J.M.M. Brown
I’m a maître assistante in English linguistics based at the University of Lausanne.
My work explores how the search for meaning changes the systems we use to communicate, using insights and tools from formal syntax, digital humanities and cognitive psychology.
Before coming to Lausanne, I trained in cognitive science with the psychologist Reinhold Kliegl at the University of Potsdam, where I was a member of the SFB in language variability and a visiting lecturer in linguistics at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Before that, I did degrees in linguistics at UCL and Cambridge.
Are you a student at the University of Lausanne? You can find more information about the courses I teach and about mémoire supervision here.
Current events Swiss team leader for the International Linguistics Olympiad in Bulgaria https://ioling.org
Current events Swiss team leader for the International Linguistics Olympiad in Bulgaria https://ioling.org
New paper Wierzba, M., Brown, J., & Fanselow, G. (2023). The syntactic flexibility of German and English idioms: Evidence from acceptability rating experiments. Journal of Linguistics, 1-38. doi:10.1017/S0022226723000105
Preprints The syntactic flexibility of German and English idioms / Middle ratings rise regardless of grammatical construction / Blackholes and subextraction from adjuncts in English and Norwegian
Research by project Change and satiation within rating studies / Flexible Idioms / Structural Couplets and locality / Individual differences and varieties of German / Training ungrammatical constructions / CICEL: a theory of Change in Computational and Experimental Linguistics / Age Grading in rating studies / Artificial Language Learning in L1 and L2 / Comparing Complexity in the Copy-Construction / Commentary
Current courses
I’m on research leave in Autumn 2023
Upcoming courses
- Topics in Syntax, Spring 2024
- Second language learning and variation in English, Spring 2024
- Topics in Digital linguistics, Spring 2024
Past courses
- Second language learning and variation in English, SoSe 2023 University of Lausanne
- Grammatical change, WiSe 2022 University of Lausanne
- Psycholinguistics, WiSe 2022 University of Lausanne
- Topics in Digital Linguistics, SoSe 2022 University of Lausanne
- Multilingualism and older Englishes, WiSe 2021-22 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and University of Lausanne
- Second language learning and variation in English, WiSe 2021 University of Lausanne and SoSe 2021 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
- Morphology, WiSe 2020-21 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
- Processes of language change, SoSe 2020 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
- History and varieties of English, SoSe 2019 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Bio Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Yale University, August 2023(-) / Maître assistante (lecturer) in English linguistics, University of Lausanne, September 2021-present / Visiting lecturer in English linguistics, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 2019-2022 / Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin in cognitive sciences, University of Potsdam SFB Language Variability, 2017-August 2021 / PhD Linguistics, Cambridge
Email: jessica.brown@unil.ch
Office: Room 5119, Anthropôle