Dr L.M. Rojas Berscia (Luis Miguel)

I currently focus on the dynamics behind language emergence, diversification an obsolescence, as well as on the communicative place of lects in Western and non-Western linguistic ecologies. My work draws on first-hand data collected in the Amazon (Peru-Brazil), the Great Sandy Desert (Australia), Yilan County (Taiwan), Tierra del Fuego (Argentina-Chile), and, most recently, the city of Nijmegen (the Netherlands).

My current research interests are: Spanish lects spoken in the Bajo Huallaga region, the communicative place of Nimwèègs (the local language of Nijmegen) in the linguistic landscape of Nijmegen, the meaning of 'language loss', psychophytonymy (ayahuasca ritualistic lexicon in the Amazon), transcultural communication, as well as Indigenous anthroponymy.

I have a background in field sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, contact linguistics, formal syntax (Semantic Syntax), thanatology and TCFL (Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language).

• How are language systems structured and how do they evolve?

• Grammar & Cognition