Two of the thirteen seniors who will receive 21st Century Leaders awards at Commencement (May 23) have connections with UMass Amherst Linguistics: frequent award winner August Siena Cohn Thomas and Lauren Scheiper, who is majoring in Communications and minoring in Linguistics.
[Thanks John!]
This year, the Linguistics department has a record fifteen majors graduating! The department is hosting a dinner in their honor starting at 5:30 pm on May 12, in the department lounge (third floor of South College). All are welcome; RSVPs to Rajesh would be much appreciated.
[Thanks Rajesh!]
The 15th Annual Massachusetts Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference took place on Friday, May 1, here at UMass Amherst. It seems that there was just one linguistics presentation: Jennifer Kelleher (a Spanish major) presented 'Exploring conceptualization through interpreters'.
Lauren Terzenbach got her undergrad degree in linguistics and Russian in 2003. When we last had news of her, in a May, 2007 WHISC, she was an Army captain in Iraq. Lauren has now completed her service and is a first-year graduate at UT Austin, planning to specialize in phonology.
[Thanks John!]
The new Baggett Fellowships and Scholarships program at the University of Maryland is now accepting applications for summer and fall of this year. Baggett Fellowships are open to US citizens or permanent residents who have a BA or BS by the start of the appointment. Check out this page for more details.
[Thanks Angelika!]
A huge congratulations to August Siena Cohn Thomas (Linguistics BA). She has been awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship for participation in a Turkish intensive summer language institute, sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. August writes, "Two months of intensive Turkish in Turkey this summer – fully funded by the State Dept. I'm incredibly excited!"
August is no stranger to WHISC; readers might remember our item on her being named a Davidson Fellow in Literature last year.
[Thanks Rajesh!]
Sarah Watsky (UMass Amherst Linguistics undergrad) and John Kingston are giving a talk at the NEST (New English Sequence and Timing) meeting at Haskins Labs, March 7. The talk is called 'Counting sounds: Do musicians estimate relative numerosity better than non-musicians?'
The UMass Amherst Center for the Study of African American Language is gearing up for the next Summer Dialect Research Project, which will take place in June. Here's a snippet from the website:
The goal of the SDRP is to provide research experiences in linguistics for undergraduates with interest in language-related disciplines and to increase the number of students, particularly those from underrepresented minority groups, who conduct graduate research in these areas.
Here's a fuller description and enrollment information.
Michelle Barron (Amherst College '10) and Mallory Schleif (Hampshire College '11) will present their paper 'The phonotactics of word-initial consonant clusters in Nepali' at McGill's Canadian Conference for Linguistics Undergraduates, March 6-8. Both Michelle and Mallory are often found in UMass linguistics classes; this semester Mallory is also assisting John Kingston and Wendell Kimper with experimental work. This paper began as a project in Kathryn Flack's field methods class at Hampshire last semester.
Patrick Pratt successfully defended his honor's thesis, Typology in Harmonic Serialism, on December 18. His advisors were Andrew McCallum and Joe Pater. Pat will be continuing to work in the spring as an RA on the McCarthy/Pater NSF project, and you can look for the fruits of his labor in an upcoming version of OT-Help. Congratulations Pat!
[Thanks Joe!]
The Linguistics Department will host a lunch tomorrow (December 12) to celebrate our graduating seniors and to mark the end of the semester. The lunch will be from 12:00 to 2:00 pm in the Freeman Lounge (3rd floor of South College). Please come, congratulate graduating majors, and have lunch and cake with us.
[Thanks Sarah!]
Brandeis University has just started a Master of Arts program in Computational Linguistics:
The new Brandeis University Master of Arts program in Computational Linguistics focuses on the scientific study of language, dealing with the modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. This interdisciplinary program draws on linguistic theory (phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics) and computer science (artificial intelligence, theory of computation, and programming methods). Previous experience in computer programming or linguistics, although helpful, is not necessary. The MA provides a solid foundation for professional work in the field of computational linguistics or pursuit of a PhD in computational linguistics and theoretical linguistics. For more information, please visit the Computational Linguistics website.
Undergrads! Find the Linguistics outpost at the Majors Fair, Wednesday, October 29, 5:30-7:30 pm, Campus Center Auditorium and First Floor Concourse. Professors Bhatt and Potts will be on hand to answer questions.
The 2009 North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad will be held on February 4, 2009 (open round) and March 11, 2009 (closed round).
Check out the website for lots more information about how to get involved.
[Thanks Barbara!]
The Linguistics Department is hosting an informal lunch tomorrow (October 3), 12:00-1:30 pm, in the department lounge (third floor of South College). Undergrad majors are specially invited to come have lunch with the faculty and grad students in the department, and to hang out with fellow majors. Larry Solan will be on the scene and would be happy to talk about connections betwen language and the law.
[Thanks Rajesh!]
Bayliss Fiddiman, one of the department's new work study students, is heading up two teams that are walking to raise money for breast cancer research. The walk is on October 26. Both teams are UMass Amherst organizations:
Thanks for doing this, Bayliss!
Linguistics major August Cohn Thomas has been named a 2008 Davidson Fellow in Literature by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. This honor is given to just twenty students nationwide, covering a range of disciplines. August will be recognized for "prodigious achievement in the field of literature" at the award ceremony at the Library of Congress this September. The Fellowship comes with a $25,000 scholarship for graduate school. Congratulations, August!
