Annika Tjuka
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
e-mail: annika_tjuka@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de
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About me
Curriculum Vitae
Publications
About me
My main goal is to explore linguistic diversity, especially the variations of word meanings across languages. I integrate findings from linguistics and psychology in my research and adopt a computational approach. I received my doctorate with highest honors (summa cum laude) from Friedrich Schiller University Jena in March 2024 and I am working as a postdoctoral researcher. A major achievement of my academic career so far is the development of a cross-linguistic database, which contains rich information on word properties across 39 languages (https://norare.clld.org). In addition, I have investigated the relationship between word meanings in the semantic domain of the human body, exploring the intricate interplay between language, culture and cognition. The key results of these investigations are reported in a study on body-object colexifications published in Linguistic Typology and a study on body part vocabularies published in Scientific Reports.
Curriculum Vitae
Academic Degrees
| 2024 | Ph.D. in Linguistics at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena and International Max Planck Research School for the Science of Human History (IMPRS-SHH) Dissertation: Language variation in word meanings: Cross-linguistic patterns and causes of colexifications Reviewers: Johann-Mattis List, Stephen C. Levinson and Asifa Majid |
| 2019 | Master of Arts in Linguistics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Master's thesis: Body-part metaphors as a window to cognition: A cross-linguistic study of object and landscape terms Reviewers: Elisabeth Verhoeven and Kilu von Prince |
| 2016 | Bachelor of Arts in German Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Bachelor's thesis: Emotionalisation through texts Reviewers: Katharina Spalek and Manfred Krifka |
Academic Positions
| 2023 - Present | Postdoctoral Researcher at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Leipzig. |
| 2019 - 2023 | Doctoral Researcher at Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Jena. |
| 2019 | Research Associate at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in the FAHMRRR project, funded by ERC. |
| 2017 - 2019 | Student research assistant at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in the MelaTAMP project, funded by DFG. |
| 2016 - 2019 | Student research assistant at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in the FAHMRRR project, funded by ERC. |
| 2018 | Internship and student research assistant at Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig. |
Publications
Tjuka, A., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2024). Universal and cultural factors shape body part vocabularies. Scientific Reports, 14: 10486. |
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Tjuka, A. (2024). Objects as human bodies: cross-linguistic colexifications between words for body parts and objects (advance online). Linguistic Typology. |
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Kim, Y., & Tjuka, A. (2024). Cognitive science from the perspective of linguistic diversity. Cognitive Science, 48: e13418. |
Open AccessTjuka, A., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2022). Linking norms, ratings, and relations of words and concepts across multiple language varieties. Behavior Research Methods, 54, 864-884. |
2024
Tjuka, A., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2024). Universal and cultural factors shape body part vocabularies. Scientific Reports, 14: 10486. |
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Tjuka, A. (2024). Objects as human bodies: cross-linguistic colexifications between words for body parts and objects (advance online). Linguistic Typology. |
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Kim, Y., & Tjuka, A. (2024). Cognitive science from the perspective of linguistic diversity. Cognitive Science, 48: e13418. |
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Nomura, K., Rella, S., Merritt, H., Baltussen, M., Bird, D., Tjuka, A., & Falk, D. (2024). Tipping points of space debris in low earth orbit. International Journal of the Commons, 18(1), 17-31. |
2023
Tjuka, A., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2023). Curating and extending data for language comparison in Concepticon and NoRaRe. Open Research Europe, 2: 141. |
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Tjuka, A. (2023). Body part extensions with mặt ‘Face’ in Vietnamese. In K. Pattillo, & M. Waśniewska ( |
2022
Tjuka, A., Nguyen, H. T. T., van de Vijver, R., & Spalek, K. (2022). Investigating the variation of intonation contours in Northern Vietnamese tones. PsyArXiv Preprints. |
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Tjuka, A., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2022). Linking norms, ratings, and relations of words and concepts across multiple language varieties. Behavior Research Methods, 54, 864-884. |
2021
Tjuka, A., Nguyen, H. T. T., & Spalek, K. (2021). Correction: Foxes, deer, and hedgehogs: The recall of focus alternatives in Vietnamese. Laboratory Phonology, 12(1): 2. |
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Tjuka, A. (2021). The representation of foot/leg polysemy in the mind: insights from Vietnamese body part extensions with chân. In Humanities Commons. New York: Modern Language Association. |
2020
Tjuka, A. (2020). General patterns and language variation: Word frequencies across English, German, and Chinese. In M. Zock, E. Chersoni, A. Lenci, & E. Santus ( |
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Tjuka, A., Nguyen, H. T. T., & Spalek, K. (2020). Foxes, deer, and hedgehogs: The recall of focus alternatives in Vietnamese. Laboratory Phonology, 11(1): 16. |
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Tjuka, A., Weißmann, L., & Prince, K. v. (2020). Habitual aspect as a property of text spans. In Human language technologies as a challenge for computer science and linguistics: Proceedings of 9th Language & Technology Conference (pp. 195-199). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Nauka i Innowacje. |
2019
Tjuka, A. (2019). Body-part metaphors as a window to cognition: A cross-linguistic study of object and landscape terms. Master Thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin. |
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Tjuka, A., Weißmann, L., & Prince, K. v. (2019). Tagging modality in Oceanic languages of Melanesia. In Proceedings of the 13th Linguistic Annotation Workshop (pp. 65-70). Florence, Italy: Association for Computational Linguistics. |