Discussion Group Schedules

I'll let you in on a little secret not many undergraduates seem to know about (or at least, take advantage of): Discussion Groups. These are groups which are geared towards specific interests in Linguistics. Do you like Syntax? Sociolinguistics? Historical Linguistics? Phonetics? They're all here! And I have compiled a handy-dandy schedule for the Fall Term, so that you know when they all meet!
Here are general times and locations:
SoConDi (Sociolinguistics, Language Contact, and Discourse Analysis): Sociolinguistics Lab, on the mezzanine of the fourth floor. Times vary, which is why they are provided on the table
HistLing: in room 403 at 2:00
Psycholing: in room 3048 in East Hall (note: not Lorch Hall, like all the rest)
PhonDi: at 1:00 in the computer lab on 4th Lorch
Syntax: at 3:00 in 403 Lorch (the Catford Conference Room)
Colloquiums: they start at 4:00, but the place varies. Keep an eye out for Department emails

Announcement: Meeting Cancelled

Unfortunately, we had to cancel our Monday meeting due to the time restraints of the Ling Club Field Trip to see William Labov at MSU. Sally is still going to speak, but at a later date. You will receive more information on this later. If you would still like to join the Ling Club group going to see William Labov, please email me (amyhem@umich.edu) and let me know AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Also, let me know if you have a car that you would be willing to drive.

Next Meeting: Sally Thomason! (plus free pizza)

Thanks to all who came to watch the Confederate States of America. We discussed how the film portrayed language: how the prestige dialect shifted to the Southern dialect, how certain lexical items which are taboo today might possibly be acceptable if slavery were still around, and how our own presumptions about prestige in a dialect made it harder for us to notice that the upper-class characters in the commercials were speaking a Southern dialect, because we index wealth with a more Northern way of speaking. The movie was fascinating and provided an interesting opportunity to discuss sociolinguistics in an entirely different context than we're used to.

Next meeting (Monday, October 3rd, at 7:30 in 403 Lorch), we have the distinguished Sally Thomason joining us! She is the head of the University of Michigan Linguistics Department, and has held high-status positions as a well-respected linguist in such large societies as the Linguistics Society of America, where she was once President for a term. She is best known for her work on Language Contact (for which she wrote the standard textbook), and she currently does fieldwork in Montana on Montana Salish, an endangered Native American language. Her talk will focus on this part of her academic career, and she will discuss with us some of the practical aspects of field work:

"I'll talk about some of the pitfalls of linguistic fieldwork -- especially fieldwork on endangered languages -- and on how to avoid those pitfalls. For instance: how to collect lots of lexical data from speakers who haven't spoken their language regularly for decades; how to collect data on nonstandard dialects when everyone who goes to school gets taught the standard dialect; how to avoid offending your consultants; how to collect data on rare grammatical constructions; how to deal with speaker-to-speaker variation; how to keep cultural taboos from preventing data collection."

In addition to her high status as a well-known linguist, Sally is also an excellent speaker and a delight to listen to. Please join us for this very special event! Also, we will be having free pizza. Hope to see you Monday!

U of M Linguistics Professor on NPR!

Go to this page to listen to our department chair, Sally Thomason, talk about Language and Politics! And then come see Sally Thomason in the flesh at our meeting on October 3rd!

Next Meeting: Confederate States of America

Tonight we watched the documentary about Genie, called "Secret of the Wild Child". Thanks to all who came! Join us next week as we watch the "Confederate States of America", a movie about history as if the South had won the Civil War. Afterwards, we will discuss the implications of the persistence of slavery and the victory of the South in how we as Americans speak.

Mass Meeting/Next Meeting

What you missed: a lovely cake by Reed Blaylock, a rousing game of MooT, and a chance to meet a great bunch of people interested in linguistics! But that's okay, because you can always join us next week and meet (hopefully) many of the same people and maybe even some new people in addition to that, when we watch "Secret of the Wild Child", about the infamous Genie, a little girl who was strapped to a toilet seat in an attic alone, thereby giving us more information about language acquisition. (You may have read about her in your Syntax classes). Hope to see you there!
Reed's cake:

(Vowel formants and "Ling Club" in IPA)

Festifall 2011

Come see our Linguistics Club table at Festifall, on Thursday, September 8th! We will have information about the Mass Meeting, Linguistics Fun Facts, fun NACLO problems, etymology trivia cards, free candy, and much more! Look for the kids wearing the "Michigan Linguistics" t-shirts! If you happen to miss us, we'll post Mass Meeting information soon. Hope to see you there!