The Speech and Language Laboratory (LPL), a joint research unit associated with the CNRS and Aix-Marseille University, is dedicated to exploring the mechanisms underlying the production, perception and comprehension of speech and language. With a richly diverse international and multidisciplinary team, it brings together linguists, phoneticians, psychologists, neuroscientists, computer scientists and doctors, offering a broad perspective on language-related issues. The LPL celebrated its 50th anniversary as a CNRS laboratory in 2022. This anniversary was marked by a special issue of the journal TIPA: ‘Panorama des recherches au LPL’.
The LPL's research focuses on fundamental and applied questions that cut across the language sciences. What are the cerebral, cognitive or social mechanisms underlying the processes of language production and perception? How do linguistic systems shape individual achievements? How do we acquire or relearn language or new languages? One of the LPL's distinctive features is its approach to these questions through an exploration of language as it is produced or perceived in the most common situations, placing considerable importance on the observation of linguistic interactions in their social and multimodal dimensions.
The laboratory has an experimental platform that is open to the public and brings together a range of instruments for investigating speech and language production and perception. It is also one of the main players in the Language, Communication and Brain Institute (ILCB). The LPL also has a documentation centre, which is an essential research and training tool, widely open to the community and students.
The laboratory is thus a highly multidisciplinary team, engaged in interdisciplinary projects that enable innovative work that goes beyond traditional approaches.
LPL organisational chart 2026:
