Prof. Dr. Paula Orzechowska
- paula.orzechowska(at)uni-potsdam.de
- Dept. of English and American Studies
Am Neuen Palais 10
Building 19, Room 1.13
14469 Potsdam, Germany - Winter Term 2026-27: Tue 2:30-3:30 p.m.
In the lecture-free time, please make an appointment via email.
Academic Background
| 2026 - present | Full (W3) Professor, Chair for Present-Day English Language and Linguistics University of Potsdam |
| 2021-2026 | University Professor, Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) Poznań |
| 2009-2021 | Assistant Professor, Faculty of English, AMU |
| 2020 | Habilitation (D.Litt.) in Linguistics, Faculty of English, AMU |
| 2009 | Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Linguistics, School of English, AMU |
| 2004-2009 | Ph.D. student, School of English, AMU |
| 2005-2006 | Ph.D. student, Faculty of Linguistics and Literature, Bielefeld University (Erasmus) |
Areas of Research
- Phonetics and Phonology
- (Mor)Phonotactics
- Language Processing
Functions at AMU
| 2024-present | Poznań Centre for Linguistic Typology – member |
| 2024-2026 | Faculty Council for Study Programs – member Practical English – examination head |
| 2025 | Admission Committee for the Doctoral School – member |
| 2023-2025 | Language, Mind, Technology LMT program – proponent, coordinator |
| 2019-2021 | Neuroscience of Language Laboratory – acting head Dean's Council – member |
| 2019-2020 | Faculty Council for Study Programs – member English Linguistics ELTIT program – acting coordinator |
| 2014-2017 | Year tutor |
| 2008-2010 | Committee for Faculty and Institute Promotion – member |
Grants, Projects and Fellowships
| 2024 | Return grant, Comprehension and production of Polish words: Insights from computational modelling, Alexander von Humboldt (AvH), AMU / University of Tübingen |
| 2021-2023 | Infrastructure grant, Excellence Initiative – Research University, Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland |
| 2022-2023 | Research fellow, Mental representation and statistical modelling of features, segments and syllables, AvH, (Phonetics) University of Marburg / (Quantitive Linguistics) University of Tübingen |
| 2021-2022 | Research fellow, Coordination patterns in speech production using 4D ultrasound imaging, Kosciuszko Foundation, (Linguistics / Speech, Learning and Hearing Sciences) Indiana University |
| 2016-2022 | PI, The role of phonological features in phonotactics: A study in structure and learnability of consonant clusters in Slavic and Germanic languages, National Science Centre, Poland (nr UMO-2015/18/E/HS2/00066), (Faculty of English) AMU |
| 2014-2017 | Co-I, ECCE – Evolution of consonant clusters, Austrian Academy of Sciences (nr P27592-G18), (English Historical Linguistics) University of Vienna |
| 2016 | Teaching grant, Erasmus Plus: Staff mobility, New Sorbonne University |
| 2015 | Research grant, Phonological aspects of affix ordering in German and Polish, European Science Foundation (nr 7019), (Slavonic Studies) University of Vienna Research grant, Online processing of phonotactics / Phonology of Liberian English, (German Linguistics) University of Marburg / University of Potsdam |
| 2011-2012 | Co-I, Phonotactics and morphotactics of Polish and English: Description, tools and applications, National Science Centre, Poland (nr N N104 382540), (Faculty of English) AMU |
| 2011 | Co-I, The Fate of Schwa: An interaction between prosody and morphology in the history of German, Hessian State Ministry for Science and Art, (Theory of Language and Psycholinguistics) University of Marburg Co-I, Word stress: Rules and representations, DfG (nr 25023636, WI853/7-2), (Theory of Language and Psycholinguistics) University of Marburg |
| 2010-2011 | Research fellow, Aspects of inflection and derivation in English and German: Towards gradience and integrity of morphological components, DAAD (nr A0981550), (Theory of Language and Psycholinguistics) University of Marburg |
| 2006-2007 | Co-I, Polish Literacy Tutor, Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland (nr N519 01 631/2965), (School of English) AMU |
Conferences and Congresses
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Synergy in Education | Almaty, 31 Mar 2026
Plenary: ‘Virtualizing word structure: Teaching Linguistics through t-SNE and AI based representations’ - 20th Annual Meeting of the Slavic Linguistic Society | Verona, 10-12 Sep 2025
