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Sesquipedalian, Volume III, Number 29
The SESQUIPEDALIAN WEEKLY HERALD Volume III, Number 29
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May 6, 1993
CAR WRECK LEAVES AMERICAN SPEAKING LIKE A FRENCHMAN
A 46-year-old Massachusetts man last year walked away from a
car accident with an unexpected problem: He spoke with a French
accent.
'At first it bothered me very much because I can't make myself
well understood,' the man, who asked not to be identified, said in a
telephone interview. He said he had no experience with a foreign
language and had never even travelled farther than New Jersey from his
home in Worcester, Mass.
The case offers a clue into a rare neurological problem dubbed
Foreign Accent Syndrome that has been chronicled in the scientific
literature about two dozen times since 1907. It usually occurs after
head trauma or stroke.
'He definitely has a foreign accent,' said Dr. Majaz Moonis, a
neurologist who presented the case Thursday during the annual meeting
of the American Academy of Neurology in New York. 'We asked him about
his ancestry. Nothing. There were no other neurological problems.'
Moonis said that doctors found a constricting of the man's
vocal cords. Brain scans showed a decreased blood flow to areas of
the brain involved with motor control.
'This is the first real evidence to explain Foreign Accent
Syndrome,' Moonis said. 'It arises from a change in this brain
circuit, affecting the vocal cords, producing shifts in language that
sound foreign.'
In some cases, said Arnold Aronson, a speech pathologist, it
can last indefinitely. In others it becomes less apparent in time.
(Jamie Talan in -Newsday-)
-/-/-/ KATHRYN SHIELDS-BRODBER /-/-/-
Please welcome Kathryn Shields-Brodber (University of the West Indies,
Mona, Kingston, Jamaica), who is joining us for the next five months
as a visiting scholar. Kathryn is researching the effect of the
electronic media in shaping standard language in Jamaica, and its
implications for sociolinguistic theory. In addition to her
accomplishments as a sociolinguist, she is also an accomplished
violist, and was a member of the Hurricane Gilbert Rehabilitation
Committee from 1989-1990.
-/-/-/ LOOK WHO'S TALKING /-/-/-
-- At the '"Others" in Discourse: The Rhetoric and Politics of
Exclusion" conference at Victoria University in Toronto, Ruth Wodak is
a keynote speaker and will present a paper entitled '"Certain circles"
and Anti-Semetic Discourse in Post-War Austria.' Norma Mendoza-Denton
will present a paper entitled 'The Self as Other: Language Attitudes
and Media Portrayals of Popular African French in the Ivory Coast.'
-- In late April at the University of Arizona Linguistics Colloquium,
Elizabeth Traugott gave a talk entitled 'Subjectification and
epistemic meaning: the development of threaten and promise.'
-/-/-/ CALL FOR PAPERS /-/-/-
-- WECOL XXIII: University of Washington (Seattle), October 22-24, 1993.
SPECIAL THEME: THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGES
INVITED SPEAKERS: EMMON BACH, MARK BAKER, AND PATRICIA SHAW
Subject to funding, we also hope to have invited speakers in the areas of
phonetics, syntax, and historical linguistics/language classification.
Abstracts may be submitted in any area of linguistics. Presented
papers will be twenty minutes long followed by a five-minute question
period. Send five anonymous copies of a one page abstract (references
may be on a separate page) accompanied by a 3x5 card containing name,
paper title, institution, addresses (both e- and snail-mail) to:
WECOL, Dept. of Linguistics, GN-40, University of Washington, Seattle,
Washington 98195. No e-mail abstracts, please.
Abstracts due June 1, 1993
Abstract decisions announced mid-July, 1993
Proceedings published early 1994 (details provided at the conference)
A limited amount of on campus housing will be available. For more
information, write to write WECOL at above address or send e-mail to
wecol@u.washington.edu.
-- CATHER, STEIN, FITZGERALD, HEMINGWAY: THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS TO
MODERNISM (Beijing, November 2-6, 1993). Papers of 10-20 pages (30
minutes) are welcomed on any aspect of the above writers'
contributions to American modernism. They can be on individual
writers or on pairs of writers. Conference sessions will feature
full-length papers grouped together, panel discussions, and a seminar.
