Tools for Cross-Linguistic Research, Utrecht, June 15 - 16, 2009.
- Evaluating the pairwise string alignment of pronunciation (presentation). EACL Workshop on Language Technology and Resources for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Education, Athens, Greece, March 30, 2009.
- Evaluation of pairwise string alignment methods (presentation). Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands 19, Groningen, January 22, 2009.
- Dialect pronunciation comparison using the Goeman-Taeldeman-Van Reenen-project data (presentation). Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands 17, Leuven, Belgium, January 12, 2007.
- Parsing partially bracketed input (presentation). Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands 16, Amsterdam, December 16, 2005.
- Gabor filtering augmented with surround inhibition for improved contour detection by texture suppression (poster presentation). 27th Annual Meeting of the European Conference on Visual Perception, Budapest, Hungary, August 22 - 26, 2004.
Outreach
Lowlands Science!
In August 2018, we investigated the influence of alcohol on native and non-native speech using ultrasound tongue imaging. It was an incredible experience and we were able to collect speech productiong for about 150 speakers during only three days! Below you can see an impression of this event. The event was covered by various national news media, including De Telegraaf, NPO Radio 1, NOS op 3 and Dagblad van het Noorden.
Seeing your tongue move
We enjoy demonstrating how we collect data on tongue and lip movement during speech. If you'd like a demonstration at your school or event, please contact me. Below you can see an impression of my team at the Experiment Event for children organized by De Jonge Akademie, the NS, the Spoorwegmuseum, and Quest Junior.
Comic about my research
Through a project grant of De Jonge Akademie, I was able to create a comic about my research (designed and drawn by Lorenzo Milito and Ruggero Montalto). You can view the comic below or download it here for free. Please contact me if you would like to receive a printed copy of the Dutch version of the comic (as long as supplies last).
The comic itself
Presentations for the general public
- Taalvariatie en taalverandering in Nederland (invited), CSG Guido de Brès, Amersfoort, March 10, 2017.
- My career as a scientist (invited), KEI to your future event, Groningen, August 16, 2016.
- Taalvariatie en taalverandering in Nederland (invited), Theatre festival Oerol, Terschelling, June 13, 2016.
- Taalvariatie op de tong, NWO Bessensap, Amsterdam, June 10, 2016.
- Het verstrijken van de taal, De Jonge Akademie interscience symposium "Tijd", Amsterdam, April 4, 2016 [with John Nerbonne].
- Van dialecten tot accenten: variatie en verandering in uitspraak en tongbewegingen, Nacht van de Kunst en Wetenschap (pop-up lecture), Groningen, June 6, 2015.
- Talkshow guest (invited), Stand van Stad, Groningen, September 28, 2014.
Popular science publications
- "Wie zeggen het vaakst EUHM? Jongens of meisjes?", Science box, Experiment Event, De Jonge Akademie, 2018.
- Several contributions (with others), Young Scientist Wetenschapskalender 2018, New Scientist.
- Martin & Emma investigate the Dutch dialect landscape, comic, The Young Academy, 2017. Available at http://www.martijnwieling.nl/comic.
- Martin & Emma onderzoeken het Nederlandse dialectlandschap, comic, De Jonge Akademie, 2017. Available at http://www.martijnwieling.nl/strip.
- "Gebruiken mensen hun ogen om te luisteren?", Wetenschapskalender kids 2017, New Scientist.
- "Dialectometrische indeling van de Nederlandse dialecten" (with Peter Kleiweg and John Nerbonne), Nicoline van der Sijs (ed.) Dialectatlas van het Nederlands, Prometheus Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, pp. 60-61, 2011.
News coverage of my research
About Lowlands Science
- RUG-wetenschappers onderzoeken op Lowlands of je met alcohol op beter bent in een vreemde taal (newspaper), Dagblad van het Noorden, August 20, 2018.
- 150 Lowlandsbezoekers lallen grenzeloos met Martijn Wieling (press release), University of Groningen, August 20, 2018.
- Interview about our Lowlands Science study (radio), RTV Noord: Spits op Noord, August 20, 2018.
- Interview about our Lowlands Science study (tv), RTV Noord: Noord Vandaag, August 20, 2018.
- Onderzoek op Lowlands: helpt alcohol bij taalgevoel? (newspaper), De Telegraaf, August 18, 2018.
- Live interview at Lowlands Science (radio), Omroep Flevoland, August 17, 2018.
- Veldonderzoek op Lowlands: spreek je beter Engels met een slok op? (radio), NPO Radio 1, August 17, 2018.
- Babbelen dronken Lowlandsgangers vlotter Engels? (online), NOS op 3, August 17, 2018.
- Met een drankje op spreek je veel beter een vreemde taal (radio), FUNX, August 13, 2018.
