Dr. Jacques Lamarche

Biography

Jacques Lamarche specializes in linguistic theory, semantics, and the morphosyntax of French and English. His extensive academic journey includes a Postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Quebec at Montreal. He served as the head of the Department of French Studies at Western University from July 2014 to June 2019, during which time he was heavily involved in administrative responsibilities that limited his research writing. Nonetheless, he remained active in his research pursuits, engaging in seminars, presentations, and discussions. His current research emphasizes that the semantics of natural languages should be directly grounded in the external world rather than in individual mental representations. He argues that the association of linguistic forms with meanings is fundamentally arbitrary and requires consensus among speakers within a community. This theoretical framework advocates for the public extensionality of lexical meaning, allowing for the examination and debate of meaning in a shared context. This perspective continues to evolve in his ongoing research efforts, as he dialogues with established scholars.

Research Interests