- ‘Polish phonology and morphology through the lens of distributed semantics’, with H. Baayen
- ‘On the interaction between lexical stress and phonotactic complexity’, with J. Mołczanow, M. Jankowski, W. Wołyński - Artificial Intelligence (AI) in educational sphere – challenges and evolution | Almaty, 14 Mar 2025
Plenary: ‘Benefits of AI techniques in linguistics: implications for teaching’ - 47th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society | Mainz, 4-7 Mar 2025
'The influence of morphology and speech rate on place assimilation: An articulatory study', with B. Czaplicki, M. Ćavar - 21st International Congress of Linguists | Poznań, 8-14 Sep 2024
‘What can distributional semantics tell us about (mor)phonotactics’, with H. Baayen - 19th Conference on Laboratory Phonology | Seoul, 27-29 Jun 2024
Poster: ‘Articulatory correlates of morphologically conditioned assimilation: Evidence from ultrasound imaging’, with B. Czaplicki, M. Ćavar - Life-long learning paradigm in the system of Kazakhstani education for sustainable development: practice and perspectives | Almaty, 15 Mar 2024
- Plenary: ‘What we have learnt about the structure of words from modern linguistic methods? Implications for teaching and further research’Words in the World International Conference, online, 1-2 Dec 2023
- Poster: ‘Polish and Ukrainian nouns in the light of a distributive analysis’, with I. Stupak, H. Baayen - 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences | Prague, 7-11 Aug 2023
Poster: ‘Weighted phonetic distances in the evaluation of phonotactics’, with K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk - 30th Manchester Phonology Meeting | Manchester, 25-27 May 2023
‘Effects of morphology on consonant assimilation: Evidence from ultrasound imaging’, with M. Ćavar, B. Czaplicki - FASL 32: Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics | Bloomington, 19-21 May 2023
‘Morphological structure and frequency as factors in place assimilation in Polish’, with M. Ćavar, B. Czaplicki - AvH Networking Meeting | Mainz, 19-21 Apr 2023
Poster: ‘Modelling morphonology using discriminative learning’ - Globally Interconnected: New Opportunities and Challenges for Linguistic Development | Almaty, 16 Mar 2023
Plenary: Laboratory Methods in Linguistic Research: From Articulation to Neuroimaging - 51st Poznań Linguistic Meeting | Poznań, 8-10 Sep 2022
- Poster: ‘The sub-segmental complexity of German words’, with M. Scharinger
- ‘Effects of morphology on consonant assimilation: Evidence from ultrasound imaging’, with B. Czaplicki, M. Ćavar - Psycholinguistics of Slavic Languages | Tübingen, 14-16 Jul 2022
Poster: ‘Effects of phonological principles in the processing of Polish phonotactics’ - 96th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America | Washington DC, 6-9 Jan 2022
- ‘Correlates of wordlikeness in Polish’, with M. Nowak, A. Porębski
- Poster: ‘What affects the production of sCC clusters in Polish’ - 5th Usage-Based Linguistics Conference | Tel Aviv (online), 5-7 Jul 2021
‘Does structure emerge from phonology or frequency?’ - 2nd International Conference on Multilingualism: Challenges, Theoretical Perspectives and Practical Implications | Ait Melloul, 20-21 Nov 2019
‘Processing of phonotactics in Tashlhiyt Berber: Evidence from a lexical decision task’, with R. Ridouane - 49th Poznań Linguistic Meeting | Poznań,16-18 Sep 2019
‘Phonotactic constraints and preferences are domain specific: A cognitive proposal’ - 14th Slavic Linguistic Society | Potsdam, 11-13 Sep 2019
‘The role of phonetic distance in the processing of Polish phonotactics’ - Approaches to Phonology and Phonetics | Lublin, 21-23 Jun 2019
‘The psychological reality of place and manner features in Polish phonotactics: Evidence from response latencies’ - 3rd Phonetics and Phonology in Europe | Lecce, 17-19 Jun 2019
Poster: ‘Conflicting forces of place and manner of articulation: A reaction times study on Polish phonotactics’ - 9th International Conference on Speech Prosody | Poznań, 13-16 Jun 2018
- Poster: ‘Exponents of sonority in Slavic and Germanic languages’
- Poster: ‘Vowelless verbal roots in Tashlhiyt Berber’, with R. Ridouane - 47th Poznań Linguistic Meeting | Poznań, 18-20 Sep 2017
- ‘Prosodically-conditioned syllable structure’, with J. Mołczanow, M. Jankowski
