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Lower Saxony supports exciting projects on language research and politics!
Two hearing research and political science projects at the University of Oldenburg receive state funding for bilingual language understanding and political communication.
Lower Saxony supports exciting projects on language research and politics!
On March 14, 2025, it was announced that two innovative research projects in the areas of hearing research and political science would be funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science. As part of the “Research Cooperation Lower Saxony – Israel” program, up to 500,000 euros will be made available for a period of four years. This underlines the importance of interdisciplinary cooperation between Lower Saxony and Israeli universities, which not only promotes scientific knowledge but also intercultural exchange. uol.de reports that a total of eight projects from the humanities and social sciences are supported in this funding program.
The first project, led by linguists Prof. Dr. Esther Ruigendijk from the University of Oldenburg and Dr. Hanin Karawani from the University of Haifa studies listening comprehension in bilingual people. The focus is on finding out why these individuals have difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments. The aim of the research is to identify the neural mechanisms that may be responsible for activating both languages in bilingual people. For this purpose, experiments are carried out with test subjects who include various language combinations such as Arabic-Hebrew, Arabic-German, German-Dutch as well as individuals who only speak Hebrew and German. Language tasks are used in conjunction with brain wave measurements to research the influence of language relatedness on listening comprehension.
Political science in focus
Another funded project deals with the relationship between political parties and social groups. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Marius Sältzer, also at the University of Oldenburg, is investigating the hypothesis that political parties construct social groups through their communication strategies instead of just representing them. Machine learning methods are used to analyze the communication of the parties in Israel and Germany. The aim is to gain new insights into the perception of group membership that could be of practical importance in future political campaigns. Volunteers test whether and to what extent political communication influences the perception of such affiliations.
Language plays a crucial role in identity development on both an individual and collective level. This fact becomes clear in the context of the funded projects, as understanding and social identity are strongly linked. According to an analysis on the topic of language and identity, personal expression through language is an important part of identity formation. People choose the way they speak according to the social context in order to express their identity. This dynamic becomes particularly relevant when one considers multilingualism and the associated cultural facets, which become visible, for example, when considering Austrianism or regional differentiation within the German language goethe.de.
Overall, these research projects will not only contribute to scientific knowledge, but also create a better understanding of the cultural and communicative structures that shape our society. The support from the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation shows the commitment of responsible institutions to promote interdisciplinary and international collaboration.