The department held is End-of-Semester Lunch yesterday. It featured sandwiches from Andiamo and a cake from the Henion Bakery. The cake was decorated with the names of our graduating majors:
Thanks to everyone who helped arrange the lunch! And congratulations to our new Linguistics BAs!
From Tea and Ginny:
There will be an undergrad linguistics party this Friday, May 2, 7:00 pm, in the South College Linguistics Lounge. There will be food (pizza, ice-cream, snacks) and games and possibly music. It's looking to be a pretty awesome time, so mark your calendars.
Also, people are encouraged to bring food/beverages. We will have some soda and snacks there, but that stuff goes fast. So if people could bring a bottle of soda or a bag of chips or whatever strikes your fancy, that would be a big help.
And finally, so that we know how much pizza to order, could everyone who is coming please RSVP either to the Ugrad Linguistics Club facebook group or to Tea.
Thanks guys and hope to see you there!
The Undergrad Linguistics Club met yesterday. The meeting included some brainstorming about an end-of-semester bash.
[Thanks Tea!]
The Undergrad Linguistics Club met yesterday (April 9), at 6:00 pm, in the Bluewall.
[Thanks Tea!]
A reminder from UG advisor Rajesh Bhatt:
On March 28, Deanna Moore (2005 UMass Amherst Linguistics MA) will talk about her work at National Evaluation Systems and how she uses linguistics in her job. The talk starts at 3:30 pm on South College 304.
Deanna, whose official job title is Content Developer, works with The National Evaluation Systems Group of Pearson. She develops teacher certification exams for foreign language teachers, including languages like Hmong. Deanna wrote to us saying: "I can't believe they pay me to do what I do. It's a job where I can incorporate all of my background in linguistics."
The talk will be followed by an informal discussion and will be accompanied by refreshments.
[Thanks Rajesh!]
On March 28, Deanna Moore (2005 UMass Amherst Linguistics MA) will talk about her work at National Evaluation Systems and how she uses linguistics in her job. The talk starts at 3:30 pm on South College 304.
Deanna, whose official job title is Content Developer, works with The National Evaluation Systems Group of Pearson. She develops teacher certification exams for foreign language teachers, including languages like Hmong. Deanna wrote to us saying: "I can't believe they pay me to do what I do. It's a job where I can incorporate all of my background in linguistics."
The talk will be followed by an informal discussion and will be accompanied by refreshments.
[Thanks Rajesh!]
We're holding a completely informal, pizza-fueled "Meet your Faculty Mentor" event on Wednesday, March 5, starting at 5:30 pm in the department lounge (South College, Third Floor). This is a chance for undergrads to meet their new faculty mentors as well as other linguistics majors.
[Thanks Rajesh!]
The Undergrad Linguistics Club meets next on Monday, March 3, 7:00 pm, at the Blue Wall. There will again be talk of linguistics, and there will again be snacks.
[Thanks Ginny and Tea!]
The Undergrad Linguistics Club is back! The group held a preliminary organizational meeting yesterday (Feb 13) at the Blue Wall. If you missed the meeting but would like to be involved, drop Chris Potts a note, so that he can put you in touch with the organizers.
[Thanks Ginny!]
An update from John McCarthy:
Julia Hanley, who got her linguistics BA in 2004, entered the Peace Corps in May 2005 and was assigned to Kenya. She worked with local people on public health education, including HIV prevention, maternal and child health, and contraception. She also raised funds to outfit an orphanage. As she began her third year of service, she was promoted to managing a regional office with responsibility for other volunteers and their programs. Her final duty was to oversee the evacuation of 38 volunteers from regions of civil unrest in Kenya. The deteriorating situation there cut short her last year of service, and she returned to the US in January.
[Thanks Sarah!]
Following today's Freeman Lecture, Geoff Nunberg's What Words Can Teach, there will be a smaller informal gathering immediately after the talk for undergraduate linguistics students (majors, minors, interested others). It's chance to meet a famous linguist and radio personality, and there will be cider and donuts as well. This event will take place immediately after the talk in Bartlett 35. It will finish by 6:00 pm.
You're encouraged to arrive with questions for Geoff. The talk will undoubtedly stimulate ideas, but he's worked on a wide range of issues, so you might want to ask about things not covered in the talk. For example, he was an expert witness in the case to cancel the Washington Redskins trademark on their name, he has written about how analysis of the usage of the words "War" and "Terror" can shed light on current political discourse, and much more.
All are welcome!
[Thanks Joe!]
This year's Central European Summer School in Generative Grammar (the Egg School) will take place in Brno, Czech Republic, July 30 - August 10. Registration starts today and runs until May 16. This is a great opportunity for undergraduates and graduate students alike to study linguistics and see a bit of the world. Register today!
[Thanks Angelika!]
13th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference
Friday, April 27, Lincoln Campus Center Auditorium, UMass Amherst, 8:00 am - 4:30 pm
John Kingston will give a colloquium this Friday at Harvard on behalf of the Phonetics Lab group:
Hearing precedes knowledge
John Kingston, Daniel Mash, Della Chambless and Shigeto Kawahara
The 1st Annual Cornell University Undergraduate Colloquium will take place March 10-11, 2007. UMass Amherst undergraduates are encouraged to submit their work. The due date for abstracts is February 1. Check out the call for papers for details.
[Thanks Lisa!]
