Curriculum vitae
Nicolas Ruytenbeek
Research Center in Linguistics (ULB)
PhD research fellow (FRS-FNRS)
6 Sperwerlaan
1800 Vilvoorde
Belgium
Cellular phone: ++32 470 30 61 92
Mail: nicolasruytenbeek@gmail.com
Homepage: http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~nruytenb/website/
1.1. Current occupation
PhD researcher in Linguistics (FNRS, Université Libre de Bruxelles): the understanding of
allusive communication, a theoretical and experimental approach, supervisor Dr. Mikhail
Kissine
From this academic year onwards: joint PhD supervision by Prof. Noveck (L2C2,
Université de Lyon 2) and Dr. Kissine (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
1.2. Previous occupations
10/2013 – 06/2014
Visiting graduate student (University of Cambridge, UK): grant from Wiener-Anspach
Foundation, local supervisor Dr. Napoleon Katsos
10/2012 – 06/2013
MA2 student in Cognitive Science (Cogmaster, Paris): Complementary module in
cognitive neuroscience, human experimentation, programming and mathematics/statistics
Internship student under Benjamin Spector’s and Emmanuel Chemla’s supervision. Topic:
the negation of evaluative adjectives (ENS, Institut Jean Nicod)
11/2011 – 09/2012
Full-time teaching assistant in Linguistics, Université Libre de Bruxelles (lectures, practice
sessions and examinations in Phonetics and Phonology, program of the new Master in
Linguistics: mainly international aspects, such as making contact with foreign universities in
order to organize exchanges of students and teachers)
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1.3. Vita
Born December 3, 1985 in Etterbeek, Belgium
Belgian nationality
1.4. Languages
 Active: French (native), English (very good), Dutch (very good), Spanish (good) and
German (good)
 Passive: Latin
1.5. Computer skills, programming languages, mathematics
 Python, Matlab, R, Psyscope, Praat, SignalExplorer, Html, Microsoft Office
 Mathematics: formal logic, probabilities, descriptive & analytical statistics
1.6. Grants
Oct. 2013 – Sept. 2014
Visiting graduate student, University of Cambridge (Wiener Anspach Foundation,
Université Libre de Bruxelles)
The understanding of indirect communication: a theoretical and experimental approach
My research project for this year in Cambridge is the following. On the one hand, I will
investigate whether a sentence such as Can you close the window?, when uttered as an
indirect request, will also activate the word referring to the literal speech act (e.g. the word
“question/interrogate” corresponding the literal meaning of Can you close the window? as an
ability question). On the other hand, the second issue is whether the indirect speech act word
“request” is activated alongside the literal speech act word “question/interrogate” when the
sentence Can you close the window? is used literally. Whereas past research examined
whether a sentence like I definitely will do it tomorrow would activate the concept of promise
even though the promise was not explicit, the question whether other lexical items, i.e. related
to the literal meaning of the sentence, were also activated has not been addressed yet.
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1.7. Education
 June 2013
MA2 in Cognitive science (Cogmaster, Paris) (at least distinction)
MA’s dissertation under Benjamin Spector’s and Emmanuel Chemla’s supervision (high
distinction, 17.11/20):
The negation of gradable adjectives: an experimental study
In this dissertation, I studied the case of ambiguities triggered by negated gradable adjectives.
A sentence such as Peter is not tall can be understood as meaning either that Peter is not tall
tout court (weak reading), or that Peter is rather short (strong reading, “inference towards the
antonym”). In an original experiment with French material, I tested the predictions of two
theories of negated gradable adjectives: Horn’s approach and Krifka’s theory. According to
Horn, inference towards the antonyms should be stronger for positive than negative
adjectives, and this asymmetry should be stronger for evaluative adjectives. Krifka considers
that, since not tall is a marked expression that should convey another meaning than “short”;
he predicts a weaker ITA effect for negative adjectives than for positive ones. For him, the
difference of ITA strength should be stronger for adjectival pairs in which the negative
member is morpho-syntactically more complex than the positive one. I did not detect any
influence of evaluativity but did find a significant effect of morphology; as a consequence,
my results gave more support to Krifka’s account than to Horn’s.
 June 2011
MA in Linguistics at the ULB (high distinction)
MA’s thesis under Mr M. Kissine’s supervision (highest distinction, 91/100):
Directive indirect speech acts: theoretical and typological study
The goal of this thesis was twofold. First, it consisted in a critical discussion of the main
theories of utterance interpretation applied to indirect speech acts (Relevance Theory, neogricean theories, Brown & Levinson’s politeness theory, Speech Act Theory). Second, I
examined past experimental research concerning ISAs and concluded that the precise
interpretative mechanisms of hints and allusions still needed clarification. I proposed further
lines of experimentally approaching indirect speech acts.
