Spring 2007

Linguistics Graduate Student Talks

May 30th, 2007

2:30, 53a Olson

Michael Grosvald, Ph.D. Program, UCD
QP2 Presentation: Long-distance vowel-to-vowel coarticulation: Production & perception study

The phenomenon of coarticulation is relevant for issues as varied as lexical processing and language change. However, research to date has not determined with certainty how far such effects can occur, nor how perceptible they are to listeners, at either the conscious or unconscious level. This study investigated anticipatory vowel-to-vowel (V-to-V) coarticulation. First, seven native speakers of English recorded sentences containing multiple consecutive schwas followed by [a]? or [i]?. The resulting acoustic data showed significant anticipatory vowel-to-vowel coarticulatory effects as many as three vowels before the context vowel. The perceptibility of these effects was then tested using behavioral methodology, and some pilot ERP data were also collected. Even the longest-distance effects were perceptible to some listeners. Of particular interest to historical linguistics is whether a correlation exists between ability to perceive coarticulatory effects and tendency to coarticulate. The results here offer limited support for this hypothesis, and are suggestive enough to warrant further study.

Genevieve Leung, Applied M.A. Program, UCD
MA Thesis Presentation: Hong Kong Cantonese Speakersʻ Language Ideologies and the Use of Written Cantonese: ʻI have no problem writing what I want to say, but (I will express myself) only in easy words.ʻ

A rarity compared to other Chinese vernaculars, Cantonese has its own written form, which includes many characters unknown to standard Mandarin. Since Cantonese is a ʻdialect,ʻ it is often associated with less positive linguistic attitudes even by its own speakers. Though China is supposedly unified by a language standard, the continued usage and further development of written Cantonese signifies the personal identities of Cantonese-speaking people and the vitality of the Cantonese language. Though Cantonese is nowhere near extinction, written Cantonese literacy can be seen as a means of cultural and linguistic preservation.
While some research has been done to examine the linguistic structures of written Cantonese (Li 2000; Snow 2004; Bauer 2005), no studies have been conducted to look at the link between written Cantonese and education. This thesis examines the language ideologies of Hong Kong Cantonese speakers towards the Cantonese written vernacular and the possible educational implications of these ideologies through interviews, reading response and comprehension questions, and a matched-guise study.

April 27th, 2007

Ceil Lucas, Professor of Linguistics, Gallaudet University
Variation and Modality: The Role of the Phonological Environment in Sign Language Variation
4pm, 53a Olson
Variation in the parts of ASL signs, i.e. phonological variation, has been explained largely by reference to the influence of the preceding and following signs (Liddell 2003; Johnson and Liddell 1989). In this colloquium, I summarize the results of a study of three ASL phonological variables: the sign DEAF; the location of a class of signs represented by the verb KNOW; signs produced with a 1 handshape (Lucas, Bayley, & Valli 2001). For all three variables, multivariate analysis of more than 9,000 tokens extracted from conversations among 207 signers shows that the grammatical function of a sign, rather than features of the preceding or following signs, is the most important influence on a signerʻs choice among variants. Other recent work on sign language variation leads to a similar conclusion (Hoopes 1998; Mulrooney 2002). I suggest that the patterns of variation observed in recent studies may well be a consequence of the way morphology functions in a visual-gestural modality. In contrast to the spoken languages where variation has been extensively studied, sign language morphology is not normally a boundary phenomenon. Few affixes exist in sign languages. Rather, morphological distinctions are accomplished by altering one or more features in the articulatory bundle that makes up a hold or a movement segment or by altering the movement path of the sign. The immediate phonological environment does not have the major role in governing phonological variation in part because, in contrast to classic sociolinguistic variables like -t,d deletion and (ING) in English, the variables themselves are not affixes. Rather, the grammatical category to which the variable in question belongs, sometimes combined with lexical frequency, is consistently the first-order linguistic constraint. Although the immediate phonological environment sometimes plays a role in conditioning phonological variation in sign languages, recent studies in the language community have shown that its role has been considerably overestimated.

Winter 2007

Friday, February 23rd

Professor Ana Celia Zentella, Ethnic Studies, UCSD
TRANSFRONTERIZO TALK: Languages and Identities of Border Crossing Students in Tijuana- San Diego
4 pm, 53a Olson
Fluency in Spanish and English is the most visible cultural marker of transfronterizo students, i.e., those who have lived and studied on both sides of the US-Mexico border in San Diego and Tijuana. An initial analysis of the varieties of English and Spanish spoken by 40 college students, all U.S. citizens, indicate that they possess a bilingual and multidialectal repertoire and adopt middle class discourse styles in both languages; of particular interest are the fillers ʻo seaʻ and ʻlikeʻ. Moreover, despite the frequent language alternation and anglicisms that characterize Transfronterizo Talk, intra-sentential code switching is stigmatized because it is linked to ʻel hablar mocho de los pochos (ʻthe broken speech of Mexican Americansʻ)ʻ. Transfronterizos who define themselves in contrast to Mexican Americans use their cultural capital to approximate Weinreichʻs ʻideal bilingualʻ, but others challenge rigid notions of bilingualism and borders.

Friday, February 9th

Jim Martin, Professor of Linguistics, University of Sydney
Intermodal reconciliation: mates in arms
3:30, 53a Olson
For this paper Iʻll undertake a discourse analysis of the children's picture book Photographs in the Mud, a reconciliation story set in WWII in Papua New Guinea. I'm particularly concerned with the ways in which language and images interact to enact the reconciliation theme, drawing on relevant work in systemic functional semiotic accounts of verbal appraisal and imagic focalisation, ambience and framing.

