معرفی
Matthew Baerman is a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Surrey, where he has been working since 1999, reaching the rank of Professor in 2022. His academic journey includes positions as Principal Research Fellow (2018-2022), Senior Research Fellow (2016-2018), and Research Fellow (1999-2016) at the same institution.
Professor Baerman's educational background is diverse, with a B.A. in Slavic Linguistics from Yale (1984), an M.Arch. from Harvard (1990), and a PhD in Slavic Linguistics from UC Berkeley (1999). His academic path included a seven-year interlude in architecture before returning to linguistics.
His research focuses on the typology, diachrony, and analysis of inflectional morphology, particularly examining patterns that display system-internal logic rather than strictly expressing meaning. His work encompasses both extensive cross-linguistic typological surveys involving hundreds of languages and detailed case studies of individual languages from various families including Nilotic, North Omotic, Kadu, Oto-Manguean, Finnic, Slavic, and the Mexican isolate Seri. A significant recent focus has been on the West Nilotic language Nuer, spoken in South Sudan.
Analysis of his publication record reveals consistent contributions to morphological theory, with increasing emphasis on under-documented languages in recent years. His work demonstrates a progression from theoretical investigations to practical applications in language documentation, particularly evident in his Nuer language projects.
Professor Baerman has secured substantial research funding, serving as Principal Investigator on five projects in the last eight years totaling £1,884,234 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) and the Leverhulme Trust. His international collaborations with CNRS, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the University of Edinburgh demonstrate his significant standing in the global linguistics community.
His practical contributions include the creation of an online dictionary and original children's stories in Nuer - groundbreaking resources for this language with millions of speakers but previously minimal documentation. These outputs exemplify his commitment to bridging theoretical linguistics with practical language preservation efforts.
