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Sesquipedalian, Volume III, Number 2
'There's been a lot of talk about this next journal,
Maybe, maybe too much talk.
This is not a rebel journal,
This is...'
The SESQUIPEDALIAN WEEKLY HERALD Volume III, Number 2
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October 9, 1992
This Monday, October 12, marks Columbus Day, Sukkot, Canadian
Thanksgiving, and Catalonian Bank Holiday, so the Sesquipedalian
will be moving to a new publication schedule. If all goes according
to plan the next issue should be on everyone's screens next Wednesday,
the fourteenth.
Before getting to matters of linguistic import, I'd like to present
this week's feature article: the life of Vladimir Vladimirovich
Mayakovsky (born Bagdadi (Georgia), July 19 1893, died Moscow, April
14th 1930). Mayakovsky was the central figure of the Russian Futurist
movement and the premier artistic voice of the Bolshevik Revolution of
1917. According to Russian-American critic Marc Slonim, Mayakovsky
was among the most read poets in the Soviet Union; between 1917 and
1954, his works sold more than 23 million copies in Russian and in 51
languages of the USSR. Mayakovsky has also had a large impact on
world literature.
His father was a Russian forester of noble ancestry and his
mother was a teacher. Mayakovsky was an intellectually precocious
child with an early appreciation of literature, coupled with an
indifference to schoolwork. After his father died in 1906, the family
moved to Moscow, and he joined the Bolshevik cause two years later.
As a teenager Mayakovsky was repeatedly arrested for underground
activities including organizing a jailbreak by political prisoners,
for which he served a six-month prison term.
After his release from prison, Mayakovsky entered the Moscow
Institute of Art to study painting. There he met Russian Cubist
painter David Burliuk, who introduced him to the avant-garde in the
visual arts and poetry, and organized and produced Futurist road shows
that toured Russia before 1917. Wearing outrageous costumes and often
a yellow tunic that became his trademark, Mayakovsky soon became the
most popular poet-performer in the group.
In poetry he celebrated city life and the press of humanity.
He was a modernist and an original. His poetry was startling in its
use of rhythm and hyperbolic imagery in a verse that spoke often of
unrequited love. His poems were meant to be read aloud-- some say
shouted. Favoring first-person constructions, he cultivated a
booming, earthy voice in contrast to the sentimental patrician poets
and the verbally vague symbolists. While the speaker in Mayakovsky's
poetry is vital and heroic, he is also a tragic figure who is first
rejected, then destroyed, by the cause and the individuals he loves.
As a Bolshevik, Mayakovsky was considered too individualistic
by the culturally conservative Lenin, though one of his greatest poems
is 'V.I. Lenin.' During the 1920s, Mayakovsky traveled widely,
including several visits to Western Europe and a visit to Mexico and
the United States in 1925. During his stay in Manhattan, Mayakovsky
met and fell in love with the Russian emigre Ellie Jones, with whom he
had a daughter, Patricia J. Thompson (born June 15, 1926), now a
professor at Lehman College of The City University of New York.
Toward the end of the decade, however, it became more
difficult for Mayakovsky to obtain permission to travel, and some of
his works were criticized and later suppressed, including his plays
'The Bedbug' and 'The Bathhouse.' The poet's struggle with the
increasingly repressive regime clouded the last years of his life. He
commited suicide on April 14, 1930, under circumstances that are still
open to speculation.
(Courtesy Mayakovsky Symposium Committee)
-/-/-/ LOOK WHO'S TALKING /-/-/-
Jacques Terken (Institute for Perception Research, Eindhoven (NL))
gives a special talk this Friday, October 9th at 2.15 in Ventura 17.
Jacques will also give talks at other institutes, but not on the same
topic!
TITLE: Contributions of persistence of grammatical role and surface
position to deaccentuation
Deaccentuation (marking part of the utterance as [-focus]) is
often accounted for in terms of the distinction between Given and New
information. Past research, aiming to arrive at an explicit
definition of the concepts Given and New, has suggested that
deaccentuation can better be accounted for in terms of the
accessibility of information in working memory. A question that
remains to be answered is which factors contribute to this
accessibility. Since unaccented expressions can be treated as one
kind of anaphora, linguistic research on anaphora resolution provides
valuable insights. Among other things, grammatical role and surface
position contribute to anaphora resolution. An experiment will be
described in which speech material was collected by means of an
elicitation technique. Results concerning the distribution of
unaccented expressions will be presented and some implications will be
discussed.