Today (December 14) is the Linguistics End-of-Semester Lunch. All are welcome. The festivities begin at 12:30 in the Freeman Lounge (Third Floor of South College). We'll eat, we'll chat, and we'll honor graduating seniors Diana Hennessey, David Fiske, and Antonio Ornelas.
David Fiske writes:
On Tuesday, December 5, at 6:30 pm, in 301 South College (The Partee Room), the DARLings will hold a Syntax/OT tutorial for 201 students. We will be discussing the basic framework of both theories, run through some problems and then have a Q&A session afterward. There will be snacks and beverages and lots of fun!
Ling 201 instructors are encouraged to encourage their students to attend this session.
[Thanks David!]
UMass Amherst Linguistics BA Heather Walts is living and working in Pakistan. She filed this report. Check out her weblog for more on her adventures.
My MA TESOL students at Lahore College for Women have embarked on their first ever Syntax and Semantics projects and I am eagerly awaiting their papers. Their task was to compare Pakistani English usage with standard varieties. For a sample, I gave them an idea for an experiment about the interpretation of "dress" in Pakistani English. It's my hypothesis that "dress" can be used to mean any matching set of clothes, whether for men or women, and that what American or British speakers think of as a dress will be referred to as "frock." I was quite taken aback one day when a male friend told me, 'I have to pick up my dresses at the dry cleaner." I was thinking, wow, maybe he has some hobby that I didn't know about, but it turned out that he meant his clothes for work (dress pants and button-down shirts).
If the students were to choose the topic of the word "dress," they would need to design an experiment to see what articles or sets of clothing can be considered as "dress" here in Pakistan, and by what background of speakers.
As the previously mentioned friend is about to head to Canada as a permanent resident, I've now drilled into his head that in North America "dress" can only refer to a specific type of women's clothes, not his clothes!
The other sample idea I gave them was to look into the pluralization of verbs in the case of respect. In Urdu, singular subjects can take plural pronouns, case markings and verbal morphology if respect is due to that person. When this transfers into English, you get sentences like: "My father are coming."
Some of the topics that the students are looking into include:
and my personal favorite:
Stay tuned, I'll be creating a web blog to post their projects online.
In other news I'm in the middle of coming up with a proposal for a Linguistics Library at the Ali Institute of Education. We'll be starting a post graduate diploma in English Language Teaching next year and I've been encouraging our department to include linguistics courses in the program. There is currently only one linguistics program in Lahore at the University of Punjab. It's a one year post graduate diploma. The Ali Institute has offered to hire me to design a one year program in Linguistics which would culminate with each student writing a thesis. For that to happen, we need resources! My director has given me the task to make up a list of books and articles that I can acquire during my time in the US and we will apply for funding for the resources as well as the shipping.
If you have any recommendations as "must haves" for the library, please contact me at . Thanks!
The 13th Undergraduate Research Conference will take place here at UMass Amherst on April 27, 2005. Abstracts are due March 5, 2007. Registration starts in the first week in January and runs through March 5. The UMass Amherst contact is Rajiv Shrestha (contact info here).
[Thanks Rajiv!]
The DARLings meet next on Tuesday, November 14, 6:30 pm, in 301 South College (the Partee Room). Cory Potwin will be presenting on M.A.K. Halliday's Systemic-Functional approach to linguistics. Cory will go on to contrast various points of Halliday's approach to Chomsky's. Lively methodological discussions will ensue. Cory writes, "The idea behind the presentation is to look at a different approach so as to possibly raise questions, but more likely reaffirm the correctness of the approach(es) we are taught at UMass Amherst".
[Thanks David!]
The DARLings will meet on Tuesday, November 7, at 6:30 pm, in The Partee Room. Caroline Kelley will present some interesting facts about word order and case agreement from Chamorro. As always there will be food and beverages. Come one, come all!
[Thanks David!]
Heather Walts, UMass Amherst Linguistics BA, has been living and working in Pakistan for nearly a year now. The following continues her report on greetings.
"Ya Ali madad," say the children as they pass by me in the village streets. May Ali help you always. "Muala Ali madad." May Ali always help you too.
We are in Ismaili territory now, and the Sunni/Shia greeting of Salaam Alaikum (May the peace of Allah be upon you) along with it's response Wa alaikum asalaam (May the peace of Allah also be upon you) is no longer the standard.
Now I'm in real trouble with my greetings, because while I don't mind using the standard greeting Salaam Alaikum, I have a bit of trouble saying Ya Ali madad. Why is that? Well as a Christian myself I believe that God (Arabic = Allah, Urdu = Xuda) can bestow peace upon someone, but I personally don't believe that Ali is physically helping anyone. It would as if in America the greeting was not "Hello, how are you?" (or "Hey, what's up?") but it was something like "May Buddha be helping you", "May Jesus be helping you," or "May Krishna be helping you." It would certainly be odd to stick in the name of someone that you personally did not believe to have that power.
The Shia/Sunni split is based on a difference in opinion over how the leadership of the Muslim community should be decided. Basically, Shia believe that leadership should be hereditary and that Ali, Mohammad's son in law, should have been the first rightful Caliph (leader of the Muslim community). Prior to Ali, there were three other caliphs who the Shia regard as usurpers. Ali ended up being killed by some who didn't agree with his claim to leadership, as was his son Hussein. With the death of Hussein came the split of Sunni and Shia, Shia holding that the leadership should be chosen from Mohammad's family. Shia also consider their religious leader, the imam, to be infallible (unable to do wrong) and to have a direct connection with Allah, unlike other devout followers. Within Shi'ism there is a further breakdown of sects depending on how long they believe the true imamate lasted. Some Shia believe the 7 th imam was the last one and some Shia believe the 12th imam was the last one, these are referred to as the Seveners and the Twelvers respectively.