The $200 registration fee includes board and lodging for five days and
transportation to and from Beijing Airport. A $50 deposit
(non-refundable after September 1) must be send by airmail, postmarked
no later than June 10, together with the topic of the paper. 200-300
word abstracts should be received no later than August 30.
Participants will be housed on campus in single bedrooms unless
otherwise requested. Send registration forms, topics, abstracts,
checks, and any queries to
Professor Qian Qing, re: International Conference
Department of English
Beijing Foreign Studies University
Beijing 100081 CHINA
fax: +861-842-3144
Sponsored by Beijing Foreign Studies University
-- JAPAN: POWER AND RESISTANCE, Contested Interpretations. 1994
Annual UCLA Graduate Student Symposium for Japanese Studies (April 16,
1994, Los Angeles). Power and Resistance have become buzzwords in
academic circles. Academics, however, by no means agree on the
meanings of these terms. In what ways can power and resistance be
conceptualized? How can we analyze power operating in and around
Japan? To what extent are notions of power and resistance useful in
forwarding our understanding of Japanese culture, politics and
history? The first annual UCLA graduate student symposium for
Japanese studies offers interested graduate students from the western
United States and faculty commentators a forum in which to discuss
these questions. Transportation and two nights' lodging for
presenters will be paid for by the symposium. The symposium committee
welcomes proposals from various academic fields addressing these
questions. We also encourage the submission of papers employing
interdisciplinary, comparative, or cross-cultural approaches. Please
submit proposals of no more than one page in length by June 15, 1993.
Please include your university department, field of specialization,
name, address, and telephone number, along with a self-addressed
stamped postcard for an acknowledgement of the receipt of your
submission. Send proposals to
UCLA Graduate Student Symposium
c/o Yuki Terazawa
1528 Euclid Street #6
Santa Monica CA 90404
email: faison@histr.sscnet.ucla.edu
-/-/-/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM /-/-/-
This Friday, 5/7, Bonnie McElhinny will present her Dissertation
Proposal "How Gender Talks: The Language of Male and Female Police
Officers in Pittsburgh". The talk will begin at 3:30 p.m. in the
Cordura Conference Room with a Happy Hour afterwards.
GENDER AT WORK: THE DISCOURSE AND DIALECT OF MALE AND FEMALE
POLICE OFFICERS IN PITTSBURGH
Bonnie McElhinny,
Dissertation Proposal
Most sociolinguitic research on gender asks "what" the
differences between men and women's speech are rather than asking
"whether and when" such differences exist. Most studies of language
and gender take place in family settings, or in experimental settings
which mimic heterosexual domesticity-- in, that is, settings where one
might expecg gender differences to be greatest. Do gender differences
exist in language when men and women are engaged in the same
interactive activities, with the same interactive goals? My
dissertation focuses on language used by officers on the Pittsburgh
police force, a workplace that is traditionally all-male and
masculine, but which has recruited large numbers of women in the last
15 years as a result of a variety of affirmative action measures. In
particular, I ask if women who enter traditionally masculine,
working-class workplaces adopt masculine speech practices in order to
be perceived as competent by coworkers, the public, and themselves.
In the spirit of a dissertation proposal, I provide an
overview of methods used for addressing this question, as well as a
presentation of results derived from work-in-progress. I begin by
considering what "masculine speech practices" might mean by examining
the language used by male officers on the single most frequent kind of
police call (domestic dispute/ violence). In particular I focus on
strategies for asking questions and offering advice, the placement of
interruptions and the timing and placement of pauses. After
establishing that there are two principal styles for men (an
emotionless, 'objective' style more frequently used by younger
officers who see themselves as bureaucratic professionals, and an
emotional, personally involved style more frequently used by older
officers who see themselves as moral mediators), I compare male and
female officers' styles on domestic violence calls. Most female
officers share the policing styles of younger male officers on these
calls--i.e. they use a style that they udnerstand as objective and
professional, and which complainants often seem to understand as cold,
uncaring and rude.