Fall 2006

November 2nd

Mary Bucholtz, Associate Professor of Linguistics, UC Santa Barbara
ʻIʻm like yeah but sheʻs all noʻ: Innovative quotative markers and youth identities in interaction
4:45, 53a Olson

It has been well established by sociolinguists that forms such as be like and be all are in widespread use as quotative markers among youth in a number of English-speaking countries More recently, researchers have reported that the distribution of innovative forms is not uniform but depends heavily on speakersʻ social identities or styles, which can be uncovered only through close discourse analysis as well as in-depth ethnographic analysis of the local social order in which speakers live their everyday lives. This presentation builds on this work by considering how social identities are forged not merely through quantitative patterns of preferred quotative forms within social groups but more importantly through the individual speakerʻs selection of a particular quotative at a specific moment in discourse to perform a particular interactional function. Drawing on interactional data from students at a Northern California high school, the paper examines how quotative markers pattern in discourse within as well as across locally salient and oppositionally defined social groups such as popular people, nerds, and hip hop fans. The analysis reveals that specific innovative quotative forms, imbued with specific semiotic associations, are not static markers of sociolinguistic identity but flexible indexical tools for creating affective and epistemic stances that position the speaker stylistically in relation to her speech and her interlocutors. The findings argue for the necessity of enriching quantitative sociolinguistic analysis with qualitative discourse analysis and ethnography to arrive at a more complete picture of linguistic style.

October 17th

Brian Morgan, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics & ESL, Coordinator, TESOL Certificate Program, York University
Culture Jamming and the Geopolitics of English: Mixed Messages from the Net
4pm, 53aOlson
The Internet has become a crucial site for a wide range of anti-globalization activity: from the mobilization of protesters at IMF and World Bank meetings to digitized forms of “writing/imaging back“ that utilize the multimodal and hypermedia environment of the Internet in the subversion of images and texts used to normalize market-based ideologies. The extent to which this latter activity-termed culture jamming-can undermine global capitalism remains to be seen. Rhetorical techniques of parody subvert by way of humorous appropriation and imitation. Circulated via the Web, however, the localized, intertextual allusions that support these parodic activities can be lost, resulting in weakened or contradictory modes of “writing back“-comedy without critique, in the eyes and ears of the uninitiated.

An intriguing example is the presence of websites devoted to collecting, displaying and commodifying interlanguage phenomena, one of the most notable being Engrish.com, a website that celebrates the “error“/creativity of Japanese learners/users of English. The mixed and multiple messages of Engrish.com will be foregrounded in this presentation. Through carnivalistic laughter (cf. Bakhtin), such sites can be seen as subverting the standardized and nativized codes that underpin centre-based dominance of the English Language Teaching industry. Yet, such laughter is bi-directional in that the most humorous-hence exotic, from an Anglo-centric perspective-are selected for branding on t-shirts and other products available for purchase on-line. Thus, while “writing back“, these sites also write in support of the dominant cultural, economic, and linguistic forces that underpin globalization.

The presenter will begin with a brief summary of both utopian and dystopian perspectives on globalization and the geopolitics of English. He will then describe his inadvertent introduction to the activity of culture jamming through students’ research and writing in a content-based English for Academic Purposes course he has taught. Following description and analyses of several Internet examples, the presenter will examine the “mixed messages“ of Engrish.com and their broader implications for critical literacies and multimodal practices in English Language Teaching.

2005-2006 Colloquium Schedule

Spring 2006

May 30th

Linguistics MA Presentations

Carolyne Crolotte
Effect of online chat on SLA
4:30pm, 53a Olson

This presentation discusses how on-line synchronous chat can have a positive effect on both oral proficiency skills and lexical acquisition. The study itself was conducted over a period of eight weeks in which three native-Portuguese-speaking Brazilian students participated in regular individual chat sessions with me 4 times per week for 1.5 hours each session. During the "chats" the participants and I shared personal experiences and interests by posing questions to one another about standard discussion topics (i.e., vacations, sports, hobbies, music, movies) in English. The participants also took both a pre- and post-test of spoken proficiency in English to gauge their progress. The presentation will examine the details of the study and investigate the findings of this study as they relate to the study's research questions.

Liberty Van Natten
Linguistic and Cultural Issues in the California High School Exit Examination
4:30pm, 53a Olson
This research paper examines the ways that cultural and linguistic practices of African American high school students are in conflict with the language and cultural knowledge present in the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE). This project is a case study based on tutoring sessions in which I tutored three African American high school student participants in preparation for the CAHSEE. Analyses of linguistic differences between the dialects and registers of the students on the one hand, and the language used in the CAHSEE on the other, reveal cultural differences realized through language. These differences expose cultural bias on the test and create challenges for both students and educators. This study shows that high stakes standardized tests and the systems that use them need closer inspection by researchers in order to aid the students who are required to pass such tests and the educators who are held accountable for the pass and fail rates of their students. The presentation will begin with a description of the methods used in data collection followed by a summary of the findings and conclude with a discussion of the findings and ways this research can be further developed and continued.

April 4th

Jack Hawkins, Professor of Linguistics, Cambridge University
Building bridges in the language sciences - on the new Applied Linguistics
4pm, 53a Olson

Language is our most unique human attribute and it is central to just about every aspect of our daily lives. As a result there are specialists in many fields who study language from the vantage point of their respective disciplines: in linguistics, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, medicine, anthropology, sociology, education, computer science and engineering. There are several "language sciences" here, and in this talk I discuss some challenges that they now face, in large part as a result of past successes in the contributing disciplines. I argue that progress is being held back by the increasing separateness and autonomy of some of these disciplines. There is not enough communication and sharing of even basic facts and insights, and I give some examples to illustrate this. Established findings in one field are sometimes counterevidence to proposals in another, or can lead to new hypotheses in a different context. By integrating ideas from different fields, new solutions emerge to old problems, as well as new research hypotheses for testing. Better interdisciplinary science can then result in better applications to real-world problems, involving language acquisition, medical diagnosis, and computational linguistics. This is what the "New Applied Linguistics" is all about: better (interdisciplinary) language science with better applications to the real world.

In illustrating these general points I draw on my own research on language universals, language processing and language acquisition, and on my experience at several interdisciplinary institutes: the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen); the Neural, Informational and Behavioral Sciences Program at USC; the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig); and the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics at Cambridge.