The Ismailis are those who believe the imamate has continued to the present day. Most Ismailis live in the Hunza region of Pakistan. Their current imam is Aga Khan, who I'm told is the third richest man living in France….or at least that's the rumor in Hunza. Third richest or tenth richest man in France, this man's picture is in every living room in Ismaili villages. His picture watches over you as you ride in a Suzuki down steep mountain roads. His smiling face is looking down on you as you enjoy a modest meal in the smallest hole-in-the-wall restaurant. No shop would be complete without Aga Khan's photo hanging above the merchandise.
Not only is his picture everywhere, but his investment is as well. The Aga Khan Development Foundation is the largest NGO active in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Each village has an Aga Khan Diamond Jubilee School for primary education. Irrigation projects have been sponsored by Aga Khan. Clean drinking water, sanitation, transport roads, literacy programs, girls' hostels, girls' colleges, health centers, micro-loans, small business development, women's vocational training, you name it! It's all provided by Aga Khan's various organizations.
Technically, I would say that the Ismailis worship not only Ali, but also the Aga Khan. They have special worship songs written only for him. They celebrate his birthday, anniversary, and even his sons' marriages. One day when I was in the village everything was put on hold because the Aga Khan's son was getting married in India. People had to run off to worship at the jamaa khana.
So back to my problem of the greetings: What do I say when I greet Ismailis? Well the good thing is that most of the Ismailis I know are Burushaski speakers and they do not use the ya Ali madad greeting. They generally stick with the traditional "Behal bila"and the response "Thik bila." I haven't learned so much about Burushaski (language isolate, heavy borrowing from Urdu) but there's not any reference to Ali or the Aga Khan in there so I'm safe. Bila = form of "be", thik = ok/good, borrowed from Urdu.
My friends from the Hunza region tend to only use ya Ali madad as an exclamative and not as a greeting. When 75 year-old grandpa is trying to stand up, he says, "Ya Ali madad." When they find out someone in the village has become pregnant, "Ya Ali madad." It can be used in either a positive or negative exclamation.
It would be interesting to do a survey on the Ismaili villages in the Northern Areas and to see under what circumstances they use the expression ya Ali madad and how its use differs from place to place, but as for now my greeting crisis is temporarily solved. I'm back in Lahore where most people I meet are Sunni or Shia Muslims, so it's safe for me to use Salaam alaikum once more.
On Tuesday, October 31, the DARLings meet (as usual) at 6:30 pm in South College 301 (The Partee Room). Ryan O' Mara and David Fiske will be introducing Grice's Maxims of Conversation and dicussing some issues at the semantics--pragmatics interface. There will be food and beverages. As usual everyone/anyone is encouraged to come!
[Thanks David!]
The DARLings meet next on Tuesday, October 24, at 6:30 pm, in South College 301 (the Partee Room). They will be holding a syntax tutorial for 201 students (or anyone who needs a refresher!). Organizer David Fiske writes, "Anyone who is a little confused or has any questions is encouraged to come. As usual there will be food and drink. Come one, come all!"
Next week (on Halloween!), the group plans to hold a (spooky) OT tutorial.
[Thanks David, Ryan, and Lisa!]
The Undergrad DARLings meet this coming Tuesday, October 17, at 6:30 pm, in SC 301. Cory Potwin will be helping the DARLings prepare for Peggy Speas' upcoming (October 20) colloquium on evidentials. He will be begin by outlining what the core questions of her grant are and then present more explicitly on a related paper (Evidential paradigms, world variables and person agreement features).
[Thanks David!]
The Undergrad DARLings meet this coming Tuesday, 6:30 pm, in the Partee Room.
Lily Wood, who just returned from a year abroad in Russia, will be presenting on some interesting facts from Russian, focusing mainly on Negative Concord. The discussion will focus primarily on syntax, but semantic questions are fair game too (though she'll be leaving the genitive of negation to Barbara and Volodja).
[Thanks David!]
At the next DARLings meeting (October 3, 6:30 pm, in the Partee Room), Ryan O'Mara will be presenting on the recent works of Maribel Romero in preparation for her colloquium on Friday, October 6. Maribel's works focus mainly on formal semantics and the syntax--semantics interface.
[Thanks David!]
UMass Amherst Linguistics BA Heather Walts is living in Pakistan. Below is her latest report for WHISC. Visit her weblog Updates from Heather for much more on life in Pakistan and environs.
Christian Greetings --- at a loss for words
I've found during my time here that I never know what to say when greeting Pakistani Christians. Muslims use the Arabic greeting, assalaam alaikum (may the peace of Allah be upon on) and it's response is wa alaikum assalaam (and may the peace of Allah also be upon you). In the Arab world it's fine to use this greeting pattern with both Christians and Muslims, and the word in Arabic for the one God is Allah. Christians will use the same word when referring to God as they will also use Isa (Jesus). In Pakistan it's a different story.
