Marcin Opacki

Basic information

Position: assistant professor

Field: linguistics

Specializations: generative syntax, corpus linguistics, psycholinguistics

E-mail: <marcin.opacki@wn.uw.edu.pl>

Office Address: Faculty of Modern Languages, UW, ul. Dobra 55, 00-312 Warsaw, Poland, Room: 3.237

 

Academic profile

I am a linguist and an assistant professor at the Faculty of Modern Languages, University of Warsaw. My research interests are founded upon three pillars: theoretical linguistics (syntax and syntactic theories), natural language processing (corpus linguistics), and psycholinguistics (grammaticality judgements, cross-linguistic influence, bilingualism, and SLA).

One can say that I am mainly interested in how linguistic knowledge and linguistic information can be represented through the use of descriptive grammars. I am also interested in rule- and constraint-based systems in general. I consider experimental research a crucial proving ground for linguistic theories, a much needed bridge between the empirical and the rational, hence my participation in the LingLab team.

 

Research interests

Some overarching questions that define my academic exploits include:

• How do the various structures (“layers”) of natural language (e.g. syntax, semantics, pragmatics) constrain and regulate each other?
• What factors contribute to the perception of grammaticality, well-formedness, and acceptability?
• To what extent are they related to cross-linguistic influence and prior language knowledge?
• How can we use linguistic theories of grammar to operationalize the abstract structures of natural language for the purpose of linguistic research?
• How do different methods of operationalization (especially the aforementioned descriptive grammars) influence construct validity?

 

Past work

Throughout my career as a linguist, I have been involved in several research projects funded by a variety of agencies and consortia. These have included work on the following:

• Walenty: the Polish Valency Dictionary (CESAR, NEKST, CLARIN-ERIC)
• a study of the language of bilingual migrant children (NPRH)
• the development of a framework for CLIL in vocational education and training (Erasmus+)
• an evaluation of language teaching in Polish primary schools (BENJA),
• the development of a staff training program in computational linguistics for academics (NCBiR)
• the development of a CLIL-based program that fosters critical thinking aimed at Polish high school students (NCBiR)

 

Current work

Currently, I am working on:

• a corpus-based and psycholinguistic investigation of control and raising phenomena in Polish
• a study of the language abilities of children affected by Angelman Syndrome
• applications of Generative Pre-trained Transformers in a CLIL-based language classroom
• a longitudinal corpus investigation of language learner writing skills
• a cross-sectional corpus investigation of language change in Polish

Published lab-related work can be found in the publications section of this site, while an up-to-date list of my exploits and employment history is available via the various links below.