March 2nd

Maria Manioliu, Professor of French (Emerita), UC Davis
THE ANIMACY FALLACY: Culture and Gender in the History of Romance languages
3:30pm, 912 Sproul

The present contribution aims at revealing the ways in which the evolution of the grammatical category of gender from Latin to Romance reflects the dramatic changes undergone by its semantic domains. Arguments for the the hypothesis that Latin gender oppositions were determined by the important role played by agency (and not animacy) in the interpretation of the state of affairs are brought into the picture in order to explain both the distribution of nouns into three major classes in Latin and their redistribution in Romance. The term agency is to be understood as a reflection of the capacity of objects for influencing human life in positive or negative ways, rather then as a voluntary activity performed by a person or an animate -- usually a living being (see Meillet & Vendryes, 1960; Manoliu 1999). In any noun of feminine gender the most prototypical feature was related to the ideas of fertility, the mother?s womb, life, which reminds us of the ancient goddesses of the Mediterranean area as well as of other ancient cultures, which explains the fact that the feminine distributional class included persons (domina approx. 'lady of the house'), animals (ursa 'she-bear') and even things (terra 'earth', ceresus 'cherry-tree'; domus 'house'). The changes undergone by the grammatical gender in Romance languages were mainly triggered by social and pragmatic variables. Once an inherent semantic feature such as "Passive" had lost its privileged status in gender agreement, the neuter gender lost its phatic function and was redefined especially in the pronominal domain as a marker of indifference to natural gender and/or quantification (see Ojeda, 1993, Manoliu, 1990, 1999). The distinction between masculine and feminine had steadily won the most important role in the grammar of Romance gender and has two main functions: (i) a phatic function, i.e. it became the main criterion for subclassifying nouns into distributional classes, which constitute the input for agreement; and (ii) a semantic function, since it expanded in order to semantically remotivate the differences between men and women within the class of persons. The last function is a consequence of the fact that the concept of femaleness evolved from a model linked to the natural world, encoded in the semantic features of fertility, rebirth, etc., to a model more socially oriented, encoded in the seme of social equality.

Winter 2006

February 8th

Scott McGinnis, Academic Advisor & Associate Professor, Defense Language Institute, Washington Office
Heritage Language Preservation: Chinese as a Model for Inter-Sector Collaboration
4pm, 53a Olson

Drawing from the original analysis of Brecht & Walton (1994) of the five national language capacity sectors within the United States, this paper will provide an analysis of the historical context within which the Chinese heritage language community has taken the lead to facilitate not merely the preservation, but also the promotion and proliferation, of Chinese language and culture. Particular attention will be paid to three ongoing projects on a regional or national level with pedagogical and even social welfare implications: (1) the AP Chinese Curriculum and Test; (2) the Penn Summer Chinese Institute; and (3) Families with Children from China initiatives.

December 9th

Bob Bayley
2 pm, 53a Olson

December 6th

Tom Ricento
2 pm, 53a Olson

December 2nd

Martha Pennington
2 pm, 53a Olson

October 25th

Russ Tomlin, University of Oregon, Eugene
The Acquisition of English Voice: Experimental Studies in Japanese-Speaking Learners
4:00pm, 53a Olson

This paper reports experimental work that investigates how second language learners employ attention in mapping conceptual representations of events onto linguistic representations. The particular problem of interest is the role of attention in the development of voice in Japanese-speaking learners of English. We show that it is possible to manipulate in real time the allocation of attention to referents in computer animations and that by doing so we can cause on an utterance-by-utterance basis the selection of voice in native speakers of English and its analogs in Japanese-speaking learners of ESL.

In a critical trial, two differently colored fish swim toward each other. At the center of the screen, one fish suddenly eats the other and swims off screen. By cuing a selected fish just before the eating event is completed, one can direct the subject's attention to lock onto (detect) the fish-to-be-agent or the fish-to-be-patient. It is possible to control precisely which fish is attentionally detected, independent of its semantic role, at the moment of production.

For English speakers the referent which is attentionally detected at the moment of utterance formulation is always assigned to syntactic subject. When the agent is attended, one sees active clauses; when the patient is attended, one sees passive clauses. Given that basic attention systems are identical among both English and Japanese adults, Japanese learners are examined to see how they code linguistically the same events as their native English speaking counterparts. Using this framework one can examine the development of English voice cross-sectionally, and we describe the syntactic strategies employed when learners are faced with the need to describe an event for which they do not yet have the grammatical tools.

October 14th

Dr. Rukmini Bhaya Nair
Visiting Professor, Department of English, Stanford University and
Professor of Linguistics & English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Social Cognition & Script Culture in India -- From Writing on Stone to Writing on Screen
3:30pm, 53a Olson

This paper examines a number of interrelated issues concerning language scripts, cognitive parameters, cultural pluralism and the recent rise of a dynamic information technology industry in India. It reconsiders the relationship between the oral and written forms of language on the subcontinent and reflects on how changes in this complex but long- standing relationship might currently affect the formation of national as well as individual identities. More generally, the paper asks, with reference to the paradigm case of India, home to about 865 of the world's 6000 or so tongues: how do scripts influence the ways in which we see? In this connection, it argues that the long history of India?s scripts has had an effect not only on post-Independence language policy, but also on a second silent revolution in the realm of computer e-scripts. Despite the global preference for the Roman script, cultural memory ensures that the youthful Indian IT industry is forced to address an age- old problematic - that of mediating between India's many scripts. Consequently, it has developed systems whereby one can type a word in, say, Hindi and see it transformed into Tamil -- a move now replicated internationally on Google. Software indigenously invented can, moreover, achieve plausible translations between such languages. All these innovations serve to interestingly re-visualize linguistic relationships on the subcontinent. From a perspective that appeals, broadly, to both psychological and sociolinguistic frameworks, the paper thus seeks to discover the cognitive implications of the multiple scripts of India in the 21st century.

