Bas Aarts

Bas Aarts is a Professor of English Linguistics at the University College London (UCL) since 2003, where he has been Director of the Survey of English Usage (SEU) since 1997. His work bridges theoretical syntax, corpus linguistics, and educational innovation, focusing on English verbal syntax, grammatical gradience, and corpus-driven grammar teaching. He co-founded the journal English Language and Linguistics and was its Editor until 2012.

• PhD and MA in English Linguistics from UCL, MA and BA from University of Utrecht
• Co-developer of ICE-GB and DCPSE corpora
• Principal investigator for major grants from AHRC, ESRC, EPSRC, and Nuffield Foundation

His research on synchronic and diachronic syntax has produced seminal works including English Syntax and Argumentation (over 65,000 copies sold) and Syntactic Gradience. He pioneered Englicious, a web-based platform for school grammar teaching, with associated apps and FutureLearn courses. Recent work explores predicative constructions and adjective clause categorization.

Scientific recognition includes:

• Election to Academia Europaea (2024)
• Shortlisted for UCL’s Spirit of Enterprise Award (2015, 2017)