- Spraakecho met dubbele tong (newspaper), Dagblad van het Noorden, August 9, 2018.
- Spreekt een Nederlander met een slok op vloeiend(er) Engels? (newspaper), Trouw, August 8, 2018.
- Does being drunk improve your foreign language skills? (online), The Northern Times, August 8, 2018.
- Interview about Lowlands Science (radio), NPO Radio 2: Rabbering Laat, August 6, 2018.
- Ben je beter in een vreemde taal als je dronken bent? (online), Dagblad van het Noorden, August 6, 2018.
- Interview about Lowlands Science (radio), RTV Noord: Babette op Noord, August 3, 2018.
- Dubbele tong in beeld (online), NewScientist, July 31, 2018.
- Engels lallen op Lowlands (online), De Telegraaf, July 17, 2018.
- Interview about Lowlands Science (radio), Omroep Flevoland: Nieuws, June 21, 2018.
- Grenzeloos lallen met Martijn Wieling op Lowlands Science (press release), University of Groningen, June 21, 2018.
About my comic
- Taalwetenschapper verstript zijn onderzoek (newspaper), Dagblad van het Noorden, December 8, 2017.
- Wetenschap als stripavontuur (online), Universiteitskrant, December 6, 2017.
- RUG onderzoeker presenteert onderzoek in stripvorm (TV), OOG TV, December 4, 2017.
- Een strip over dialectonderzoek (online), Neerlandistiek, December 4, 2017.
- Strip over dialectonderzoek Martijn Wieling (press release), University of Groningen, December 4, 2017.
About articulography
- Noordelijk dialect praat je achter in de mond (online), Neerlandistiek, January 31, 2017.
- Prijs voor tongbewegingen (online), Kennislink, July 27, 2016.
- Tongpositie verklaart buitenlands accent (newspaper), Dagblad van het Noorden, September 5, 2015.
- Hoe bewegen tong en lippen bij het spreken? (magazine), New Scientist, September 1, 2015.
- Tongpositie verklaart buitenlands accent (newspaper), Het Parool, August 29, 2015.
- Interview (radio), NPO Radio 1: Nieuwsshow, May 16, 2015.
- Interview (radio), RTV Emmen: Call it a day, May 13, 2015.
- Interview (radio), NPO Radio 1: WNL - Nog steeds wakker, May 13, 2015.
- Interview (radio), RTV Noord Holland: Spitstijd, May 12, 2015.
- Het dialectverschil zit 'm in de tong (TV), RTV Noord: Noord Vandaag, May 12, 2015.
- Dialectverschillen zien (TV), Omproep Max (NPO 2): Hallo Nederland & Tijd voor Max, May 12, 2015.
- Interview (radio), Simone FM: De Vos is Los!, May 12, 2015.
- Dialectverschil komt door de tong (TV), RTV Drenthe, Drenthe Nu, May 12, 2015.
- Dialectverschil heeft alles te maken met de tong (radio), NPO Radio 5: Plein 5, May 12, 2015.
- Dialect is niet alleen te horen maar ook te zien (radio), BNR Nieuwsradio: BNR B.L.T., May 12, 2015.
- Het dialectverschil zit 'm in de tong (radio), RTV Noord: Vroeg op Noord, May 12, 2015.
- Interview (radio), Q-music: Mattie en Wietze, May 12, 2015.
- Groningse tong staat anders dan een Gelderse (online), Nederlands Dagblad, May 12, 2015.
- Dialecten beginnen bij de tong, waarschijnlijk ook in Amsterdam (online), Het Parool, May 12, 2015.
- Dit is waarom jouw Engels niet goed klinkt (online), NOS op 3, May 12, 2015.
- Nieuw gezicht (newspaper), De Volkskrant, May 9, 2015.
- Wetenschap: de mysteries van de spraak (radio), NPO Radio 1: NOS - Wetenschap op woensdag, April 8, 2015.
- Experiment met de articulograaf (online), Universiteitskrant, March 31, 2014.
- Revealing the tip of the... tongue (newsletter), BCN Newsletter, March 1, 2014.
- Tong en lippen bepalen uitspraak (online), Unifocus, January 8, 2014.
- 'Ik heb meteen een sollicitatie afgezegd' (online), Universiteitskrant, September 2, 2013.
- Drent onderzoekt hardheid 'g' in Ter Apel (newspaper), Dagblad van het Noorden, March 7, 2013.
- Hoe hard is de harde g precies in Ter Apel? (newspaper), Dagblad van het Noorden, March 6, 2013.
- Plat praten met sensor op de tong (newspaper), Dagblad van het Noorden, March 5, 2013.
About the critical period in second language acquisition
- There is no critical period for learning a second language, kids just have more free time and motivation (online), Medical Daily, February 9, 2016.
- At what age is it easiest to learn a second language? (online), The Conversation, February 8, 2016.
