Dr Dagmar Divjak

BA (KULeuven, Belgium), MA (KULeuven, Belgium), Academic Teacher Training (KULeuven, Belgium), Specialization in Polish Language and Culture (UJ Krakow, Poland), PhD (KULeuven, Belgium), Lecturer in Slavic Languages and Linguistics

Photo: Dr Dagmar Divjak

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)114 222 7401

email : d.divjak@sheffield.ac.uk

Biography

After obtaining my PhD in Russian Linguistics from the KULeuven in 2004, I spent one year at the UNC at Chapel Hill (USA, 2004-2005) and one year at the University of Stockholm (Sweden, 2005-2006) as a Postdoctoral Fellow specializing in Slavic Comparative Linguistics.

I joined the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Sheffield (UK) in September 2006 as a Lecturer in Slavic Languages and Linguistics.

Research interests

My focus on verbs at the grammar-lexis interface has led me to explore how the category of Russian and Polish verbs that combine with an infinitive (e.g. I´ve always wanted to be a linguist) is structured and what that structure reveals about the way in which complex events are conceptualized. I have also worked on groups of near-synonymous verbs in Russian (e.g. try, attempt, endeavor), analyzing these verbs as overlapping yet at the same time distinct conceptual systems that form complex categories. A monograph on this topic is currently under consideration with Mouton de Gruyter. My ongoing research looks at how the lexical meaning of the verb and the grammatical meaning of imperfective and perfective aspect interact in assigning aspect to complex event structures in Slavic. Papers on this topic are forthcoming in the journal Russian Linguistics as well as in collections on Usage-based Cognitive Semantics and Slavic Linguistics in a Cognitive Framework.

I am also interested in linguistic methodology as such; this has inspired me to combine corpus-driven and experimental techniques in my research, to do research on the convergence/divergence between corpus and experimental data and to co-organize and co-teach masterclasses on corpus methodology (University of Chicago masterclass, UCSB bootcamp) and experimental linguistics (University of Sheffield masterclass).

I welcome PhD proposals from students wanting to work on lexical or constructional semantics in Russian and/or Polish from a corpus-based and/or experimental perspective within a cognitive linguistic framework.

Recent publications

  • 2009 (forthcoming) "Mapping Between Domains. The Aspect-Modality Interaction in Russian". Russian Linguistics.

  • 2008. "On (in)frequency and (un)acceptability". In: Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (ed.), Corpus Linguistics, Computer Tools and Applications - State of the Art. Frankfurt a. Main: Peter Lang, 213-233. [Lodz Studies in Language]

  • 2008. "Clusters in the Mind? Converging evidence from near-synonmymy in Russian". The Mental Lexicon, 3 (2): 188-213 (With St. Th. Gries)

  • 2007. Cognitive Paths into the Slavic Domain. Berlin – New York: Mouton de Gruyter [Cognitive Linguistics Research] (Co-edited with Agata Kochańska)

  • 2006. "Ways of Trying in Russian: Clustering Behavioral Profiles". Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 2(1): 23-60. (With St. Th. Gries)

  • 2006. "Ways of Intending: Delineating and Structuring Near-Synonyms". In St. Gries and A. Stefanowitsch (eds.), Corpora in cognitive linguistics. Vol. 2: The syntax-lexis interface, 19-56. Berlin & New York: Mouton De Gruyter.

Recent lectures and presentations

  • "Modeling aspectual choice in Polish modal constructions. A corpus-based quest for the holy grail?" QITL 3, Helsinki (Finland), June 2-4 2008.

  • "Co motywuje wybór aspektu w konstrukcjach modalnych typu można, wolno, trzeba, należy itp." Językoznawstwo kognitywne Łódź 2008, Łódź (Poland), 24-26 April 2008.

  • "Quantifying the Interaction between Modality and Aspect in Slavic Languages." ICLC 2007, Krakow (Poland), 15-20 July 2007.

  • How Words Contrive to/and Constrain Constructions in Russian. AFLICO 2007, Lille (France), 10-12 May 2007.

  • Where Do Native Speaker Judgments Come from? The Case of [Vfin Vinf] in Polish. PALC 2007, Lodz (Poland), April 19-22, 2007.

  • Witnessing a system collapse. The expression of complex events in Russian vs Polish. BASEES 2007, Cambridge (UK), March 31-April 2, 2007.

Research students currently supervised

  • Luděk Knittl (co-supervised with Neil Bermel)

Teaching

Linguistics, in collaboration with Neil Bermel and Katya Chown

  • RUS3622 Structures of Russian
  • RUS3633 The Russian language and Russian society

Polish, in collaboration with Karolina Ziolo

  • RUS123/124 and RUS 309/310 Polish Language and Culture for Beginners: grammar and exercises
  • RUS250 Readings in Polish Culture
  • RUS350/351 Intermediate Polish: grammar and exercises
  • RUS383/384 Varieties of Polish: grammar and exercises
  • RUS6570 Directed Reading in Polish Translation and Contrastive Analysis

Russian, in collaboration with Linda Hanna and Marianna Ivanova

  • RUS103/104 Russian for Beginners: exercises on grammar
  • RUS105/106 and 207/208: grammar