-- BERKELEY WOMEN & LANGUAGE GROUP: Look for these papers by our gang
in 'Locating Power,' the proceedings of the second conference of
Berkeley Women and Language Group:
Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet: 'Communities of practice:
Where language, gender and power all live'
Bonnie McElhinny: '"I don't smile much anymore": Affect, gender and
the discourse of Pittsburgh police officers
Norma Catalina Mendoza-Denton: 'Variation in gap length and the Anita
Hill/Clarence Thomas cross-examination discourse'
Copies available now! Contact BWLG, c/o Berkeley Linguistics Dept.
-/-/-/ CALL FOR PAPERS /-/-/-
-- MAYAKOVSKY CENTENNIAL (Lehman College CUNY): The Vladimir
Mayakovsky Centennial, 1893-1993 at Lehman College, City University of
New York, April 30-May 1, 1993. An academic symposium on May 1 will
include sessions on
- A Fresh Look at Early Soviet Culture
- The Influence of Mayakovsky on the Hispanic World
- Vladimir Mayakovsky: Feminist Persectives
Other events include an Alexander Rodchenko photography exhibition, a
production of Mayakovsky's satirical play 'The Bedbug,' and a
biographical sketch presented by the poet's daughter, Professor
Patricia J. Thompson, based on her mother's unpublished memoirs,
entitled 'Mayakovsky in Manhattan.' The proceedings will be published.
Presentations should be approximately 20 minutes in length. One-page
abstracts are due by December 18. Papers are due by February 19.
Please send abstracts/papers to
The Mayakovsky Symposium Committee
Lehman College, CUNY
Shuster Hall 102
Bronx, NY 10468
-- The 6th Annual CUNY Sentence Processing Conference (University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, March 18-20, 1993): We invite the submission
of abstracts for papers and posters to be presented at the Sixth
Annual CUNY Sentence Processing Conference. Abstracts in all
approaches to sentence processing are welcome. We especially
encourage submissions concerning the interface of syntactic and
semantic processing and submissions by students and researchers who
have not previously presented papers or posters at the Conference.
Abstacts of approximately 200 words should be sent via e-mail to
SENPROC@PSYCH.UMASS.EDU or via surface mail to
Ms. Anne Donnis, Department of Psychology
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003
Your abstract should include name, address, e-mail address, and
telephone number. It should indicate whether you perfer to present a
paper or a poster, and whether you are willing to present your work as
a poster should there not be time for it as a read paper. Abstracts
must be received by January 8, 1993. You will be notified of
acceptance by February 8. We will require duplication-ready copies of
abstracts of accepted papers and posters by February 22.
-/-/-/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM /-/-/-
Today's colloquium (October 9) was announced in last week's issue, so
will not be repeated (next time, pay attention!). The colloquium
committee has announced that next week, Friday the 16th, there will be
no colloquium to avoid conflicting with 'three major conferences.' We
will return to regularly scheduled programming on October 23rd.
Meanwhile, watch for announcements of this colloq schedule for the
coming quarter.
-/-/-/ WORD OF THE WEEK /-/-/-
The official department word this week is 'offensensitivity.' We
won't suggest that you try to use this word in normal conversation
over the next week, but we will say that offensensitivity is something
that will no longer be found in this publication. Or do we mean to
say that offensensitivity will be taken into account for all future
issues? In any case, the level of offensensitivity of this
publication will be zero from here on out.
-/-/-/ GRANTS/ASSISTANTSHIPS /-/-/-
-- DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS IN THE LANGUAGE SCIENCES AT ROCHESTER: The
Center for the Sciences of Language (CSL) at the University of
Rochester has a total of three NIH-funded postdoctoral trainee
position: one can start right away, the other two start anytime after
July 1, 1993: all can run from one to two years. CSL is an
interdisciplinary unit which connects programs in American Sign
Language, Psycholinguistics, Linguistics, Natural Language Processing,
Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Vision. Fellows will be expected to
participate in a variety of existing research and seminar projects in
and between these disciplines. Applicants should have a relevant
background and an interest in interdisciplinary research training in
the language sciences. We encourage applications from minorities and
women: applicants must be US citizens or otherwise eligible for a US
government fellowship. Applications should be sent to
Tom Bever, CSL Director
Meliora Hall, University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627
bever@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu
716/275-8724
Please include a vita, statement of interests, names and e-mail
addresses and/or phone numbers of three recommenders; also indicate
preferred starting date.
-- NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL FORD FOUNDATION POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS
FOR MINORITIES: The National Research Council plans to award
approximately 55 predoctoral fellowships and 20 dissertation
fellowships. Applicants must be US citizens or nationals who are
members of one of the following ethnic groups: Native American Indian,
Alaskan Native (Eskimo or Aleut), Black/African American, Mexican
American/Chicano, Native Pacific Islander (Polynesian or Micronesian),
or Puerto Rican. Awards will be made for study in research-based
doctoral programs in the behavioural and social sciences, humanities,
engineering, mathematics, physical sciences and biological sciences,
or for interdisciplinary programs composed of two or more eligible
disciplines. Each predoctoral award includes an annual stipend of
$11,500 to the Fellow, and an annual institutional allowance of $6,000
to the fellowship institution in lieu of tuition and fees; each
predoctoral award provides up to a maximum of three years of support.
Each dissertation award consists of an annual stipend of $18,000 to
the Fellow; dissertation awards are not renewable. Application
deadline date: November 6, 1992
The Council also plans to award approximately 25 Ford
Foundation postdoctoral fellowships in the same areas. The deadline
for submission of applications for these awards is January 8, 1993.
For more information, see the information posted in the department or
write:
The Fellowship Office, GR 420A
National Research Council
2101 Constitution Avenue
Washington, DC 20418
202/334-2872
-/-/-/ LITERARY CORNER /-/-/-
Exerpt from 'Mysteria-buf,' by Vladimir Mayakovsky:
RIBAK
Govlanit.
Dela droogava nyet--
Palytsem zemlyu tirkaty.
OCHOTNIK
Dirka!
-/-/-/ TRUE LINGUISTS /-/-/-
Overheard in actual linguistics classes:
'If I had to go to my grave defending that that-deletion
occurs at LF, I would not die a very happy man.'
'Is everyone happy with this? Well, maybe "happy" is the
wrong word-- has everyone copied this onto a piece of paper?'
'Of course I meant "sesquidecennium," not "sesuidecennum."'
-/-/-/ JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS /-/-/-
(A NOTE ON REDUNDANCY: Don't forget to check the jobs-binder in the
Greenberg Room (linguistics office) for fuller descriptions of these
and other jobs.)
-- The Department of English Language and Literature at the University
of Pecs, Hungary, is looking for an English philologist, literary
critic, and/or English linguist to head the program. The position
involves transforming a department which has traditionally had a
primary interest in teacher training into a full-fledged
university-level English department. Knowledge of Hungarian is
welcome but not necessary. Salary will be paid in Hungarian currency
but matching in amount Western European and US standards. A
two-to-three year initial commitment is requested.
Pecs (about 250,000 inhabitants) is an historic town among the
hills of South Hungary, about 2.5 hours from Budapest by train.
Interested candidates should send letter and CV to the following
address by the end of October or as shortly thereafter as possible:
Ozseb Horanyi, Dean of Humanities
Janus Pannonius University
Ifjusag utja 6.
H-7624 Pecs, HUNGARY
(non-ASCII vowel diacritics on the Hungarian names are missing.)
-- NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: The Foreign Language Education Program seeks
to find a qualified candidate for an adjunct position in Japanese
Linguistics. Conditions: Non-tenured position, two graduate courses
per semester on two of the following: structure of Japanese, Phonetics
and Phonology, and Discourse Analysis. Salary based on experience and
qualifications. Start date: Spring '93 (1/19/93). Minimum
requirements: MA in linguistics (with a major in Japanese), ability to
work with diverse student populations (native & non-native Japanese
speakers), ability to communicate subject matter effectively to future
teachers. To apply, send a letter indicating your qualifications,
resume, official transcripts and two letters of recommendation by
November 1, 1992 to
Dr. Theresa Austin, Director
Foreign Language Education Program
Department of Teaching and Learning
239 Greene Street, 635 East Bldg.
New York NY 10012-1632
212/998-5469
austin@acf.nyu.edu
-- Tenure-track assistant professor position in linguistics, beginning
fall 1993. Ph.D. preferred. Specialization open. Duties include
teaching undergraduate and MA-level courses in general linguistics.
