Tom Roeper's Advanced Undergrad Experiment Seminar
Tom Roeper and Bart Hollebrandse are teaching a special evening undergraduate seminar in experiments relating to language acquisition. The course is open to undergrads with experience designing and running such experiments --- an unofficial follow-up to Ling 411 (Introduction to Language Acquisition). It's a great chance to gain more hands-on experience in this kind of research.
The class meets on Monday evenings, starting at 7:30 pm, for about two hours. Contact Tom if you are interested.
Bart Hollebrandse earned his Linguistics PhD from here in 2000. He's now a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Groningen, but he's visiting us this year.
UMass Amherst Linguists at the BU Child Language Conference
The UMass Amherst Acquisition Group will be well represented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 31), November 2-5. Indeed, one of the (unfortunately few) theoretical sessions will consist entirely of South College denizens (Tanja, Magda, Catherine):
Students and former students
- Tanja Heizmann
- Anna Verbuk
- Liane Jeschull
- Bart Hollebrandse
- Anne Michelle-Tessier
Current and recent visitors
- Catherine Legere
- Magda Oiry
- Angeliek van Hout
In addition, Jill de Villiers (Smith Psychology and one of our allied faculty members) is presenting.
[Thanks Tom!]
Roepers in Africa
Tom Roeper, Laura Holland, and their son Tim Roeper were in Africa this summer. Tom filed this report about the language and the linguisics of the trip:
After a week working on demonstratives at ZAS in Berlin and watching soccer demonstrations
around the World Cup (obviously derivationally connected), Laura and I went to South Africa
(and later Tanzania and Zanzibar to visit our son Tim, working on an economics project there).
In July 5-7, at the University of Durban in South Africa I gave the keynote lecture at a joint
meeting of the South African Theoretical Linguistics Society and
Applied Linguistic Society on the topic of "How Fundamental Principles of Linguistic
Theory Connect to Applied Work" where I used the DELV test to discuss how the
"variable" property of questions can be examined in 1st, 2nd language acquisition, disorders,and fieldwork.
The conference was terrific--about 100 people came so there was a lot of cross-attendance
at talks which ranged from very modern work on syntax/semantics to school teachers discussing
how Zulu plays a role in classrooms. One topic was South African Black English. A textbook in physics that covered topics in English,
Afrikaans, and Zulu all at once was launched. Every child is required to learn English, Afrikaans,
and one Bantu language---TV soap operas often have people code-switching between English,
Zulu, and Afrikaans at once. News is given in code-switching style in Zulu and English in the EAst, Xhosa in the West. Classes at Stellenbosch have to be 50% English, 50% Afrikaans. We have a lot to
learn from their efforts at language policy.
I also gave workshops on nominalizations, wh-iterativity, and then on applied issues to graduate students at Durban and then Stellenbosch.
Tom
John McCarthy and Ellen Woolford in Japan
Ellen Woolford and John McCarthy recently returned from giving lectures in Japan. John gave two talks at the Phonology Forum 2006 at the University of Tokyo, and Ellen gave a talk at that workshop as well.
Mako Hirotani (2005 UMass Amherst PhD, now Assistant Professor at Carleton University) gave at talk at the Phonology Forum 2006 as well.
In addition, on August 22, Ellen gave a special invited lecture at a week-long summer school in Tokyo: 'Recent developments in case theory'.
Chris Potts in Paris
Chris Potts will be in Paris next week to give two talks:
New Grant and a Teaching Award to Jeff Runner
Jeff Runner (1995 UMass Amherst PhD, now Associate Professor at the University of Rochester) was recently awards his second NSF grant for his referential pronoun work, and he just got a (highly coveted) Goergen Undergraduate teaching award at the University of Rochester. The ceremony and reception are this Friday.
[Thanks Joyce McDonough!]
New Course by Emmon Bach
Emmon Bach (UMass Amherst Professor Emeritus, Linguistics) is teaching a course on semantics at the ACTL graduate school in theoretical linguistics at University College London next summer
