Koppen, prof. dr. J.M. van (Marjo)

Marjo van Koppen (b. 1976) is Senior Researcher and Head of the research group Linguistics and Language Variation at the Meertens Institute. She studied Dutch language and literature at Leiden University, where she also obtained a PhD in 2005 for a dissertation on variation in congruence in Dutch dialects. Alongside her work at the Meertens Institute, Van Koppen is Professor of Language Variation in Dutch at the Dutch Language and Culture department of Utrecht University.

At the Meertens Institute she focuses on variation and change in Dutch dialects, older phases of Dutch and human-animal interaction. Within her work she considers it important to examine language variation and change in the modern and historical Dutch context from different perspectives, together with the Variational Linguistics team. In particular, she is researching how modern Dutch dialects vary and change and how these processes are driven by language system, language use, globalisation and identity formation. She is also interested in how variation and change occurred in historical Dutch (especially 17^th-century Dutch). In addition, she is aiming to acquire a better understanding of the interaction between humans and animals in the Dutch context (in particular cats and cows) by looking at it from a linguistic perspective.