Events!

Linguistics Potluck Saturday, October 16th at 7:30pm in Hogan 6D This should be a really cool potluck- the idea is that you bring a dish reflective of the culture whose language you study (let’s interpret that loosely and not get into a Whorfian/language-identity-culture/colonialism debate). Desserts, main courses, salads, whatever you like. Homemade or store-bought (if [...]

This week: Julia Hirschberg and Trace Foundation lectures

This week is just packed with linguistics goodness: Julia Hirschberg will be speaking this Friday, 3/26, and there is a series of lectures at the Trace Foundation downtown, starting on Friday and continuing on Saturday. First, Professor Hirschberg’s lecture: Friday, 3/26 3pm Hamilton 709 Knowing When to Speak: Turn Management in Spoken Dialogue Systems Julia [...]

The Cosmopolitan Tongue: The Universality of English

An article by Columbia professor John McWhorter appears in the Fall 2009 edition of the World Affairs Journal. “The Cosmopolitan Tongue: The Universality of English” takes a broad view of the process of language death and the rise of English as a dominant global tongue. From the article: “…the going idea among linguists and anthropologists [...]

TOMORROW: Daniel Everett

Daniel Everett, chair of the Languages, Literatures and Cultures department at Illinois State University, will be speaking tomorrow in Lerner 555 at 3 pm. Professor Everett will discuss the culture and language of the Pirahã people of the Amazon, and how the unique features of Pirahã may contradict prevailing notions of the fundamental nature of [...]

Workshop on Meaning: Language and Socio-cultural Processes

This month’s Workshop on Meaning will take place on Tuesday, September 22nd, from 4-6pm. John Mohr, Ph.D. Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara “Formal Methods, Structural Models & the Sociology of Culture” The new formalism in the sociology of culture builds on structural linguistics and semiotic theory; it uses relational methodologies to identify patterns in [...]