About me
I'm Christin Beck (née Schätzle), a research scientist at the Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, where I am a member of the Computational Linguistics group. I am also part of the collaborative research center SFB-TRR 161 'Quantitative Methods for Visual Computing', where I develop novel and innovative visualization methods for the analysis of multidimensional language data in collaboration with experts from the field of Visual Analytics. Broadly, my research focuses on the development of computational and corpus analytic methods for the investigation of historical language change. I am further interested in computational lexical semantics, the interaction between lexical semantic and syntactic change, and the syntactic encoding of information structure. More recently, I have been investigating how contextualized language models can be leveraged for historical linguistic research, and how language models learn linguistic structures.News and recent events
Konstanzia Fellowship 2024–
I am a recipient of the Konstanzia Fellowship, a mentoring programme for advanced female postdoctoral researchers at the University of Konstanz. My mentor is Prof. Sabine Schulte im Walde (IMS, University of Stuttgart). The fellowship funds research visits and academic career development.
I am a recipient of the Konstanzia Fellowship, a mentoring programme for advanced female postdoctoral researchers at the University of Konstanz. My mentor is Prof. Sabine Schulte im Walde (IMS, University of Stuttgart). The fellowship funds research visits and academic career development.
Substitute Professor (W3) April–September 2024
From April to September 2024, I served as Substitute Professor (W3, 50%) for General and Computational Linguistics at the Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, teaching a seminar on Artificial Intelligence (B.A. Linguistics) and a Research Colloquium (M.A. Speech and Language Processing).
From April to September 2024, I served as Substitute Professor (W3, 50%) for General and Computational Linguistics at the Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, teaching a seminar on Artificial Intelligence (B.A. Linguistics) and a Research Colloquium (M.A. Speech and Language Processing).
Book chapter at Oxford University Press, 2024
Together with Miriam Butt, I published a chapter on 'The Rise of Dative Subjects: Relative Prominence in Event Structure' in The place of Case in grammar, ed. by Christina Sevdali, Dionysios Mertyris, and Elena Anagnostopoulou, Oxford University Press.
Together with Miriam Butt, I published a chapter on 'The Rise of Dative Subjects: Relative Prominence in Event Structure' in The place of Case in grammar, ed. by Christina Sevdali, Dionysios Mertyris, and Elena Anagnostopoulou, Oxford University Press.
GHisBERT paper at LChange'23 (EMNLP), December 2023
Together with Marisa Köllner, I presented work on GHisBERT – Training BERT from Scratch for Lexical Semantic Investigations across Historical German Language Stages at the 4th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Historical Language Change (LChange'23), co-located with EMNLP 2023 in Singapore.
Together with Marisa Köllner, I presented work on GHisBERT – Training BERT from Scratch for Lexical Semantic Investigations across Historical German Language Stages at the 4th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Historical Language Change (LChange'23), co-located with EMNLP 2023 in Singapore.
Fellowship 'Words, Bones, Genes, Tools' March–June 2023
From March–June 2023, I joined the DFG Center for Advanced Studies 'Words, Bones, Genes, Tools' at the University of Tübingen for a four month fellowship, collaborating with Marisa Köllner on developing a new methodology for investigating lexical semantic change across language stages combining contextualized language models and phylogenetic methodologies. More on the project can be found here.
From March–June 2023, I joined the DFG Center for Advanced Studies 'Words, Bones, Genes, Tools' at the University of Tübingen for a four month fellowship, collaborating with Marisa Köllner on developing a new methodology for investigating lexical semantic change across language stages combining contextualized language models and phylogenetic methodologies. More on the project can be found here.
Paper at ACL-IJCNLP, August 2021
Together with Rita Sevastjanova, Aikaterini-Lida Kalouli, Hannah Hauptmann (née Schäfer) and Mennatallah El-Assady, I worked on a paper on 'Explaining Contextualization in Language Models using Visual Analytics', where we develop a visual analytics and scoring technique for examining contextualization in word embeddings across the different layers which are part of the language model (i.e., in our case BERT-base with 12 layers). Our paper was accepted for presentation at the joint conference of the 59th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 11th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (ACL-IJCNLP 2021) and will be published as part of the proceedings of the conference in August 2021.
Together with Rita Sevastjanova, Aikaterini-Lida Kalouli, Hannah Hauptmann (née Schäfer) and Mennatallah El-Assady, I worked on a paper on 'Explaining Contextualization in Language Models using Visual Analytics', where we develop a visual analytics and scoring technique for examining contextualization in word embeddings across the different layers which are part of the language model (i.e., in our case BERT-base with 12 layers). Our paper was accepted for presentation at the joint conference of the 59th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 11th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (ACL-IJCNLP 2021) and will be published as part of the proceedings of the conference in August 2021.
12th International Conference of Nordic and General Linguistics (NGL12), June 2021
Hannah Booth and I will give a talk on 'V1, V2 and information structure in the history of Icelandic' at the 12th International Conference of Nordic and General Linguistics (NGL12), taking place online (organized by the University of Oslo), on June 18th.
Hannah Booth and I will give a talk on 'V1, V2 and information structure in the history of Icelandic' at the 12th International Conference of Nordic and General Linguistics (NGL12), taking place online (organized by the University of Oslo), on June 18th.
Diachronic Generative Syntax (DiGS) conference 22, May 2021
I have two presentations at DiGS22, which is taking place online on 20th-22nd May 2021. Together with Hannah Booth, I will give a talk about Information structure and word order change: verb-first and verb-second in Icelandic. With Ashwini Deo and Miriam Butt, I will present work on Tracking Case Innovation: A Perspective from Marathi.
I have two presentations at DiGS22, which is taking place online on 20th-22nd May 2021. Together with Hannah Booth, I will give a talk about Information structure and word order change: verb-first and verb-second in Icelandic. With Ashwini Deo and Miriam Butt, I will present work on Tracking Case Innovation: A Perspective from Marathi.
Paper in Journal of Historical Syntax, May 2021
Hannah Booth and I just published a paper on 'Verb-second and verb-first in the history of Icelandic' in the Journal of Historical Syntax (JHS; open access).
Hannah Booth and I just published a paper on 'Verb-second and verb-first in the history of Icelandic' in the Journal of Historical Syntax (JHS; open access).