The greeting used by Hindu Hindi-Urdu speakers is namaste, but in Pakistan this greeting is looked down upon. To say namaste means that you are an idol worshiper and an infidel, so this greeting is generally avoided. Also, most Urdu speakers insist that Hindi is a completely different language than Urdu because they use different writing systems and there is some variation in lexicon. They claim they can understand Hindi easily because they watch so many Hindi movies.
So namaste is out for the Christians as well, and as opposed to Arabic speaking Christians, Allah is not an acceptable word for God. Why? Well because xuda is the word for God used by Pakistani Christians and Allah refers only to the god of the Muslims whom they believe to be a false god. Christians also do not believe that worship and prayer must be done through the Arabic tongue, as Muslims believe, so the rejection of assalaam alaikum as a greeting is prevalent among the Christian community.
What do Christians say to greet each other? Sometimes salaam (Arabic- peace) is used all by itself, or with a person's title. Salaam khala (peace; maternal aunt). This is interesting because they are still using an Arabic word for greeting others. Some Christians use English greetings like hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and how are you? I thought this may be done by those within the church who are educated, but I've observed some Christians who are illiterate Punjabi speakers using English greetings as well.
When it comes to partings there is a similar problem. For Hindi speakers namaste doubles as a parting as well, but again since Muslims and Christians don't want to be thought of as idol worshipers or infidels, this parting is out. Urdu textbooks will teach xuda hafiz (may God protect you), but some Muslims have gone to change this greeting to allah hafiz. I once heard a Christian woman's son use allah hafiz and he was promptly reprimanded and told never to say that again. The Arabic parting m9-salama (with peace) doesn't seem to be used at all in Pakistan, although due to the meaning it seems this would create less controversy. Most Muslims don't mind if you say xuda hafiz and they seem to alternate between using xuda and allah when they refer to God. A zealot of fanatic will almost always insist of using allah exclusively but these kind of people I have only seen on TV and not encountered in person.
So what do I say? Well for greetings I use salaam alaikum unless I am with people who I know are Christians. Then I switch to salaam and English greetings. For partings, I exclusively use xuda hafiz because if I use allah hafiz everyone will assume I am a Muslim. Now with Ismailis (a sect of Shiia Islam) greetings are a different story altogether ...
The Undergrad DARLings have established a permanent weekly meeting time: Tuesdays at 6:30 pm in The Partee Room (South College 301).
Last Tuesday, David Fiske got the ball rolling by presenting Quang Phuc Dong's classic paper 'English without overt grammatical subject.' Much interesting discussion followed.
Next tuesday (September 26), Linguistics/Anthropology major Caroline Kelly will present on bilingualism in America and the lack of translators in the medical community. She will talk about code switching as well as the special challenging of translating semantic and pragmatic subtleties.
DARLings is open to anyone and everyone interested --- no matter whether you have just enrolled in Ling101 or are applying to graduate schools this semester. So, come one, come all!
[Thanks David!]
On Monday, September 25, from 4-6 pm in the Campus Center Auditorium, the International Programs Office will host an Education Abroad Fair.
Campus representatives ---- and education abroad reps from dozens of agencies and institutions outside of UMass Amherst --- will be on hand to provide information and guidance on education abroad programs around the globe.
[Thanks Angelika!]
The Undergrad Linguistics Club resumed its regular meetings yesterday (September 13, at 6:30 pm, in SC 301). David Fiske, Ryan O'Mara, and Lisa Shiozaki are heading it up. Their first order of business was deciding on a regular meeting time. We'll let you know what they decided next week.
The club is officially called the Undergraduate DARLings. They began meeting about one year ago, and they've been going steadily ever since, fueled mainly by presentations by undergraduate linguistics majors. All are welcome; the presentations do not presuppose expertise in any particular areas of linguistics.
[Thanks David!]
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.
GALANA 2 (McGill University, August 17-19, 2006) was dominated by UMass Amherst linguists.
Helen Stickney and Liane Jeschull compiled a photo album.
[Thanks Liane and Helen!]
The 4th Formal Approaches to Japanese Linguistics Conference was held in Osaka, August 17-19. Many UMass Amherst linguists presented their work:
Thanks Shigeto
UMass Amherst Linguistics BA Heather Walts is now living and working in Pakistan. She's been sending reports to WHISC. Here is here latest; we're pround to be able to feature these items:
I've had a crazy three months of my passport being taken, leaving a job, overstaying my visa, waiting five weeks for an official type paper to be sent from one city to another to remedy the visa, spending time in the northern areas where the internet was so slow it was not worth using, and am finally back and settling in Lahore after collecting my things from the six various houses I had left them at! Whew, life in Pakistan. Now I'm running self-designed teacher training workshops including, "Strategies for Building Fluency," "Linguistics for Communicative Learning," "Introduction to English Phonology," and "Integrative Language and Culture in the Classroom." I'm also teaching "LIP," - the Language Improvement Program for in-service teachers. Our slogan is "not just lip service, we get results.".
Language learning here is almost entirely based on literature, as in any higher education in language. Punjab University has just started a Linguistics program, but a far as I know there are not many others in the country. The teachers are enjoying the workshops, and they LOVE drawing syntax trees and using IPA symbols. Hey, it's a start! These English teachers need to know why rote memorization is a thing of the past. Any graduates who don't know what to do next year? You're always welcome to come join me in Lahore. I'll make sure nobody takes your passport and you don't overstay your visa....besides now I know all the immigration officers and how things are supposed to work. Supposed to being the key words.
Here's a short article written in April with the intention of sending it to WHISC.
