Department of Linguistics at the University of Rochester

On Friday, 4/23 at 10am EDT, Felix Ameka (Leiden University Centre for Linguistics) will be joining us virtually to give a talk! This talk will be held through Zoom, and participants must register at this link to attend: tinyurl.com/amekacolloq. See you there!

This Friday, 4/2 at 12:00pm EDT, Caroline Heycock (University of Edinburgh) will be joining us virtually to give a talk! This talk will be held through Zoom, and participants must register at this link to attend: tinyurl.com/carolineheycockcolloq

Come join us this Monday for a panel with some of our alumni! Zoom registration is required prior to the event and can be found at tinyurl.com/lingalum. See you there!

In 2019, Professor Maya Abtahian received the David T. Kearns Faculty Mentoring and Teaching award as an inaugural recipient. Professor Abtahian was recognized for her work with pre-college programs in the Kearns Center, which included working with high school students and teaching summer linguistics courses on language and identity. Read more here: https://www.rochester.edu//faculty-mentors-make-a-differe/

Congratulations to Edgar Yau (’20) for publishing a paper in the undergraduate research journal Lifespans and Styles! His paper is an investigation of variation in the use of creaky voice by journalist Sarah Koenig, and it grew out of a course paper he wrote at UR. Check it out here: http://journals.ed.ac.uk/lifespansstyles/issue/view/377

Meet Cameron Greenop, our new Linguistics Undergraduate Peer Advisor! This coming year, Cameron will be working with Linguistics students to help plan their courses, get involved in research, look into studying abroad, and connect with faculty. Throughout the school year, Cameron will be hosting different academic programs for Linguistics students to attend, and we encourage everyone to take advantage of this resource! More details on these events will be posted right here, so stay tuned for updates. In the meantime, if you have questions for Cameron, you can contact him at [email protected] to schedule an appointment.

In Solidarity with Scholar Strike: September 8-9, 2020. The Linguistics Department and UR community invite you to join us in two days of solidarity with our city, our coworkers and our students through the nationwide Scholar Strike/Teach-In to protest state violence and racial injustice through virtual events. Please join Professor Joyce McDonough's LING 210: Intro to Sound Systems virtual class, Wednesday, September 9, 2020 (10:25-11:40am EST). Class discussion will be focu...sed on the issues addressed in the Rickford and King paper (below) and will concern speech and the analysis of speech and the importance of dialect and identity. Reading; Rickford, John R. & King, Sharese (2016). "Language and linguistics on trial: Hearing Rachel Jeantel (and other vernacular speakers) in the Courtroom and Beyond." Language, 92(4), 948-988. Sharese King is a UR Linguistics Alum, Class of 2012. For more information about events and registration: http://www.sas.rochester.edu//events/2020-09-08_strike.html

Welcome back to campus and happy first day of classes! We know this semester looks a lot different from what we’re used to, but we’re excited to continue learning and connecting with you all no matter what. See you in class!

The global pandemic has changed so much about how our lives function, from our schooling to our jobs to our social interactions. But how has the pandemic changed the way we use language? How does the switch to staying at home affect the languages that multilingual students speak? These are the questions that Professors Maya Abtahian and Naomi Nagy are asking in their survey, Our Languages, Our Lives, and the Global Pandemic. For more information and to take the survey yourself, check out this blog post: http://blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca//stories-through-res/

Thanks for checking out our social media! If you’re not already following us everywhere, you can find us on Instagram @urlingdept, Twitter @urlingdept, and Facebook: facebook.com/URLinguisticsDepartment!

On August 7th & 8th, the UC Santa Barbara Department of Linguistics and the UC-HBCU/NSF REU Talking College Project presented the second annual Advancing African American Linguist(ic)s Symposium. This symposium featured many talks of different topics, from Developing a Multi-Lingual Linguistic Atlas of the Caribbean (Oslapem, Siegel, and Burkette) to The History and Evolution of the Black Masc Lesbian Identifier (Johnson). More information on the symposium and abstracts to all of the talks can be found here: https://ucsbhbculing.files.wordpress.com//aaal-symposium-b

Today we are featuring another one of our fall courses, LING 270/470: Preserving Diversity in Language & Culture! This course teaches students in the humanities how to engage in fieldwork data collection and management, a skill that is integral in preserving endangered languages and cultures. More information on this course, as well as all the others that we are offering this semester, can be found on URStudent.

Still deciding on your fall schedule? You’re in luck! The Department of Linguistics has plenty of fascinating courses for you to take! Today, we’re featuring LING 204/404: History of Linguistic Thought. This course delves into core linguistic ideas throughout history, examining how different cultures and periods have regarded language. More information on this course, as well as all the others that we are offering this semester, can be found on URStudent.

Ellipsis is a central phenomenon at the interface between syntax, semantics, phonology and discourse. Linguistics Professor and Dean of the College in Arts, Sciences, and Engineering, Jeffrey Runner, gave a keynote address at Experimental and Corpus-based Approaches to Ellipsis 2020 at Paris Diderot University on 15-16 July, 2020. This online webinar also included keynote speakers Philip Miller and Susanne Winkler. http://drehu.linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr/ecbae-2020/

Anansa Benbow, the U of R Linguistics alum behind @blacklangpod, has also given a TED Talk at Columbia University discussing the discrimination that speakers of African American English (AAE) face in the classroom. These discussions, both in The Black Language Podcast and this TED Talk, are integral to our understanding of linguistic justice in society. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE9TBQEC5v0

University of Rochester Linguistics alum Anansa Benbow has a new podcast out called The Black Language Podcast: This is a podcast dedicated to talking about Black people and our languages, and the beauty, rawness, and complicatedness of our various realities. Give it a listen! More information can be found at @blacklangpod on Twitter and Instagram. Episodes can be found here: http://blacklangpod.buzzsprout.com

In a recent Op-Ed for the Los Angeles Times, Sharese King (U of R Linguistics alum and current Assistant Professor of Linguistics at University of Chicago) details the importance of African American English (AAE) and its distinct history in America. King describes the Trayvon Martin case and how Rachel Jeantel, who gave a key testimony, was discredited throughout the trial. King also discusses the works of linguist John Baugh and economist Jeffrey Grogger on housing and wage inequality due to discrimination against AAE. Full article here: https://www.latimes.com//african-american-english-racism-d

From Professors Maya Abtahian (University of Rochester) and Naomi Nagy (University of Toronto): We are researchers from Rochester and Toronto who are interested in how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected a diverse population of students. We are particularly interested in hearing about the experiences of multilingual students whose living situations and communication patterns have changed as a result of the lockdown. We have made a brief survey (less than 10 minutes) asking som...e questions about how your life has changed. There is also an option for you to upload an audio recording describing how life has changed for you during the lockdown and as restrictions start to ease. You are encouraged to respond to this survey if you are a bilingual or multilingual university student, at least 18 years old. If you are interested in responding to the survey, please click on this link: https://voicesoftoronto.az1.qualtrics.com//SV_cDgu3bZ3HKrC