October 6th

Dr. Michael Wescoat, UC Davis
Lexical cliticization: An analysis with lexical sharing in LFG
4:15pm, 53a Olson

Clitics are typically defined as unstressed words that have a phonological dependency on a neighboring word, called the clitic's host. Moreover, it is usually assumed that whatever process establishes the phonological dependency between the clitic and its host must apply after the rules of syntax have established the structure of the utterance. The lexicon provides the words which are the building blocks of the syntactic structure; thus, under the traditional assumptions about clitics, it seems to make no sense to talk about "lexical cliticization," meaning a process of combining a clitic and a host inside of the lexicon, BEFORE the application of the rules of syntax. Nonetheless, some linguists have asserted that there are indeed clitic phenomena where the relationship between the clitic and its host bears the hallmarks of a lexical process. One such phenomenon concerns certain particularly reduced forms of contracted auxiliary verbs in English, e.g. the 'll in I'll help. There are reasons to suppose that 'll attaches to a pronoun in the lexicon, as if it were an inflectional affix, yet the pronoun+auxiliary amalgam that results corresponds to two distinct constituents in the syntactic structure.

Most syntactic theories lack a means of modeling lexical clitics with the characteristics outlined above. This and similar phenomena have led me to propose an alternative model of the relation between constituent structure and words. I assume that there must be a level of indirection between the smallest, indivisible "atomic" constituents of syntactic structure and the words which instantiate them; this allows two or more adjacent atomic constituents to be instantiated by the same word. To put it another way, the atoms of syntax may "share" words, whence the term "lexical sharing." I shall show how this framework allows for lexical clitics, and I shall also demonstrate that some further restrictions on the use of pronoun+auxiliary amalgams may be handled by embedding the analysis in a constraint-based, lexicalist theory of syntax like Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG).

2004-2005 Colloquium Schedule

May 31st

Duane Leonard
A critical and situated discussion addressing effective writing instruction
4:45pm, 53a Olson

Research in the realm of academic writing ( Prior 1998) has problematized the concept of a definable "discourse community" within any institution. Related research has further "laminated" this concept through broadening the scope with Thought Collectives (Ramanathan 1998), and narrowing it with conceptual "safe houses" (Canagarajah 2003). Situated in the realm of second language writing scholarship, my paper offers a critical and situated perspective questioning the term "academic writing" as a uniform concept agreed upon intra-or even inter-departmentally, and one that is as laminated and complex as the varied contexts it is being taught in. Located in the larger context of UC Davis' undergraduate LIN (ESL writing) series--while concentrating on ancillary pockets of learning: my own LIN practicum, and UC Davis' Learning Skills Center--this talk will attempt to wrestle with several related issues, including: 1) how uniformly these students are inducted into "academic writing" conventions/genre across these contexts, 2) what are some notable "tensions" (if any) that evolve, for both students and teachers, when looking at this process as a relative whole, and 3) how both roles as participant-observer and researcher in these ancillary contexts continue to shape my participation in the institution. The presentation will end with a discussion the importance of critically pulling back from viewing the classroom as the sole key site of effective writing instruction, and toward expanding our researching lenses to addressing "non-formal" ancillary teaching and learning domains.

May 31st

Frank Arujo
EXTENDING PHONOLOGICAL AND ORTHOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE: The Interface of English Tense/lax Vowels and Phonics in ESL Adult Learners.
4:45pm, 53a Olson

Adult English Language Learners (ELLs?) face considerable challenges in learning the four language skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing that their younger children do not. Years of cultural and personal experience in conjunction with the fossilization of L1 skills often impose formidable barriers on adult efforts to acquire English. Particularly challenging is the perception of contrasts in tense and lax English vowels, which are markedly absent from most of the L1s of adult immigrant ELLs?. The predicament of these learners is further exacerbated when having to negotiate the confusing and inconsistent English orthography, because, if a proper foundation has not been laid in developing the ability to distinguish these contrastive sounds which form meaningful word and map these onto alphabetic symbols ( a process of phonemic awareness), they will encounter long term difficulties in developing spelling and writing skills. A short comparison of an initial introduction to phonemic awareness has been done to determine the efficacy of teaching vowel contrasts at this early stage. The study has been conducted in an adult school for ELLs? consisting primarily of Spanish and Slavic speakers. One class (control) was taught using a standard ESL phonics approach, while two others have been taught with greater detail and attention to developing vowel contrast awareness; the latter two were given the same curriculum but one was also given a phonemic scaffolding device omitted from the other. The value of the methodology and the results of the study will be the subject of this presentation taken from the MA thesis with the above title.

May 31st

Heayoung Quinn
Heritage/Non heritage Language Learning: Code-Switching in Korean Language Classroom
4:45pm, 53a Olson

Drawing upon the emergent demand and support for heritage language education in the U.S., this study explores; 1) the pedagogical justification for heritage/non heritage learner distinction in language teaching realm and 2) the pedagogical implications for heritage language classroom code-switching. By comparing heritage/non heritage learners? perceptions regarding classroom code-switching phenomena and through analyzing the teacher?s motivations for code-switching in tertiary level Korean heritage language classrooms, this paper; 1) argues the futile notion of heritage/non heritage learner distinction in language teaching and 2) discusses how the teacher adopts and utilizes code-switching to bridge the communication gap in the classroom interaction where heritage/non heritage learners present varying degrees of language proficiency.

May 24th

Tiina Hukari
A novice teacher's approach to decision-making
4:45pm, 53a Olson

The idea of a teacher being a decision-maker is fairly new in the field of TESOL. Studies about teachers as decision-makers are mainly done in the K-12 classrooms and through an outside researcher other than the teacher of the class. I believe that action research provides the tools to better understand teachers' decision-making. In this presentation, I will show how I studied my own decision-making in an ESL classroom by doing action research.

