Department of Language and Linguistic Science

Professor Ron Kaplan awarded an honorary doctorate

Posted on 20 August 2019

Watch the video of Professor Peter Sells's oration and Professor Ron Kaplan’s response at the Department of Language and Linguistic Science’s graduation ceremony.

Professor Ron Kaplan was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of York at the Department of Language and Linguistic Science graduation ceremony on 19 July 2019, in recognition of his contributions to linguistic theory, to computational linguistics, to psycholinguistics, and to applications in language technology based on his research into the core mathematical properties of language. He has been professor at Stanford University for 40 years, and over that time has held senior positions at Xerox PARC, Microsoft, Nuance and Amazon.

In the oration celebrating Ron’s achievements, Professor Peter Sells highlighted the role of the results from basic linguistic science that Ron discovered and developed, which form the foundation of the natural language technology that is now incorporated into texting, word-processing and search applications. In his response, Ron encouraged the graduating students to use their knowledge of language and linguistics to benefit society and the development of useful technology.

See the graduation ceremony video of the oration and response below.