- ‘On the feature-based variation of <qu> words in German: Evidence from a lexical decision experiment’, with R. Wiese - 15th Meeting of the French Phonology Network | Grenoble, 5-7 Jul 2017
‘Feature weight in phonotactics’ - 4th Meeting of Linguistics Beyond and Within | Lublin, 20-21 Oct 2016
Poster: ‘English phonotactics: Phonological features and their weight’ - 3rd International Workshop on Phonotactics and Phonotactic Modelling | Vienna, 26-27 Sep 2015
‘German phonotactics: A testing ground for NAD’, with K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk - 45th Poznań Linguistic Meeting | Poznań, 17-19 Sep 2015
- ‘Feature setting in phonotactics: a study on Polish and English word-initial clusters’
- ‘Word formation in terms of two-suffix combinations: Evidence from Polish’, with B. Brzoza, S. Manova - 47th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea | Poznań, 11-14 Sep 2014
‘Features and phonotactics: A cross linguistic perspective on preferences in cluster formation’ - Phonetik und Phonologie im deutschsprachigen Raum 9 | Zurich, 11-12 Oct 2013
‘Lernbarkeit finaler Konsonantencluster: Cross-linguistische EEG Evidenz von Sonorität, Existenz und Artikulationstellen-Distanz’, with R. Wiese, C. Ulbrich, J. Knaus - 43rd Poznań Linguistic Meeting | Poznań, 8-10 Sep 2012
- ‘Preferences and variation: A multi-dimensional evaluation of word-initial clusters in German and Polish’, with R. Wiese
- Poster: ‘Explaining morphonotactics: Phonological and morphological constraints on clusters’, with K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, P. Zydorowicz, M. Jankowski, P. Wierzchoń, D. Pietrala - 20th Manchester Phonology Meeting | Manchester, 24-26 May 2012
Poster: ‘Polish phonotactics and morphonotactics: A quantitative and qualitative study’, with K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, P. Wierzchoń, M. Jankowski, D. Pietrala, P. Zydorowicz - 9th Old World Conference in Phonology | Berlin, 18-21 Jan 2012
‘Processing (un-)predictable word stress in Polish: an ERP study’, with U. Domahs, J. Knaus, R. Wiese - Phonetik und Phonologie 7 | Osnabrück, 7-8 Oct 2011
‘Einfluss von Struktur und Vorhersagbarkeit auf die Verarbeitung prosodischer Informationen’, with U. Domahs, H. El Shanawany, J. Knaus, R. Wiese - 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences | Hong Kong, 17-21 Aug 2011
‘Reconstructing the sonority hierarchy’, with R. Wiese - 42nd Poznań Linguistic Meeting | Poznań, 1-3 May 2011
‘Competing factors in consonant cluster formation’ - 14th International Morphology Meeting | Budapest, 13-16 May 2010
‘Morphotactic transparency: Stems and suffixes in English and Polish inflection’ - Monosyllables: From Phonology to Typology | Bremen, 28-30 Sep 2009
‘Effects of morphology on the syllable structure – English right edge phonotactics’ - 42nd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea | Lisbon, 9-12 Sep 2009
‘Markedness gradience in English morphonotactics’ - XI Międzynarodowa Konferencja Młodych Naukowców | Pobierowo, 16-18 Apr 2009
‘OZNACZONOść A CZęSTOTLIWOść W MORFONOTAKTYCE JęzYKA POLSKIGo’ - 18th International Congress of Linguists | Seoul, 21-26 Jul 2008
‘Is marked less frequent? Polish word-final consonantal sequences in corpora’ - 3rd Annual Meeting of the Slavic Linguistic Society | Columbus, Ohio, 10-12 Jun 2008
- ‘Morphotactics: Aspects of complexity’
- ‘Word-final phonotactics and gender assignment in Polish and German’, with M. Kilarski - 38th Poznań Linguistic Meeting | Gniezno, 13-16 Sep 2007
- ‘The role of phonotactics in gender assignment in Polish’, with M. Kilarski - 2nd Student Conference on Formal Linguistics | Poznań, 21-22 Apr 2007
‘Morphonotactics of Polish - the case of lemma-final consonant clusters’ - 37th Poznań Linguistic Meeting | Poznań, 20-23 Apr 2006
‘The interaction of morphology and phonology – a functional approach’ - Workshop on Models of L1 and L2 Phonetics/Phonology | Utrecht, 8-9 Nov 2005
Poster: ‘DEGREES OF DIFFICULTY IN THE ACQUISITION OF A FOREIGN LANGUGE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM: HOW SIMILARITY AND MARKEDNESS INFLUENCE THE POLISH LEARNERS’ PERCEPTION AND PRODUCTION OF SELECTED ENGLISH VOWELS’ - 36th Poznań Linguistic Meeting | Poznań, 22-24 Apr 2005
‘Polish Literacy Tutor’, with M. Wypych, G. Krynicki, K. Juszczyk, D. Pietrala, P. Zydorowicz, K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk - 36th Studentische Tagung Sprachwissenschaft | Mainz, 17-24 Nov 2004
‘THE EFFECTS OF SIMILARITY AND MARKEDNESS ON THE ACQUISITION OF A FOREIGN LANGUGE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM: THE CASE OF POLISH LEARNERS’ PERCEPTION AND PRODUCTION OF SELECTED ENGLISH VOWELS’ - 1st Student Conference on Formal Linguistics | Poznań, 19 Sep 2004
‘THE EFFECTS OF SIMILARITY AND MARKEDNESS ON THE ACQUISITION OF A FOREIGN LANGUGE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM: THE CASE OF POLISH LEARNERS’ PERCEPTION AND PRODUCTION OF SELECTED ENGLISH VOWELS’
Chair at Conferences
- 20thAnnual Meeting of the Slavic Linguistic Society (11 Sep 2025)
Phonology/Animacy session - 51st Poznan Linguistic Meeting (10 Sep 2022)
A plenary lecture - 50th Poznan Linguistic Meeting (19 Sep 2021)
Phonetics/phonology session - 48th Poznan Linguistic Meeting (13 Sep 2018)
A plenary lecture
Reviewing
| … for journals | - Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - Cognitive Science - Frontiers in Psychology - Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics - Journal of Germanic Linguistics - Language and Speech - Languages - Natural Language & Linguistic Theory - Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics - Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik |
| … for chapters and volumes | - Routledge - The Cambridge Handbook of Natural Linguistics - The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics - The University of Warsaw Press |
| … for others | - ERC grant proposals - ICPhS papers - Poznań Linguistic Meeting abstracts |
Non-degree Workshops and Trainings
- Series of workshops on ERC grant preparation | AMU / Poznań / Lublin / Cracow / Wrocław, 22 Jul 2026, 17 Apr 2026, 16 Mar 2026, 10 Mar 2026, 14-21 Oct 2020, 8 Oct 2020, 2 Apr 2020, 26 Jan 2020, 11 Oct 2017, 29 Mar 2017, 14 Nov 2016
- A Hands-on Introduction to Computational Methods Working with Language Distances | AMU, 14 May 2026
- Exploring Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Guidelines for Safe Use | AMU, 11 Mar 2026
- IDUB workshop on ChatGPT | AMU, 23 Jan 2026
- Nature Portfolio: Masterclass | AMU, 4-5 Dec 2025
- Empirical methods II: A course on Statistics | University of Tübingen Apr-Sep 2023
- Understanding and Modelling Linguistic Variability Summer School | University of Potsdam, 21-25 Aug 2023
- Spring Training in Experimental Psycholinguistics | University of Alberta, 12-17 Jun 2023
- Julia for Absolute Beginners | Online, 2 Nov 2022
- Workshop on Laboratory Methods in Linguistics | ZAS-Berlin, 11-12 Oct 2022
- Human Subjects Research Training | Indiana University, 17 Oct 2021
- Professional training in inclusive teaching and the development of e-learning materials for students with sensory and developmental disabilities | AMU / Poznań, 2 Mar 2021, 9 Mar 2020, 11 Jan 2019, 17 May 2018
- CHANSE: Transformations: Social and Cultural Dynamics in the Digital Age | AMU, 1 Mar 2021
- Autoplagiarism – facts and myths | Online, 8 Oct 2020
- Cyfrowy | AMU, Poznań, 5 Oct 2020
- Data Science with MATLAB | Online, 12 Mar 2020
- How to use social media for communicating research | Online, 27 Feb 2020
- Training in academic curriculum and programme development | AMU, 15 Jan 2020
- What is Neurolanguage Coaching? Efficient Language Coaching | Online, 22 Oct 2019
- Introduction to Design Thinking | Online, 24 Sep 2019
- Surfing the brainwaves: Workshop on EEG data analysis in linguistics | Poznań, 17 Sep 2019
- Series of workshops on diachronic phonotactics | Vienna, 17-20 Feb 2015, 28-30 Sep 2015
- Corpus-based historical morphonotactics: (Theory,) methods and data analysis | AMU, 21-22 Nov 2014
- Workshop on Pre- and Protomorphology | Vienna, 12-13 Feb 2010
Organization
- Articulatory Kinematics in Ultrasound Imaging workshop | AMU, 2-3 Mar 2026, organizer
- Ultrasound Training Workshop: Principles and Applications | AMU, 15 Apr 2026, organizer
- The 21st International Congress of Linguists | Poznań, 8-14 Sep 2024, organizing committee
- The Sound Structure of English workshop | AMU, 24-26 Mar 2021, organizer
- PPP Workshop: Phonology – Phonetics – Praat | University of Potsdam, 6-8 Dec 2012, organizer
- 36th Poznań Linguistic Meeting | 22-24 Apr 2005, organizing committee
- Art exhibition of painter Mike Absalom, Salon Posnania | Poznań, 2005, co-organizer
- Series of lectures and seminars of visiting researchers | 2011-2012 University of Potsdam, 2017-2019 AMU