I then turn to police officers' use of Pittsburgh vernacular
language. Many studies have suggested that men are more likely to use
vernacular language features than are women. Using VARBRUL, I
describe how male and female police officers use the following
vernacular language variables:
Used by African-American and Euro-American Officers
Vocalization of (l)
Laxing of (i) before (l)
Used by Euro-American Officers only
Laxing of (u) before (l)
Used by African-American Officers only
Loss of post-vocalic (r)
Monophthongizatino of (ay) in open syllables
Habitual BE
Copula Deletion
Male and female Euro-American officers with a
street-and-action oriented policing style use the vernacular language
variables shared with African- American officers (i.e. vocalization of
(l) and laxing of (i)) more than Euro-American officers with a
court-and-report oriented policing style. African-American officers,
on the other hand, do not seem to use the variables that they share
with Euro-Americans in the same way; rather, their orientation towards
different policing styles is projected with greater or lesser use of
the vernacular language features that are distinctively
African-American. Use of vernacular language, like use of discourse
styles, seems to be determined by choice of policing style, which is
indirectly linked with gender, along with age, ethnicity and personal
policing philosophy.
I conclude with some comments on the implication of this study
for further work on language and gender, and (given sufficient time)
on the possibilities for reform of police-citizen interaction that
this study suggests.
-/-/-/ PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP /-/-/-
This week, Sharon Inkelas and Orhan Orgun, from U.C. Berkeley, will be
presenting "Stratification in Turkish Lexical Phonology". We'll meet
at 7.30 in the Cordura 2nd floor lounge tonight (Thursday, May 6).
Stratification in Turkish Lexical Phonology
Sharon Inkelas, UC Berekeley
Orhan Orgun, UC Berkeley
This paper investigates several productive phonological phenomena
in Turkish (k-drop, two types of prosodic minimality, and final
plosive devoicing), characterizing their interaction with morphology
in terms of lexical levels. We focus not only on the morphological
domains but also on the numerous exceptions, systematic and lexical,
to these rules/constraints. Of particular interest is exceptionality
to prosodic minimality -- a notorious problem generally for
phonological theory. The Turkish exceptions are not amenable to
solutions proposed in the literature for similar problems in other
languages (namely catalexis or the Strict Cycle Condition). The
solution we propose is based on "level economy", a new theory of level
ordering in which roots are subjected only to the phonology of those
(noninitial) morphological levels to which the affixes that they
combine with belong. According to this theory, "exceptions" to a
phonological constraint simply avoid the level at which that
constraint holds.
Upcoming Talks:
5/20 Shelley Waksler, SFSU
-/-/-/ FELLOWSHIPS/ASSISTANTSHIPS /-/-/-
-- MONBUSHO SCHOLARSHIP: The Ministry of Education (Monbusho) is
offering scholarships to American students who wish to study at a
Japanese university as research studnets for the 1994 Japanese
academic year. Those students selected to be Monbusho Scholars will
carry out research based on a proposal submitted at the time of
application. The area of research participants pursue must be either
in the same field or one related to that which he/she has been
studying. Both two-year and one-and-a-half-year Monbusho Scholarships
are available. The scholarships are available to American citizens
under the age of 35 who are college or university graduates with
superior academic records. Applications submitted to our office by
the deadline date (September 8, 1993) will be screened to determine
which candidates will continue on to the second stage, the language
examination and interview. All applicants will be tested and
interviewed at the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco; the
exam will take place at 1:30 pm on Friday, September 24, and the
interview will be conducted the next day. Contact
Hisako Takahashi
Japan Information Center
Consulate General of Japan
50 Fremont Street, Suite 2200
San Francisco CA 94105
phone: 415/777-3533, ext. 331
-/-/-/ TRUE LINGUISTS /-/-/-
It was a hotly contested race, but at last we have a clear winner in
the 'How linguists hunt elephants' challenge. The final scores were
almost too close to call, but one finally stood head and tusks above
the rest. Jumbo-sized thanks to all who contributed to this little
circus. The entries were:
-- Theoretical linguists sit in their armchair and think about Africa.
They produce models for deciding whether an elephant is really an
elephant or not based on their native intuitions about the animal
kingdom. They don't care if they ever see a live elephant. Field
linguists do the same thing, but they go to Africa and ask other
people for their native intuitions about the animal kingdom.