 June 2007
Didactic specialization in French and Latin at the ULB (distinction)
License (MA) in Roman Philology at the ULB (high distinction)
MA’s thesis under Mrs E. Danblon’s supervision (high distinction, 87/100):
L’adverbe français justement: étude argumentative et rhétorique
Based on a spoken corpus, the aim of this thesis was to highlight a common meaning
underlying the various uses of justement and to explain how addressees infer the arguments
conveyed by means of this adverb. I distinguished cases where justement is indispensable to
the understanding of the complete utterance meaning from the cases where it appears to be not
necessary, but rather to facilitate interpretation.
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1.8. Teaching
 2011-2012
Assistant for the course “Phonetics and Phonology” (M. Kissine): articulatory Phonetics, IPA
and practical sessions, fundamentals of Praat
 2010-2011
Assistant-student: supervisions for the course “Phonetics and Phonology” (M. Kissine),
questions-answers sessions
 2009-2010
Assistant-student: supervisions for the course “Phonetics and Phonology” (D. Demolin)
 2009-2011
Non-academic teaching: French teacher in French Foreign Language for adults at the Institut
de Formation des Cadres au Développement (IFCAD), full time
 2007-2009
Non-academic teaching: French teacher in French Foreign Language for adults at the Berlitz
School of Languages (Ghent), part time
1.9. Publications
 Books chapters (with a reviewing process)
“A critical review of experimental research on indirect requests comprehension”. In
Depraetere, I. & Salkie, R. (Eds.) (forthcoming), Drawing a line. Perspectives on the
semantics-pragmatics interface, Springer.
 Articles in internationally refereed journals
“Interpreting standardized indirect requests from a Relevance theoretic perspective” (Online
Papers of the Linguistic Society of Belgium, vol. 7, 2012)
“Les actes de langage indirects sont-ils tous conventionnels?” (Revue Romane 47 (2),
November 2012, 258-282)
 Presentations in internationally refereed conferences
(With Benjamin Spector) “Negated gradable adjectives: The role of positivity and
morphology on the inference towards the antonym”, poster presented at the 1st UCL Graduate
Conference in Linguistics, London, 7-8 November 2013, UK
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“L’adverbe justement et l’argumentation implicite”, International Colloquium in Linguistics
GREG PLS III, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, 25-26 January 2013, Paris,
France
“Standardized indirect speech acts: a counterexample to the costs-effects balance”, 6th Lodz
Symposium on New Developments in Linguistic Pragmatics, 26-28 May 2012, Lodz, Poland
“Are indirect speech acts always conventional?”, 2d Symposium on Meaning, Context &
Cognition, 22-24 March 2012, Lodz, Poland
“Relevance Theory and indirect speech acts”, 5th International Symposium on Intercultural,
Cognitive and Social Pragmatics (EPICS V), 14-16 March 2012, Seville, Spain
 Other presentations
“Comment dire sans dire? Communiquer par allusions”, Jeunes chercheurs dans la cité
festival, 4th edition, Spring 2013, 16 March & 4 May 2013, Lille and Brussels.
“Relevance Theory and standardized indirect speech acts”, Linguistic Society of Belgium’s
Linguistic Day, 19 May 2012, Liège, Belgium
“L’importance de la phonétique et de la phonologie dans les cours de FLE”, Teacher training
day at IFCAD Institute, 26 March 2012, Brussels, Belgium
1.10. Reviewing
2012-current: ad hoc reviewer (Journal of Pragmatics, Belgian Journal of Linguistics)
1.11. Academic service
Symposium co-organizer: the fifth issue of the conference Utterance Interpretation and
Cognitive Models, UICM 5 (September/October 2015), devoted to Semantics, Pragmatics and
Bilingualism; prospective keynote speakers are Ton Dijkstra, Napoleon Katsos, Istvan
Kecskes and Antonella Sorace.
Symposium co-organizer: the fourth issue of the conference Utterance Interpretation and
Cognitive Models, UICM 4 (2-3 September 2013), devoted to theoretical and experimental
studies of non-conceptual/non-truth-conditional constituents of meaning; keynote speakers
were Rachel Giora, Marina Terkourafi, Elisabeth Camp and Raymond Gibbs.
Website: http://uicm4.ulb.ac.be
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1.12. Professional memberships
2013-current: Member of the Cambridge University Linguistic Society
2012-current: Member of the Linguistics Society of Belgium (CBL-BKL)
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