Team Kingston at LabPhon in Paris this year, plus Jaye Padgett (1991 UMass Amherst PhD):
From left: Eve Brenner-Alsop, Dan Mash, Shigeto Kawahara, John Kingston, and Jaye Padgett
[Thanks Shigeto!]
The DARLings are having their final meeting of the year this SATURDAY (May 20) at 7 o'clock. The meeting will be at member David Fiske's apartment. For directions or more information, please contact Paula or Patrick.
We will be playing some excellent linguistics-related games, celebrating a great year, and discussing the upcoming year of DARLings meetings and activities. All undergraduate linguists are welcome, even if they've never attended a DARLings meeting before!
The End-of-Semester Luncheon wil take place on Friday, May 19, at 12:30, in the Math Lounge (floor 16 of the Grad Research Center).
Lisa Selkirk writes:
The End-of-Semester Lunch is a time for celebrating the end of a year of hard work and accomplishment, and is especially the time to honor the undergraduate Linguistics majors who are graduating this semester. We urge the graduating seniors to come, and hope that other Linguistics majors be there as well. The faculty will be there, as will the graduate students.
This year the End-of-Semester Lunch will also be the occasion to honor Lee Edwards, who is retiring this year from her position as Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. Lee Edwards has been a enthusiastic supporter of the Linguistics Department and we hope she will enjoy the assembled crowd of linguists at this end-of- semester festivity.
Hope to see you there!
Lisa Selkirk
Head of Department
The Undergrad DARLings meet today (May 11) at 6:30 pm in South College 301.
In preparation for Edward Flemming's talk on Friday, Lisa Shiozaki will present on contrast and perceptual distinctiveness -- the topic of Flemmings' upcoming colloq and his most recent paper. Lisa will be talking about phonetically-based phonology and discussing the content of his paper with us. The abstract of this paper is available here.
No prior knowledge is assumed, and Lisa will be providing all necessary background to understand the paper.
We're pleased to announce that we have 9 graduating Linguistics Majors this year:
| Paula Aden | Diana Hennessey |
| Eve Brenner-Alsop | Patrick Houghton |
| Ginger Buckbee | John Jackson |
| Robert Chase | Emily Silgard |
| Jennifer Driscoll |
A special part of the End-of-Semester Luncheon (May 19, 12:00, new lounge) will be devoted to honoring this group.
The Undergrad DARLings meet today (May 4), at 6:30 pm, in SC 301.
Paula Aden will present her recent work on ternary stress. She will discuss her theory of ternary rhythm in the context of five languages that exhibit an iterative stress pattern: Ripura Bangla, Cayuvava, Estonian, Chugach Yupik, and Winnebago. No prior knowledge of stress, phonology, or Optimality Theory is assumed. All are welcome.
[Thanks Paula!]
Paula Aden, erstwhile DARLing and fellow newsletter writer, is presenting at the 12th Umass Undergraduate Research Conference in Boston today (April 27). Her talk is called 'Positionally licensed extended lapses'. Her advisor for the project is John McCarthy.
Our own Paula Aden heads up her own departmental newsletter, for the Bachelor's Degree with Individual Concentration program here at UMass Amherst. The seasonal newsletter is spiffy and easy to navigate around in. Excellent web design, Paula!
Our phoneticians, current and graduated, are everywhere these days. Shigeto Kawahara kindly pulled together the following summary of UMass Amherst people on LABPHON 10 program. LABPHON takes place in Paris, June 29-July 1.
Adamantios I. Gafos, Philip Hoole, Kevin Roon, Chakir Zeroual. Variation in timing and phonological grammar in Moroccan Arabic clusters. (Adamantios Gafos was a visiting professor here.)
Scott Myers, Benjamin Hansen (University of Texas, Austin). The origin of vowel length neutralization patterns. (Scott Myers, 1986 UMass Amherst PhD)
John Kingston, Della Chambless, Daniel Mash, Jonah Katz, Eve Brenner, Shigeto Kawahara (UMass Amherst). Sequential contrast and the perception of co-articulated segments'. (Daniel and Jonah are recent UMass Amherst Linguistics BAs; Eve is a current major; Della and Shigeto are current grad students.)
Shigeto Kawahara (UMass Amherst). 'Sonorant Geminate: Aperceptually-grounded phonological constraint'.
Jaye Padgett, Marzena Zygis (UCSC; ZAS). 'A perceptual study of Polish fricatives, and its relation to historical sound change'. (Jaye Padgett, 1991 UMass Amherst PhD).
The Undergrad DARLings meet today (April 20) at 6:30 pm in the Partee Room. Janet Danylieko will lead a group discussion of Larry Horn's paper The border wars, as preparation for Danny Fox's colloq.
Hosted by the 5 College Philosophy Society
Saturday, April 15, 10:00-2:30 pm
Hampshire College, Franklin Patterson Hall
The 5 College Philosophy Society puts out an annual journal of original student work. To accompany the journal, the society puts on a conference. During the conference each author presents his or her paper to peers and teachers.
Eva Goodwin, Ben Lockwood, Andrew Gehring, Jennifer McAdoo, and Byron Patrick Simmons will present this year. Topics include meta-ethics, philosophy of time, and a paradox.
Also, don't miss the keynote lecture: UMass Amherst Professor Hilary Kornblith, esteemed epistemologist, will give a talk entitled 'Philosophy, Intuitions and Conceptual Analysis' this Friday, 5:00 pm, Hampshire, Franklin Patterson Hall, East.
