Dediu, Dan – ICREA Memoir 2021

Dan Dediu

Universitat de Barcelona

Humanities

I always liked computers, so I first studied Mathematics and Computer Science (1993-1997) and I worked as a software engineer (1997-2004). But humans also fascinate me, so I started studying Psychology (1996-1998) and I hold an MSc in Neurobiology and Behaviour (2000-2002). In 2007 I obtained a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh (2004-2007), followed by a series of postdoctoral positions in Edinburgh (ESRC UK, 2007-2008) and at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (2008-2017), the latter including an NWO VIDI grant (2012-2017). In 2017 I moved to Lyon, first as EURIAS Fellow of the Collegium de Lyon (2017-2018) and then as an IDEXLyon Fellow with the Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage, Université Lyon 2 (2018-2021), where I obtained my Habilitation (2021). In October 2021 I became ICREA Research Professor with the University of Barcelona.

Research interests

My research is quite diverse, including the processes that shape linguistic diversity, the origins and evolution of language in the context of human evolution, and the application of quantitative and computational methods to the language sciences. In particular, I have been focusing on studying the influence of non-linguistic factors on linguistic diversity, such as the effect of vocal tract anatomy on phonetics and phonology, the effect of the bio-physical environment on language spread and on the color vocabulary, and of population genetics on linguistic tone, using statistics and computer modelling. I have been arguing that language and speech are an old feature of our evolutionary lineage, being shared, in some form, with our cousins, the Neanderthals and the Denisovans.

Selected research activities

Publications and activities in 2021 prior to my ICREA position:

Josserand, M.; Meeussen, E.; Majid, A. & Dediu, D. 2021, ‘Environment and culture shape both the colour lexicon and the genetics of colour perception‘, Scientific Reports, vol. 11, no. 1, pp 19095. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-98550-3
Dediu, D.; Moisik, S.R.; Baetsen, W.A.; Bosman, A.M. & Waters-Rist, A.L. 2021, ‘The vocal tract as a time machine: inferences about past speech and language from the anatomy of the speech organs‘, Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B-biological Sciences, vol. 376, no. 1824, pp 20200192, doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0192.
Josserand, M.; Allassonnière-Tang, M.; Pellegrino, F. & Dediu, D. 2021, ‘Interindividual variation refuses to go away: a Bayesian computer model of language change in communicative networks’, Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 12, pp 2176, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.626118.
Dediu, D. 2021, ‘Tone and genes: New cross-linguistic data and methods support the weak negative effect of the “derived” allele of ASPM on tone, but not of Microcephalin‘, PLoS ONE, vol. 16, no 6, pp e0253546, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0253546.
Ćwiek, A.; Fuchs, S.; Draxler, C.; Asu, E.L.; Dediu, D.; Hiovain, K.; Kawahara, S.; Koutalidis, S.; Krifka, M.; Lippus, P.; Lupyan, G.; Oh, G.E.; Paul, J.; Petrone, C.; Ridouane, R.; Reiter, S.; Schümchen, N.; Szalontai, Á.; Ünal‑Logacev, Ö.; Zeller, J.; Winter, B. & Perlman, M. 2021, ‘Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures‘, Scientific Reports, vol. 11, no. 1, pp 10108, doi:10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4.

Supervision and mentoring: I supervised 1 Master student, 3 PhD students, I mentored 1 Postdoctoral researcher (Université Lyon 2), and I was a member in 2 PhD defense committees (University of Barcelona and Radboud University Nijmegen).

Editorial activity and reviewing: besides being Executive editor of the Journal of Language Evolution and on the editorial board of Linguistic Typology, I reviewed 7 journal articles and 2 grant/fellowship applications.