Research interests

My main research interests are (linguistic) methodology and cognitive linguistics. I am interested in finding out what we can infer about our cognitive capacities from the patterns and structures we see in the language data obtained through a variety of methods. The main body of my work has to do with usage-based cognitive linguistics and focuses on linguistic variation in all its guises. My recent interests include learner corpus research and language acquisition theory. 

I am actively involved in two research projects:

1) The Making and Breaking of Models: Experimentally Validating Classification Models in Linguistics (PUT1358, 2017-2020). Over the course of the project I am collaborating with Prof. Harald Baayen from the University of Tübingen, Dr. Alice Blumenthal-Dramé from the University of Freiburg, Dr. Dagmar Divjak from the Univeristy of Sheffield, and Dr. Arvi Tavast from Qlaara.

2) TCELE – Tartu Corpus of Estonian Learner English: Together with my colleagues at the Department of English Studies we are compiling a corpus of Estonian Learner English. 

Among other duties, I am a board member of the Estonian Cognitive Linguistics Association (ECLA), a member of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association (ICLA) and the Learner Corpus Association (LCA).