May 24th

Lamar Heystek
When Cricket is Neuter: English Loanword Gender in Dutch
4:45pm, 53a Olson

This paper discusses the apparent motivations for gender assignment to English nouns in Dutch and considers the extent to which Dutch speakers are sensitive to such motivations. Dutch, whose nouns are either common or neuter, borrows nominals from English but not grammatical gender, which English lacks. Nevertheless, the classification of English borrowings may render the rules of Dutch gender classification more visible. An analysis of over 1,700 English loanwords confirms an evident trend to assign such nouns to the common gender, unless strong factors intervene (i.e. presence of a neuter cognate, membership in a particular semantic category, presence of a certain suffix, or the existence of a non-cognate semantic equivalent that takes the neuter gender. Dutch-English bilinguals (n=32) were asked to translate into Dutch 31 sentences containing established English loanwords (n=15) as well as unattested English nouns (n=16). Consultants encoded gender by using a definite article (de vs. het) or by inflecting an attributive adjective. The data support the notion that Dutch speakers do correlate, in varying degrees, certain properties with either the common or neuter gender for English nouns, revealing knowledge of assignment rules operative in their native vocabulary. These findings contradict the statement by Bloomfield (1933) that "there seems to be no practical criterion by which the gender of a noun [in most Indo-European languages] could be determined" (280).

May 24th

Ann Kelleher
Complexities of a Dual-Track Chinese Program: Gaining Perspective through Learners? Views
4:45pm, 53a Olson

One of the main challenges university-level Chinese departments face is the heterogeneity of language abilities students bring to the classroom. Students with such pre-existing ability in (or by some definitions, a cultural connection to) the language of study are increasingly referred to as ?heritage? learners (Peyton et al., 2001), and an entire field of study has arisen around this topic. This situation is not unique to Chinese, but rather is a feature of many college language programs, to greater and lesser degrees; however, the high degree of variation among Chinese dialects, and the nature of Chinese orthography?with significant implications for literacy development?present particular challenges that remain unexplored to a large degree. This case study of the Chinese program at U.C. Davis will first construct a situated view of ?heritage? learners by asking: how is this dual-track program carried out and with what effect for learners with home exposure to Chinese? Second, the significance of my findings will be considered by asking: given the realities for learners of the way a dual-track program is enacted, how do their experiences inform the discussion surrounding ?heritage? language learners, learning and teaching? The experiences of the learners themselves will be foregrounded and situated within the classroom, program and institutional contexts.

May 19th

Noriko Iwasaki
Assistant Professor of Japanese, UC Davis
Exploring non-arbitrary relationships between form and meaning in Japanese
4:45pm 53a Olson

The pairing of linguistic forms (e.g., sound, length of words, word order) and meanings is generally considered to be arbitrary. However, linguists recognize certain relationships between form and meaning: those called sound symbolism and those that exhibit iconicity (i.e., forms resemble their referents). Some languages exhibit more non-arbitrary form-meaning relationships than others: i.e., sign languages and certain Asian and African languages that possess large repertoire of onomatopoeia. Questions arise as to what extent such non-arbitrary relationships are language-specific.

In this talk, I will explore non-arbitrary relationships between forms and meanings in the Japanese language, focusing on a class of words called onomatopoeia or mimetic words. The Japanese language has a large number of mimetic words (2000 or more), whose forms are considered to be closely related to their meanings (through various senses including the auditory, visual and tactile as well as to emotions and pain). I will report on the results of experiments in which English speakers without any prior experience of learning Japanese were asked to guess the meanings of four types of Japanese mimetic words (sounds, pains, laughing, and manners of walking) on semantic differential scales. It was found that English speakers could grasp various semantic aspects of mimetic words representing sounds, laughing and pains by hearing the words, but they had little understanding as to the types of manners of walking that each mimetic word refers to. The results of this research reveal both language-specific and cross-linguistic (possibly universal) aspects of the form-meaning relationship in Japanese mimetic words; pedagogical implications will also be discussed.

April 12th

Barbara Johnstone
Professor of Rhetoric and Linguistics, Department of English, Carnegie Mellon University
4:45pm 53a Olson

Variationist sociolinguistics arose in the attempt to understand how linguistic diversity can lead to language change (Labov, 1994, 2001). For the most part, however, the focus has been on what speakers do with diversity that already exists in their environments. For example, we ask how the usage of features of AAVE or Southern American English patterns in a speech community more often than we ask how a set of features gets associated with African-Americans or with Southerners and comes to be available for use in the community in question in the first place. This paper explores some of the discursive practices through which particular choices along particular dimensions of variation can come together as a relatively focused (LePage? & Tabouret-Keller, 1985) regional dialect which is then available as a resource for constructing and displaying differentiation asso-ciated with place, class, and other aspects of personal identity. I describe three activities in which people may take stances vis-à-vis localness: talking unselfconsciously, performing local identity, and talking about local speech. In each of these activities, stancetaking is accomplished in part by means of small linguistic choices. However, different sets of linguistic forms function as stancetaking resources depending on the stancetaking activity called for in the interaction. As a result, there are three different, though overlapping, sets of norms for speaking the dialect on which all three activities are thought to draw. I illustrate this with excerpts from sociolinguistic interviews with natives of Pittsburgh, PA, a city that linguists and locals alike identify as having a distinctive regional dialect. In one, a Pittsburgher speaks in a fairly un-selfconscious interview style. His strongly local orientation is potentially mirrored and modeled in his accent, which may, for some hearers, become semiotically linked with his localness. In another excerpt, a Pittsburgher tells a story in the course of which he mimics the speech of a character he represents as a more authentic Pittsburgher than himself, modeling his own stance vis-`-vis local life through his speech in his own voice and using a performance of a stereotypical local character, in a stereotypically local voice, to accomplish a shift in footing and claim an authoritative epistemic stance. In the third excerpt, two Pittsburghers talk about and cite examples of Pittsburghese, explicitly modeling local speech and using it to accomplish personal identity and epistemic authority in yet another way. The three excerpts illustrate how a co-occurring set of nonstandard forms (some regional in distribution, some not) that is drawn on in routine interaction, in performances, and in metalinguistic talk may become codified as a regional dialect with different, though overlapping, sets of emergent norms, one arising from the speech of local people, one from performances of such people's speech, and one from discourse about local speakers and their speech.

