Ianthi Tsimpli

Ianthi Tsimpli is Professor of English and Applied Linguistics and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College at the University of Cambridge. She teaches and carries out research in First and Second Language Acquisition, Multilingualism and Cognition, language impairment and theoretical syntax.

In the last ten years, her research has focused on the effects of multilingualism and language of education on children’s cognitive, linguistic and school skills. This line of research takes into account socioeconomic factors and how these interact with multilingualism in shaping children’s development.

A major ESRC-DfID research project Professor Tsimpli directed in the last few years was “Multilingualism and Multiliteracy: Raising learning outcomes in challenging contexts in primary schools across India” (MultiLiLa). The project involved the collaboration of Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi), the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuroscience (Bangalore) and the English & Foreign Languages University (Hyderabad) in India (https://www.mam.mml.cam.ac.uk/) and collected linguistic, cognitive and demographic data from 2,500 children attending government schools in Delhi, Hyderabad and Patna.

In the project there was also the opportunity to collect demographic, teaching qualifications and language attitudes data from the teachers from the schools the learners were recruited and other survey data on socioeconomic and sociolinguistic diversity backgrounds of the participants. Publication outputs include articles in the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism; Languages and chapters in edited volumes.