QLVL members - Dirk Speelman
Dirk Speelman (°1965) is assistant professor at the Department of Linguistics. He studied Classical Languages (Leuven) and Information Technology (Leuven). From 1991 up to 1996 Dirk worked at the Department of Linguistics as a research assistant in general linguistics. In that period he worked towards his PhD and started developing didactic software. In 1997 he received his PhD in Linguistics from the University of Leuven, after which he took up the function of information technologist at the Department of Linguistics. In 2002 he became part-time and in 2009 he became full-time assistant professor. He teaches courses on corpus linguistics and quantitative methods in linguistics.
E-mail: dirk.speelman@arts.kuleuven.be
Phone: ++32 16 32 48 24
Fax: ++32 16 32 47 67
Surface mail: Department of Linguistics, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21 PO
Box 03308, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium
Office: room 02.41 of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Leuven
Research
The main topic of Dirk's PhD thesis was the design and development of research software in support of corpus-based variational linguistics (supervisor: Dirk Geeraerts). The methods supported by the software were originally conceived within the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics, but their application is not restriced to this framework.
His main research interest lies in the fields of corpus linguistics, computational lexicology and variational linguistics in general. Much of his work focuses on methodology and on the application of statistical and other quantitative methods to the study of language.
Representative publications
The following publications are representative of Dirk's research. The rest of his published work can be found in the QLVL publication list.
Speelman, Dirk, Stefan Grondelaers & Dirk Geeraerts. 2008. "Variation in the choice of adjectives in the two main national varieties of Dutch". In G. Kristiansen and R. Dirven (eds.) Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Language Variation, Cultural Models, Social Systems 205-233. Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Speelman, Dirk, Stefan Grondelaers & Dirk Geeraerts. 2006. "A profile-based calculation of region and register variation: the synchronic and diachronic status of the two main national varieties of Dutch". In Andrew Wilson, Dawn Archer & Paul Rayson (red.), Corpus Linguistics around the World 195-202. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Speelman, Dirk, Stefan Grondelaers & Dirk Geeraerts. 2003. "Profile-based linguistic uniformity as a generic method for comparing language varieties". Computers and the Humanities 37: 317-337.