January 19th

David P. Corina
University of Washington, Seattle
4:15pm 53a Olson

Dr. Corina's talk focused on the potential neurolinguistic basis of nouns and verbs, with respect to spoken and signed languages.

Dec 6

Maria Carreira
Heritage Language Program Director, CSU Long Beach
Seeking Explanatory Adequacy: Defining ?Heritage Language Learner?
3:30, 53A Olson

What is a heritage language learner (HLL)? In this presentation I argue that a pedagogically valuable answer to this question must do more than describe all individuals who ought be considered HLLs; it should also offer a roadmap for meeting the needs of HLLs with regard to language learning. To achieve this goal, which I refer to as achieving "explanatory adequacy", the answer to the above question must 1) differentiate HLLs from second-language learners (SLLs), 2) differentiate HLLs from first-language learners (L1Ls), and 3) differentiate between different types of HLL?s. In reference to the first task, I propose that HLLs are students whose identity and/or linguistic needs differ from those of second language learners by virtue of having a family background in the heritage language (HL) or culture (HC). In reference to the second task, we argue that unlike L1Ls, HLLs do not receive sufficient exposure to their language and culture to fulfill basic identity and linguistic needs. Consequently, they pursue language learning as a way to fulfill these needs. Finally, with regard to the third task, we map out four categories of HLLs, each with different identity and linguistic needs. Along the way, we advocate for endowing all language courses where HLLs are enrolled with a focus on identity and language issues, as these relate to family background.

October 21

Eve Clark
Linguistics Department, Stanford Univeristy
Grounding and Attention in Language Acquisition
4:30, 53A Olson

In communicative exchanges, participants pay attention both to each other and to what is said. And, with each turn, they add new information to common ground. In this talk, I focus (a) on how participants in adult-child exchanges establish joint attention, and (b) on the evidence young children offer of grounding new information--in particular new words and information about those words. I will draw first on analyses of gesture, gaze and talk from video-taped sessions of parent-child dyada where the parent introduces a 1- or 1-year old child to a set of unfamiliar objects; and second, on analyses of longitudinal data from the CHILDES archive where I focus on adult offers of new words and children's responses to such offers.

October 6

Isolda E. Carranza
National Research Council (CONICET) and National University of Cordoba, Argentina
Power and Ideology: Analyzing discourse from face-to-face interaction to society
3:00-5:00pm, HIA Institute Conference Room 5214 SSH

Isolda E. Carranza (Ph.D., Linguistics, Georgetown University) is the author of Two-Way Immersion Education (1997) and co-author of Conversacion y deixis de discurso (1998). She has published her work on Spanish discourse markers, story-telling, oral argumentation and ideological outlook in journals such as Narrative Inquiry, Discourse & Society, and Oralia. She is currently interested in how those phenomena and elements are manifest in courtroom discourse and has reported findings in Revista Iberoamericana sobre discourso y sociedad and Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish.

This talk is sponsored by the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas and the Linguistics Graduate Group.

October 4

Maria Mindlin
Plain Language Legal Forms and Instructions:
Plain Language Increases Pro Per Litigant Access to the Courts
3:30, 53A Olson

Maria Mindlin is the CEO of a translation company now moving into "translating" legal documents into "plain English." Her talk will also focus on recent work she has done with the State of California on voting.

2003-2004 Colloquium Schedule

June 2

Paul Mcpherron
Assumptions in assessment: perspectives from my ESL classroom
3:00, 53A Olson
Recent critical scholarship has stressed the point that nothing about teaching and researching is value-free. Informed by this research, the presentation looks into teacher assumptions in the assessment of writing and speaking abilities, and it offers an analysis of the effects these beliefs may have had on student work. The data come from a graduate-level ESL class which I taught.

June 2

Vineeta Chand
Metaphors Cross-linguistically: Anger and Happiness in Hindi, English and Mandarin
3:00, 53A Olson

Little is known of how metaphors are structured cross-linguistically, although it is clear that they play a leading role in determining degrees of fluency. This work, drawing on the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993) as a means of organizing and conceptualizing the data, will present a comparison of metaphors for happiness and anger in three languages: English, Mandarin Chinese and Hindi. It will also argue that Langackers (1991) concept of active zones has explanatory power when examining the similarities and differences cross-linguistically.

June 2

Stefania Morichetti
The Acquisition of the Morphosyntax of NPs in Italian as a FL
3:00, 53A Olson

In this case study, the morphosyntax of pre- and post-modifiers in NPs in the Italian written compositions of six English NS learners is quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. In particular, the focus is on the gender marking of non-systematic IL-forms as direct evidence of problems in morphosyntax agreement, and on the mastery of the definite article system as a key issue for learners' development of NP morphology. Pedagogical implications are drawn and two tasks are suggested.

May 19th

Jason Schneider
Explicit language focus in critical ESL pedagogy: A classroom-based perspective
3:00, 53A Olson

Researchers have encouraged ESL instructors to draw on critical pedagogy in their teaching practices; however, they have given little attention to the place of explicit language focus in such approaches.? Drawing on my own teacher research, I will explore one model for incorporating explicit language focus into critical ESL pedagogy.

May 19th

Jeremy J. Goard
Definite, indefinite, and possessor grounding
3:00, 53A Olson

I discuss work by Epstein (2002) and others to support an accessibility analysis of the definite-indefinite contrast, which explains a wide range of data that uniqueness/ familiarity accounts cannot.?I show that such an analysis can be profitably extended to possessor grounding, encompassing several otherwise problematic examples.