-- How system administrators hunt elephants.
1. Warn the users to turn in any elephants the may have.
2. Bring the system down to single user mode and type
mkdir /tmp/cage
find / -name "elephant" -exec mv {} /tmp/cage \;
Any elephants that do not affect the system are of no concern to the
system administrator and can be ignored
ps. For linguists to catch elephants.
1. Find all languages in which the word "elephant" occurs.
2. If such a word in one language describes an object that is easily
gotten, get such an object and present it as your "elephant"
-- Linguists hunt elephants by trying to find out if there's an
informant in the vicinity with intuitions about elephants. If the
intuitions match the hypotheses linguists made about elephants, the
hunt is deemed a success!
Then there are the experienced linguists who actually go out into the
wilderness (read: fieldwork). The job is split up, with each group
specializing in hunting for separate parts of hopefully more than one
elephant. The plan is to fit the pieces together at some indeterminate
time in the future, so that it may be declared that they have found
the Universal Elephant.
-- Syntacticians start with a pronoun and make sure it's bound to an
elephant. Phonologists start with an empty cage, delete Africa, and
the floating elephant will of necessity appear in the cage.
Alternatively they can delete the Atlantic and see the elephant spread
to the Americas. Morphologists know that it's much easier to begin
with an ant, and suffix it to the stem eleph at level one (cf.
relev-ant, blat-ant) -- by level two the internal brackets are erased
and we have a fully formed elephant. Historical linguists get a
mammoth and wait. Sociolinguists don't go to Africa, they go to some
suburb of Philadelphia where Oliphants can be found. Semanticists
reanalyze the cage until it takes narrow scope over the elephant.
Computational linguists can generate acceptable artificial elephants
>From tusk, trunk, and body, but still have trouble parsing a live one.
Mathematical linguists know that elephants are large but finite and
therefore capture them by regular expressions. Lexicographers just
grep for [Ee]lephant in Africa until they find every instance.
Phoneticiants don't need elephants: they look at a hat and see the
same F0 contour. Child language researchers don't have to go to
Africa, they can develop their innate elephant. Typologists know that
there is a correlation between continent and ear-size, and use this
knowledge to predict that Antarctic elephants will have extremely
large ears. MIT students don't bother since Chomsky (1981) argued
conclusively that elephants are not part of core Africa. Stanford
students can find an elephant without looking for its traces.
And the winner, by decision (Trish, come pick up your elephant
anytime):
-- Linguists don't actually hunt elephants. Formal linguists read the
existing literature, pretend they know everything about elephant hunting,
then publish their own theory about how elephants are hunted, carefully
stressing the universal implications of their theory. Sociolinguists
go out and interview elephant hunters, then classify them into various
social groups and discuss the effect that elephant hunting has on
social interaction and linguistic development within and between the groups.
(P.S. A developmental psycholinguist would study how children learn that
when their parents call a big gray animal an "elephant" they are
referring to the whole animal and not to a part of the animal, that
the term elephant can refer to different types of elephants but cannot
be used to refer to giraffes, and that the terms "elephant", "African
elephant", "mammal", and "animal" can all refer to the same animal.
A developmental psycholinguist wouldn't worry about elephant hunting
until the child had learned the verb "hunt" and had made the two-word
combination "hunt elephant" or "elephant hunt"--probably around age 2.)
-/-/-/ JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS /-/-/-
(NOTE ON REDUNDANCY: For fuller listings of these and other jobs,
don't forget to check the Jobs binder in the Greenberg Room, and the
file 'jobslist.txt' on the CSLI directory /user/linguistics.)
-- UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND: The Department is seeking a
lecturer to begin on 1st October 1993, or as soon as possible
thereafter, who will make a strong contribution both to the
undergraduate and postgraduate teaching reponsibilities of the
Department and to its international research profile. Applicants
should have a proven research expertise in a non-Indo-European
language or language family with a specialisation in theoretical
syntax, phonetics, or phonology. Salary will be on the Lecturer A
scale (#13,400 - #18,572 per annum), or, exceptionally, at the lower
end of the Lecturer B scale (#19,352 - #24,726 per annum) with placing
according to age, qualifications and experience. The candidate
appointed will be eligible to contribute to the University's
Superannuation Scheme (USS) for which the current contribution is
6.35% of annual salary, the University contributing a sum equal to
18.55% of annual salary to USS. For staff coming to Edinburgh from
other parts of the United Kingdom the University will reimburse the
cost of any reasonable vouched expenditure in respect of the removal
of furniture and effects (including associated insurance), together
with the costs of fares of bringing the family to Edinburgh. Claims
in respect of travel, etc. from overseas will be considered on their
merits. Applicants should have a Ph.D. at the time of application or
be in a position to complete one by 1st October 1993. Applicants will
be considered without regard to sex, marital status, sexual
orientation, ethnic origin, or citizenship. However, the appointment
of any applicant from outside the European Community is subject to the
University's obtaining a Work Permit. Applications (6 copies) should
be sent to:
The Personnel Office,
The University of Edinburgh,
1 Roxburgh Street,
Edinburgh EH8 9TB,
Scotland, U.K.,
Applications should include a full curriculum vitae, a letter outlining
the applicant's particular qualifications for the post, and the names
and addresses (including electronic mail addresses and/or fax numbers if
possible) of two referees. Additionally, candidates may send one copy
of one or two representative publications. (Entire theses or large
numbers of papers should not be sent). Please quote the job reference
number (930 154) on your application. Applicants from overseas are
advised to send their names, addresses and the names and addresses of
their referees by e-mail to search@ling.ed.ac.uk or by FAX to Search
Committee on (+44) 31 650 3962. The closing date for applications is
21st May 1993 and it is hoped that interviews will be held in early
June 1993. This statement does not of itself constitute a contract or
conditions of service.
-- UNIVERSITY OF OREGON: Research Associate in Child Second Language
Acquisition. The American English Institute in the Department of
Linguistics, University of Oregon, anticipates a renewable,
nine-month, full time position as a Research Associate for academic
year 1993-1994 to carry out research in child second language
acquisition. Candidates must have a Ph.D. in linguistics or a related
discipline and have completed a dissertation on second language
acquisition. Responsibilities include child second language
acquisition research. Salary depends on background and experience.
Applications will be reviewed beginning May 1, 1993. Candidates
should submit an application letter including a statement of
interests, vita, reprints, and three letters of reference to:
Professor Jacquelyn Schachter
Search Committee, American English Institute
107 Pacific Hall
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
The University of Oregon is an affirmative action/equal opportunity
institution committed to cultural diversity.
-- SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY: One year faculty position in the
Department of Linguistics, effective August 16, 1993. Applicants
should have a strong background in Applied Linguistics with TESOL
focus and experience with computer-assisted instruction. Duties
include teaching a variety of courses within the department's M.A.
programs in TESOL and Applied Linguistics including TESOL Methods and
Oral Practicum. Preference will be given to those who have completed
all requirements for the Ph.D. by the time of employment.
Applications should include a letter of application, curriculum vitae,
and three letters of reference and be submitted by June 1, 1993 to
Paul J.Angelis, Chair
Department of Linguistics
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
Carbondale, IL, 62901
phone: (618)536-3385
SIUC is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Women and
Minorities are encouraged to apply.
(NOTE ON REDUNDANCY: For fuller listings of these and other jobs,
don't forget to check the Jobs binder in the Greenberg Room, and the
file 'jobslist.txt' on the CSLI directory /user/linguistics.)
-/-/-/ INSTA-PRIZE /-/-/-
Ok, everyone, hands on buzzers-- speed question again. From the world
of history: Who said, 'A man without charity in his heart, what has he
to do with music?'
First correct answer via e-mail wins this week's star prize, and the
sincere admiration of everybody.
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-/-/-/ CONSERVE DISK SPACE /-/-/-
So you may delete your copy after you've read it (or better yet,
before 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 quip'.
Neither Stanford University nor the Linguistics Department, nor any of
their employees, makes any warranty, whatsoever, implied, or assumes
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University or the Linguistics Department, or their employees. The
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employees, and shall not be used for advertising or product
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This journal printed on 100% recycled electrons
Void where prohibited
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