[Thanks Erica!]
The Undergrad DARLings meet today (April 13) at 6:30 pm in SC 301. Abril Navarro will be presenting her work on any and none in child language acquisition. She will be examining the speech of two children who use any to mean none. Abril will also be discussing the theoretical implications and why she suspects that this confusion occurs.
[Thanks Paula!]
Andrew McKenzie, currently a Year 2 grad student here, has received an NSF Graduate Fellowship.
Jonah Katz, a 2005 UMass Amherst Linguistics BA now in the Linguistics grad program at MIT, has also received an NSF Graduate Fellowship.
The Undergrad DARLings meet today (APril 6) at 6:30 pm in South College 301. David Fiske will present some of Geraldine Legendre's recent work arguing that Balkan clitics are not phrasal affixes. This evidence is taken to further the hypothesis that verbal clitic languages do not significantly differ from clausal clitic languages.
All are welcome to attend!
[Thanks Paula!]
The Undergrad DARLings meet today (March 30), at 6:30 pm, in SC 301. Rob Chase will present a parsing algorithm and explain Chomsky Normal Form. This particular parsing algorithm --- the CYK algorithm (named for its creators) --- is the dream of many students in 201. Given a sentence and set of transformation rules in Chomsky Normal Form, the CYK algorithm can produce the set of all possible parse trees for the sentence, given enough memory and time. There will be powerpoint slides and a "do it by hand" exercise.
[Thanks Paula!]
There are five (5!) UMass Amherst phoneticians presenting at upcoming meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. The talks are listed below; Shigeto Kawahara wrote to say that "Basically, everybody is an author of every project, but since there is a rule that a person can be first author of one abstract and a co-author of at most one more, we divided things up this way".
This high volume of high quality work is no doubt a direct result of John Kingston's big NIH grant, now in its second year.
Daniel Mash is a recent BA from our linguistics program, and Eve Brenner-Alsop is a current major --- and they're already off to a national meeting!
The Undergrad DARLings meet today: 6:30 pm, in South College 301.
Lisa Schiozaki will present her currrent experimental research. In her words:
My presentation will be about accentuation patterns observed in Japanese loanword phonology. I will give general descriptions of what is being/has been proposed in the literature and present results I obtained in a nonce word experiment I conducted this year. I'll be dealing with the data in the context of OT (Optimality Theory). I (and hopefully the phonologists too) will do our best explaining all the necessary info, so no a priori knowledge is expected.
Last week, Patrick Houghton presented on incremental processing of backwards anaphora in Japanese.
From Paula Aden:
Undergraduates! Interested in leading a roundtable discussion or presenting a talk at the 4th Annual Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium? The final deadline for abstracts is tomorrow (March 17)! Send submissions to the address that begins with "bdsamuel", continues with the usual "at" sign, then "fas.", follows that with "harvard.", and finishes with the usual "edu".
Students at all levels of expertise are encouraged to submit an abstract on any topic in linguistics! Linguistic disciplines represented at the colloquium include, but are not limited to, syntax, phonology, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics.
The Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium will be taking place at the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts from April 22-23. The keynote speaker is Professor Marc Hauser of Harvard University.
Heather wrote with more news from Pakistan. Visit her blog for more detailed descriptions.
Education or Eligibility?
I'm nearing the end of my first module at the women's college, and about 50% of my students are in danger of failing. It's an MA program for TESOL, yes that is to become teachers of English, and unfortunately about half of them (or more likely their families) didn't realize that learning English was a step that should be taken prior to enrolling in the program. I'd already been advised not to give them reading assignments, to keep quizzes to true/false, multiple choice, and fill in the blank, and to not be too hard on the shy girls. The first quiz was so ridiculously easy it almost made me sick, but nevertheless several students failed. About four girls even mysteriously had the same exact (mind you completely incorrect) wording on the essay section. I stuck in the short essays at the end because I just couldn't give them a test which didn't require anything more than memorization.
My next attempt was a five paragraph essay assignment comparing two different teaching methodologies regarding listening, speaking and in particular pronunciation. In order to help them with their essay structure (I thought I had learned from the quizzes), I broke the essay up into four questions and directed them to write one paragraph each for numbers 1-3 and two paragraphs for number 4. Intro, body and conclusion all set up for them. Well 14 out of 28 students failed based on the American system (60% and below...here in Lahore 70 is an A and 40 is passing...I can't bring myself to think along those lines). The registrar can give them an A, I will insist that they've only earned a C- as far as the rest of the world is concerned. The marks were so poor because Lahore's future English teacher's just need more time to learn English before trying to teach it to others.
This system just becomes an endless cycle with the English in Pakistan becoming less and less like English and more and more its own mutually unintelligible language. I work with second language learners all day long and my ear is trained for comprehension, but four or five of the presentations given in my class today were completely incomprehensible to me. Their task was to create and run a listening activity. For some of them, I had no idea what was going on! I just felt so bad for these girls, because here in Pakistan they don't necessarily choose their own path for education or career training.