- The best age to learn a second language (online), The Independent, February 8, 2016.
- Geen kritische periode voor leren tweede taal (online), Kennislink.nl, February 5, 2016.
- Nieuw onderzoek: geen harde leeftijdsgrens voor het leren van grammatica (online), Genootschap Onze Taal, January 19, 2016.
About the UH/UM distinction
- Zeg eens 'ehm' (newspaper), De Standaard, January 6, 2017.
- De stille opmars van ...ehm (newspaper), NRC & nrc.next, January 5, 2017.
- Afscheid van 'eh' (online), Vrij Nederland (vn.nl), August 21, 2015.
- Uh, why do we say um? (online), Braindecoder, August 12, 2015.
- Wetenschap: de mysteries van de spraak (radio), NPO Radio 1: NOS - Wetenschap op woensdag, April 8, 2015.
- Verschil tussen 'eh' en 'ehm' (radio), NPO Radio 1: NOS - Met het oog op morgen, February 8, 2015.
- Why we are saying 'uh' less and 'um' more (online), BBC, February 8, 2015.
- Are we witnessing the death of 'uh'? [...] (radio), Public Radio International, February 5, 2015.
- Things that make you go 'um' (online), The Atlantic, November 17, 2014.
- Zeg eens uh en ik zeg wie je bent (newspaper), De Morgen, October 8, 2014.
- UH / UM in Norwegian (online, guest post), Language Log, October 8, 2014.
- Trending in the Media: Um, not exactly... (online), Language Log, October 7, 2014.
- Stuck for words? How saying 'um' or 'er' in conversation [...] (online), Daily Mail, October 6, 2014.
- Men are from 'er' and women are from 'um' [...] (online), Daily Mail, October 6, 2014.
- Ah: Sounds to signal hesitation are part of our linguistic heritage (online), The Times, October 6, 2014.
- Um or er: which do you, um, use more in, er, conversation? (online), The Guardian, October 6, 2014.
- To um or to er? Studies probe how brains fill the speech-thought gap (online), The Times, October 4, 2014.
- UM / UH in German (online, guest post), Language Log, September 29, 2014.
- Um and Uh in Dutch (online, invited guest post), Language Log, September 16, 2014.
(Note that especially the English news coverage in 2014 got many details wrong, see this Language Log post.)
About dialectometry
- New linguistic tools can predict your dialect characteristics (online), LSA press release, September 24, 2014.
- Uitspraakverschillen (newspaper), Leeuwarder Courant, September 17, 2011.
Miscellaneous
- Jonge onderzoekers in de sociale- en geesteswetenschappen vallen buiten de boot: subsidies beperkt (newspaper), de Volkskrant, July 4, 2018.
- NWO-beurs: extensie van extensieregel' (online), U-Today, May 4, 2018.
- NWO helpt ook vaders zorgen (online), Universiteitskrant, May 1, 2018.
- NWO geeft voortaan alle ouders langer de tijd voor een aanvraag (online), Science Guide, April 30, 2018.
- Datasets beschikbaar via RUG onderzoeksdatabase (online), Pictogram, March 1, 2018.
- Opinie: "Zorg zelf voor diversiteit uraad!" (online), Universiteitskrant, February 7, 2017.
- Martijn Wieling wint prestigieuze European Young Researchers Award (press release), University of Groningen, May 4, 2016.
- European Young Researchers Award: the EYRA 2016 laureates (online), EuroScience, May 3, 2016.
- Promoveren werkt, maar hoe lang nog? (online; with Sicco de Knecht), ScienceGuide, April 19, 2016.
- The future of science: Harder, better, faster? (newsletter), BCN Newsletter, December 1, 2015.
- SZW benadeelt jong talent in R&D (online), ScienceGuide, October 23, 2015.
- Snel een aardbeving detecteren met Twitter (magazine), I/O Magazine, September 1, 2015.
- Ook niet-hoogleraren moeten promotor kunnen zijn (newspaper), NRC, April 28, 2015.
- Presentation at the general meeting of De Jonge Akademie (online), De Jonge Akademie, March 31, 2015.
- The fruits of your labors (online), Language Log, July 26, 2013.
- Rating American English accents (online), Language Log, May 19, 2012.
Miscellaneous
Some interests outside of academia
- Spending time with my family (2015: Emma, 2018: David)
- Travelling to see a bit of the world (see map)
- Playing squash
- Microlight flying
- Digital photography
- Reading, especially fantasy books
- Going to concerts or music festivals
- Playing various computer, board and card games
Some useful resources
- Price list of dissertation printing companies (created in March 2017)
- Automatic summarizer (in Java) for Dutch and English scientific documents (manual and license)
- Online Gabor filter for image processing and computer vision
- Online Canny edge detector (Canny filter) for image processing and computer vision