News

RusVectōrēs is a web service for distributional semantics created at the School of Linguistics. The service allows users to play with distributional semantic models (a.k.a. word embeddings) right in the browser. Last year we added lots of new features, and we are happy to share the news with you.

Frank Fisher, Associate Professor in the School of Linguistics, moved to HSE in 2016, having previously worked at Göttingen Centre for Digital Humanities. Since then he has helped found HSE's own Centre for Digital Humanities, participated in a summer school on digital literary research, started a junior research group and became a co-director of DARIAH, a pan-European research infrastructure. In the interview Frank talks about the benefits of being a researcher at HSE and describes his own research activities and plans.

Three new novels are now available on the Living Pages app library: Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, The Captain's Daughter by Alexander Pushkin, and The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov. The app was developed by the HSE School of Linguistics together with Samsung and experts from Tolstoy Digital group.

In 2017, we expect neurolinguisitcs to continue developing such applications as standardized tests for speech deficiencies. Furthermore, there should be further joint work among neurolinguists and surgeons, as well as new emerging neurolinguistics-oriented therapeutic studies with the application of various neurovisualizational methods.

In the end of November the School of Linguistics hosted the Uslar Conference — an international event for scholars studying the Caucasian languages. Participants and organizers share their impressions below.

Dirk Geeraerts, a professor at the University of Leuven, talks about the advantages of linguistiс training at the Higher School of Econimics, the high level of interaction demonstrated by the students at the School of Linguistics, and the potential upcoming convergence of fundamental and applied linguistic research.

HSE’s Admission Rules for the 2017/2018 academic year have undergone some changes in regards to international admission. The admission track is now unified for students from both CIS and non-CIS countries. Thus, only two exams must be passed in order to be accepted into a given undergraduate programme, while competitions for Master’s programmes only require a portfolio and an interview. The rules for International Olympiad Competitions have also been changed. Registration for these competitions ends on October 18 (for some countries, deadlines may be extended).

Is it possible to learn a new language well enough in just two weeks to conduct linguistic research on it? This is an entirely standard practice for linguists, according to Sasha Kozhukhar and Liza Vostokova, both students in the Linguistic Theory and Language Description master’s programme. This past summer, Sasha and Liza went on an expedition to Guatemala to study Kaqchikel, an indigenous Mayan language.