Amalia Arvaniti, Professor of English Language and Linguistics (CLS), has been awarded a Visiting Professorship by the Dutch Scientific Institutes Abroad (NWIB). With this grant, she will be working on the project Documenting and Understanding Post-Diglossic Greek at the Netherlands Institute in Athens (NIA) from mid-March to mid-June 2027.
The project focuses on documenting and understanding post-diglossic Greek: the unique linguistic situation that has emerged in Greece following the abolition of diglossia in 1976. Diglossia is a phenomenon in which speakers use one variant as their mother tongue and a significantly different variant, which they can only learn through education, for formal purposes, with a strict separation between the use of both variants. Amalia will investigate how political choices, social developments and public perceptions of correct language use have shaped the contemporary Greek sound system. Central to this endeavour is how elements from both the vernacular (Dimotiki) and the former formal standard language (Katharevousa) converge in Modern Greek.
The research combines bibliographic study, analysis of spontaneous speech, ethnographic observations and perception experiments to gain insight into the interplay between language change and social dynamics. The results will culminate in a scholarly monograph that will not only provide a current description of Greek phonetics and phonology, but will also demonstrate how socio-historical developments can have a lasting influence on a language. In doing so, the project makes an important contribution to both Greek linguistics and the broader field of research into language change and language policy.
I am really grateful for this visiting professorship, which offers me a unique opportunity to return to a much delayed project on Greek phonetics and phonology, branch out into a new area of research on language change, and share my findings with colleagues in NIA and Athens during my stay. I am very much looking forward to it and to seeing the resulting volume in print. – Amalia Arvaniti
About the Visiting Professorship
The Visiting Professorship is designed to offer researchers and university professors the opportunity to conduct research on a temporary basis, give lectures and contribute to the intellectual climate of one of the Dutch Scientific Institutes Abroad (NWIB). The NWIB are located in Rome, Florence, Athens, St Petersburg and Cairo.
We warmly congratulate Amalia on this recognition and look forward to the results of this inspiring project.