Screening begins November 21, 1992 and will remain open until
selection is made. Send a letter of application, CV, and the names of
three references to
Dr. John J. Haggerty, Chair
English Department, University of Alabama
UAB Station, Birmingham, AL 35294
UAB is an EO/AA employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to
apply.
-- Pending budgetary approval, the University of Pittsburgh expects to
fill a permanent half-time tenure-stream position in linguistics,
beginning September 1, 1993. Rank and area of specialization are
open. Candidates must have excellent credentials in both teaching and
research. The successful candidate's major departmental
responsibility will be to develop the undergraduate linguistics
program. Applications should therefore present evidence of a high
degree of interest, expertise, and success as well as extensive
experience, in undergraduate linguistics education. Please send a
letter of application and current CV to:
Sarah G. Thomason, Department of Linguistics
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA 15260
Deadline for applicaitons: November 15, 1992
-- Massachusetts Institute of Technology is seeking applications for a
two-year visiting assistant professor in Japanese to begin Fall 1993.
Responsibilities include teaching Japanese at all levels and assisting
the Director of Japanese language and culture program in administering
the program. Ph.D. in general or Japanese linguistics is required, as
well as native or near-native fluency in Japanese and English and
proven excellence in teaching Japanese. MIT is an equal
opportunity/affirmative action employer and welcomes applications from
women and minorities. Deadline for applications is December 1, 1992.
Send letter of application, CV, three letters of reference, sample
syllabus, and a short writing sample to
Japanese Search Committee
Foreign Languages and Literatures
MIT 14N-305
Cambridge, MA 02139
(A NOTE ON REDUNDANCY: Don't forget to check the jobs-binder in the
Greenberg Room (linguistics office) for fuller descriptions of these
and other jobs.)
-/-/-/ MYSTERY ANNOUNCEMENT /-/-/-
This announcement was left in the submissions box. Unfortunately, I
must confess to being a non-French speaker, but I decided to run the
announcement as-is under the presupposition that if you can't
understand it, you don't need to know...
-- une nouvelle procedure a ete mise en place pour le recrutement des
maitres de conferences en France: elle consiste en deux etapes:
- candidature sur une liste de qualification:
cette liste est nationale et vaut pour 4 ans
deux dossiers a remettre: le premier au rectorat avant le 30
octobre 1992 se renseigner au
rectorat de paris, bureau du recrutement, 47 rue des ecoles,
75230 paris, cedex 05, tel 33 1 40 46 22 11
le second au rapporteur de la section nationale d'experts a
envoyer courant janvier 1993
- candidature (academie par academie) sur les postes de
maitres de conference affiches debut 1993 pour septembre 1993
il y aura des postes en linguistique formelle et en linguistique
informatique, peuvent candidater tout titulaire d'une these, d'un
Ph.D. ou equivalent, sans condition de nationalite
un maitre de conferences fait en moyenne 6 heures de cours par
semaine graduate et undergraduate, et a un post a vie
(Needless to say, all errors probably mine. --ed.)
-/-/-/ FINAL SCORE /-/-/-
The Sharks beat the Winnipeg Jets last night in their first game of
the season, 4-3. Skriko (#26) scored the winning goal with 43 seconds
of overtime left. Overall the Sharks started out rusty in comparison
to the veteran Jets, but aggressive checking in the overtime period
and excellent goal-keeping by Hackett assured a Sharks victory and
bodes well for the coming season. The now-traditional 'West Side
Story' intermission was a hit, as always. Players out injured were P.
Berezan, E. Courtenay, R. Whitney, and V. Mayakovsky.
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-/-/-/ CONSERVE DISK SPACE /-/-/-
So you may delete your copy after you've read it, the Sesquipedalian
Weekly Herald is stored online both at Stanford (in directory
/user/linguistics/Sesquip), and at Berkeley (in the directory
/usr/pub.) The most current issue of the Herald can be found by
typing `help informant'.
Identify the quote at the beginning of this week's Herald and win the
mystery prize! Send all tries to kyle@csli.stanford.edu (first
correct answer wins).
'People that are really very weird can get into sensitive
positions and have a tremendous impact on history.'
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
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