April 29

Jo Carr
School of Rural and Language Studies in Education, Land University of Technology, Australia
The Gendered Agenda of Foreign Language Study
1:00, 53A Olson

Abstract In Australia, as in other Anglophone countries, there is a continuing lack of interest among young people in other-language learning. In spite of the fact that one in four Australians come from a home background where English is not the first language, low retention numbers in post-compulsory language classrooms indicate the continuing confidence of the traditional Australian monolingual mindset. This is problematic in the context of current commitments to multiliteracies and intercultural proficiency; and is particularly so in relation to boys. The vast majority of the small minority who choose to continue with language study after the compulsory period are s. While Australia is currently in official response mode to what is being identified as the boys and literacy crisis, this crisis is apparently only related to first-language literacy. The continuing poor relationship between boys and other languages appears to be of little concern to educators, parents or to boys themselves. This paper reports on a research project undertaken in Australia to investigate the poor relationship of boys with language study. Over 200 boys were interviewed, as well as teachers and s working alongside boys. The data collected provide insights to boys' attitudes and opinions, and to the complex intersection between gender socialization, identity and language. Key issues in relation to both L2 pedagogy and the gendering of the curriculum also emerge from the data.

March 1

David P. Corina
Dept. of Psychology, University of Washington
The Linguistic Structure of American Sign Language: Providing Insight into the Neural System for Language
1:10, 53A Olson

Abstract: The existence of natural languages expressed in the visual-manual modality provides an important contrast in the studies of human languages. From a linguistic perspective, signed languages challenge widely held conceptions of linguistic form and at times force us to consider modality independent statements of grammar. At the same time, the ease with which some properties of signed languages fit within linguistic s developed for spoken language provides a strong confirmation that linguistic theory is capturing fundamental distinctions in the knowledge of human language.
From a Neurolinguistics perspective, the study of sign language processing and breakdown provides a similar opportunity to determine those aspects of the neural system for language that reflect modality independent properties of human language from those that reflect the influence of the modality in which the language develops. In addition, reliance of sign languages on visual and manual-motor system processing provides a powerful avenue to explore the neural coding of a linguistic system within the brain. Independent advances in our understanding of visual and motor system neurophysiology and function provides an important backdrop for these investigations. In this talk I will present examples from Cognitive Neuroscience research of American Sign Language which illustrates the usefulness of the study of a non-typical language in the quest to provide an accurate characterization of the human capacity for language.

February 23

Arturo Hernandez, Dept. of Psychology, University of Houston
Grammatical and Semantic Processing in the Bilingual Brain
1:10, 53A Olson

Abstract: For over 100 years researchers have debated whether age of acquisition (AoA??) or proficiency (PL) plays a stronger role in the neural representation of two languages. More recent work in other laboratories suggests that neural activity of grammatical processing is more sensitive to differences in the age of second language acquisition whereas activity associated with semantic processing is more sensitive to differences in language proficiency. Both behavioral and fMRI data from our laboratory which further refine this debate will be discussed. First, results from a set of studies with monolinguals reveal that age of acquisition (AoA??) modulates neural activity during lexical tasks. Second, a set of studies investigating the neural correlates of grammatical gender processing in monolingual and bilingual Spanish speakers will be presented. Results reveal that age of acquisition leads to different brain response patterns but only for more complex gender rules, suggesting that not all grammatical processing shows AoA?? effects. Finally, a study will be presented which looks at the role of orthographic overlap in late bilinguals. Results from this study are consistent with the view that orthographic overlap leads to reduced neural activity in a second language but not in a first language. The results provide support for the view that AoA?? plays a role in the neural representation of both first and second languages. Finally, the results from all three studies are consistent with a in which AoA??, proficiency and overlap lead to changes in neural activity associated with semantic and grammatical processing of a second language.

February 19

Natasha Tokowicz, Learning Research & Development Center, University of Pittsburgh
Why is Second Language Learning So Difficult?
1 :30, 53A Olson

Abstract: Many s who attempt to learn a second language report having great difficulty in doing so. In this talk, I will focus on one factor that poses a challenge for the second language learner--the differences between the first and second languages. Such differences occur at multiple levels of language, including meaning and grammar. I will describe my research on mismatches at the level of word meaning (i.e., Do people use meaning from the first language to understand the closest "translation equivalent" in the second language?). I will also briefly describe the relation between this research and studies of within-language ambiguity. I will then describe an event-related potential (ERP) study which shows that beginning second language learners' sensitivity to violations of grammar depends on the similarity of the construction in the first and second languages.

February 9

Mieko Ueno, U Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Dept. of Psychology and Beckman Institute
On the Processing of Japanese Wh-Questions: Relating Grammar and Brain
1:10, 53A Olson

Abstract: Using event-related brain potentials (ERPs: scalp-recorded brainwaves time-locked to an external event), I investigated the processing of Japanese wh-questions. Previous ERP studies of wh-movement languages such as English and German (e.g., Kluender & Kutas, 1993; Fiebach, Schlesewsky, & Friederici, 2001) report effects of (left-lateralized) anterior negativity between wh-fillers and gaps, which is presumably an index of increased verbal working memory load. Unlike English or German wh-elements, Japanese wh-elements typically remain in situ, and are associated with a Q[uestion]??-particle that by its clausal placement indicates its interrogative scope. Theoretical claims about wh-in-situ argue for a mechanism inside the corresponding CP that licenses the scope of a corresponding wh-element, either by a Q-particle (Nishigauchi, 1990; Cheng, 1991), a Q-operator (Baker, 1970; Pesetsky, 1987; Watanabe, 1992; Aoun & Li, 1993; Cole and Herman, 1994), or the moved wh-element itself (Huang, 1982; Lasnik & Saito, 1984; Nishigauchi, 1990), and experimental evidence suggests some type of relationship between Japanese wh-elements and Q-particles (Nakagome et al., 2001; Miyamoto & Takahashi 2002; Aoshima, Phillips, & Weinberg, in press).
In order to elucidate the extent to which the neural processing of wh-in-situ shows similarities to or differences from the processing of wh-movement, two experiments were run with mono-clausal and bi-clausal Japanese wh-questions and their structurally equivalent yes/no-question counterparts. For each experiment, a group of 20 native speakers of Japanese was used. Both mono-clausal and bi-clausal wh-questions elicited right-lateralized anterior negativity (RAN) effects between wh-words and corresponding Q-particles relative to their yes/no-questions.
These results suggest a reliable neural processing correlate of the dependency between wh-elements and Q-particles, similar to the left-anterior negativity (LAN) effects that index the dependency between displaced wh-fillers and their gaps in English and German, but with a right- rather than left-lateralized distribution. Rather than a local scope calculation process at the verb-Q position, the scope of a Japanese wh-element seems to be licensed by a long-distance incremental linkage with its Q-particle. Further, the RAN effects are consistent with theoretical claims that the scope of a wh-in-situ needs to be licensed by something in the CP that marks its scope. Thus ERP responses in a more or less direct way reflect the complex relationship between a wh-in-situ and its licensing CP as proposed in various linguistic theories.