Education here is also still based on rote memorization. Even while prepping students for IELTS, a few have asked me if I could write an essay for them to memorize. One woman who doing quite well in the MA TESOL program was chatting with me yesterday about the current state of education in Pakistan. She said, "They have been spoon fed all their lives. Usually they are given the questions and the answers to memorize. When you ask them to think and make an opinion, they don't know what to do." We spent an hour of one of my classes this week going back over the essay questions and talking about the key words in the questions and how to answer them. If I asked for "goals" I was given "pronunciation features." If I asked for the features, I was given an opinion. If I asked for an opinion comparing two different methodologies, I was given a four page essay about how important it was to learn English. Seriously, I ended up correcting them while drinking sipping vodka on my friend's terrace, because it was just too much to bear the thought that this was the future of Pakistani education. It's not that the girls aren't bright or don't have potential, but the fact that they've been in the program for about a year and nobody has noticed that they need some time to learn English and study skills prior to going for their MA.
I talked to the advisors about this problem today, and basically it comes down to the fact that it's MY responsibility to make students pass. Even if I think they shouldn't pass. Even if I think they shouldn't be in the program at all. In order to be admitted there was only an entrance interview, not even a written test or any essays. The program head gave me a whole list of excuses why the girls' English isn't good. They've come from the village. They've come from a backward area of the country. They only know how to memorize things. They can't really read academic texts in English. They can't understand my accent. They can't write essays. They are too shy to speak. And most of all, they won't become English teachers anyway, they are just "biding their time before getting married."
You see, an MA degree makes you eligible to boys with MA degrees and may be the road to a better life. If your daughter has an MA, she should marry a boy with at least an MA or one PhD. In Pakistan almost everyone seems to have one or two PhDs, and they all insist on being called doctor. They seem to forget the fact that NOT ONE university in Pakistan in internationally recognized. Outside of Pakistan their degrees don't mean anything. The President was saying the other day that "even India has internationally recognized universities" and some deals have been made to bring in foreign partners to create a recognized university here in Lahore.
But for now, I'm still in the Pakistani college with a class of variable abilities and stuck in an ethical quandry. I've been asked to give my students "another chance," but the problem is that even if they had 100 more chances they need more training in English language, writing skills, and how to think critically. Even if I gave private tutoring to each student it would take more than a year for a few of them to catch up, and so I'm not quite sure what to do. I don't want to lower my standards, and I can't bring myself to pass students who lack the general ability to answer a question or follow directions. I also don't want to let my bright students down by failing to challenge them and teach them what they need to know to be able to be better teachers. I have several girls who will make great teachers, but the rest of the class is holding them back from rigorous academic studies. Ahhh! This weekend I need to make their final exam up...if you see me online, please just say hi and let me know I don't have to let this drive me insane...at least not yet.
The Undergrad DARLings will meet today (March 2), at 6:30 pm, in the Partee Room. Note the slightly later start-time --- this is a permanent change, to avoid overlap with the biweekly Syntax Reading Group.
The DARLings have shifted their emphasis a bit. In the past, it was all original research. These days, they alternate between that and a more traditional reading group format, with people presenting others' papers. Very often, this is in preparation for an upcoming colloq.
For instance, to prepare for Jason Riggle's colloq, Paula Aden presented some stuff on learning algorithms, with emphasis on the contenders algorithm. This week, David Fiske will present something relating to Norvin Richards' work.
A reminder to all UMass Amherst undergrads:
Abstracts for the Undergraduate Research Conference in Boston are due by 11:59 pm this Sunday, March 5. An abstract cannot exceed 250 words. You can register to do either an oral or a poster presentation.
This week, Ryan O'Mara will be presenting, at 6:00 pm today (February 23),in the Partee Room. Here's Ryan's short description:
i'll be presenting on approaches to dealing with yes/no questions. we'll make use of tools from pragmatics, and we'll also consider current approaches being offered through epistemology. overviews will be provided in both pragmatics and epistemology, so no a priori knowledge (hehehe) is expected.
Addtionally, students from the undergraduate linguistics group are planning to submit abstracts to the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium, which will take place at Harvard, April 22-23 (abstracts are due March 17) and/or the Massachusetts undergraduate research conference. They are meeting this Friday, February 24, to work on their abstracts together. All interested undergrads are welcome.
I've basically been under house arrest for the past week, going only from the house, to the car, to the office due to the riots. There's another big strike planned for friday, although in Karachi they were able to protest peacefully, so I'm hoping the Lahoris can follow their example this time and avoid burning down buildings and the like. Things have calmed down for the moment, and yesterday I took a public bus all by myself from the center of town to the house. It doesn't sound exciting, but believe me, it was a big move towards being mobile again!
Bob Rothstein writes to say that the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS offers many study abroad opportunities. There are fellowships open to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Heather Walts, a recent graduate of the UMass Amherst Linguistics undergraduate program, is now living and working in Pakistan. She went expecting to work on a literacy project, but she has ended up teaching English at a Cultural Center and also teaching some modules of an MA TESOL program. She writes:
I have one student who is selling his motorcyle to have private lessons in linguistics, so I thought current students might be inspired by the work over here. Not to mention it's quite exciting with my classes being cancelled due to riots over the Danish cartoonist and the impending visit of George W. to Islamabad next month ... should be an exciting semester here!
Continue reading "Report from Heather Walts, from Pakistan" »
The Undergrad DARLings meet today (Thursday, February 16), at 6:00 pm, in the Partee Room (SC 301). Sarah Watsky will present. She will discuss acquisition in Italian. Specificially, she will address the issue of how two particles with a wide range of uses --- ci and ne --- are acquired.
[Thanks Paula!]