February 6

Rebecca Adams, Georgetown University
Learner-Learner Interactions: Implications for Second Language Acquisition
2:30, 53A Olson

January 26
Kim Marie Cole SUNY, Fredonia
Negotiating Intersubjectivity: Mutual Language Socialization to Classroom Conversations
4:00, 53A Olson

Abstract: Recent research in language socialization has extended the use of this to sites of secondary socialization for language learners: churches (Baquedano-Lopez, 1999); workplaces (Duff, Wong and Early, 2000); and schools (Willett, 1995; Rymes, 1997; Duff and Early, 1999; Cole and Zuengler, 1999). Roberts (1998) calls these applications of language socialization useful in broadening understanding of second language development beyond traditional s of second language acquisition but cautions that the may need modifications when applied in these additional sites. Ochs (1988) also points to a need for additional research in the area of the bi-directionality of language socialization, suggesting that we investigate how novices can shape the social practices they engage in while they are simultaneously being socialized to them. I will address this question, showing the ways that students and teacher mutually socialize to both language conventions and content expectations as they negotiate a joint floor for classroom conversations in their mainstream science classroom. Over time a new interactional routine, or social practice, developed that participants used to structure almost their entire class time. The multi-lingual students and monolingual (English-speaking) teacher established the ground rules and uses for this routine within their classroom community. I use micro-ethnographic techniques to study the waysthat turn-taking, questioning patterns, gaze and topics were used by the teacher and students. The findings show the active role that novices took in the negotiation of a common conversational space. While asymmetries of power existed in this classroom, the teacher was not able to impose a new routine on the class. Instead, the students and teacher together co-constructed this classroom activity with long-term implications for both language and content development.

January 16

Leslie Moore, UC Santa Cruz
Learning Languages by Heart: Second Language Socialization in Koranic and Public Schools in Maroua, Cameroon
4:00, 53A Olson

Abstract: A widespread pattern of second language (L2) socialization entails the ing of L2 utterances by an expert for verbatim imitation and memorization by the novice. This pattern, commonly called rote learning, is used in educational institutions around the world. While researchers have often criticized this pattern, it has received little analytic attention. I examine rote learning from a language socialization perspective, reframing it as Guided Repetition, a practice for apprenticing novices into language and other domains of sociocultural competence. My account is based on a longitudinal study of seven Fulbe children's apprenticeship into three language practices in the three primary socializing institutions of their community: recitation of the Koran in Arabic at Koranic school and home, enactment of dialogues in French at public school, and the telling of folktales in Fulfulde (the children's native language) at home. Taking an ethnographic, interactional, and developmental approach, I examine how and why Guided Repetition is enacted in the Koranic and public schools in Maroua, Cameroon. In this talk, I present video clips from the two school settings to illustrate patterns in the use of language(s), body, space, and structure in the environment, and I relate these patterns to participants' goals, expectations, values, and ideologies. I show rote learning to be a powerful, intricately structured, and context-sensitive language socialization practice and the Guided Repetition a useful tool for exploring its complexity and its ural variations.

January 12

Julia Menard-Warwick, UC Berkeley
So now I feel the same as my mom?: Intergenerational trajectories in the narratives of a Latina ESL student
2:30, 53A Olson

November 24

Geoffrey Williams, U Sydney, Linguistics Dept.
Valuing the Ineffable: Grammatics in Ontogenesis
4:00, 53A Olson

Abstract: In work with young children (ages six through eleven years), I have recently been exploring the accessibility and usefulness of systemic functional grammatics to children (Halliday, 2002). In this paper I will discuss aspects of the children?s use of the textual concepts Theme/ Rheme in school literacy tasks, and consider some qualities of their learning in relation to Halliday's analysis of the "ineffability of grammatical categories".

Reference
Halliday M. A. K., 2002. On grammar: Volume 1 in the collected works of M.A.K. Halliday. ed J. J. Webster. London: Continuum.

November 5

Bruce Anderson, UC Davis, Dept. of French and Italian
L1 English speakers' acquisition of grammatical gender across second languages
4:00, 53A Olson

October 15

Patrick Farrell, UC Davis, Dept. of Linguistics
The English learner advantage in UC admissions
4:00, 53A Olson

Abstract: In general, English learners in California public schools, who are predominantly Chicano/Latino, are at a disadvantage in UC admissions, by virtue of being at a disadvantage throughout their K-12 education (less qualified teachers, more crowded schools, less challenging curriculum, etc.) and by virtue of faring systematically less well than English L-1 students on admissions-related exams, such as SAT and AP exams. There are, however, two kinds of exams on which (at least some) English learners have an advantage over English-L1 students: foreign language exams, for all speakers of another language, and math exams, for Asian speakers of another language only. Unfortunately for Chicano/Latino students, who are severely underrepresented at UC, and fortunately for Asian students, who are not underrepresented, foreign-language exams have a (justifiably) small effect on admissions outcomes and the math exams have an unjustified significant effect.