Department field trip to Niagara: My Fair Lady at the Shaw Festival

Earlier this fall, the Department of Linguistics invited faculty members and graduate students to watch My Fair Lady at the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake. 

The musical is about a phonetics professor and language documenter, and discusses implicit bias in language. 

Thank you everyone for coming!

Grad Writing Day

Group smiles for a job well done (or well on the way)

On Friday, Dec 13, 2024, graduate students rallied in silence in the Lounge for a "Writing Day" retreat. Term papers, GPs, and data analyses received a long-due, disciplined treatment! 

Satisfied writers Rhoda and Claudia

With a lot of enthusiastic feedback on the experience, the Department hopes to host a more regular writing accountability group in the future.

Thanks, Claudia, for organizing!

The Department of Linguistics celebrates the start of the 2024-25 academic year!

On Friday, September 13, 2024, UofT linguists participated in an all-day event celebrating the start of the new academic year and, more importantly, welcoming new members to the department!

The day began with breakfast in the department lounge. Folks mingled around and numerous faculty members and students showcased their research posters. 

Keir Moulton (Graduate Chair) and Naomi Nagy (Department Chair) gave their welcome remarks. Keir reminded us that we also work on Fridays: we participate in research groups and learn new things; and we catch-up with colleagues as part of community building. Naomi then introduced the new cohort of MA and PhD students as well as our post-doctoral fellows.

Outside the lounge, students and faculty teamed up to play bowling! Congratulations to Derek Denis (faculty) and Nick Haggarty (PhD student), the winning team! 

The day progressed with a series of lightning talks in various research groups and labs. We got to hear about recent and on-going work in the (H)LVC, CSoL, Syntax, Semantics, PHON, and LDDR groups. We also got to see the Phonetics Lab, Experimental Syntax-Semantics Lab, the TLC lab, and the newly renovated grad space! After lunch, we got to hear from some faculty members about their research interests and works-in-progress.

We capped off our second-annual Kick-off Day with a welcome party at The Pilot! Department members enjoyed an afternoon filled with food, drinks, and laughter. 

Thank you to everyone (especially our administrative staff) for making this day a success!

Our Newest Alumni: Linguistics PhDs at Convocation

Announcing the newest PhDs from the Department of Linguistics! They were conferred their degrees at convocation on June 5th.

Sahar Taghipour: Case and Phi-agreement in Laki: Parametrizing split-ergativity in Kurdish

Sahar with her supervisor, Professor Arsalan Kahnemuyipour.

Andrei Munteanu: Probabilistic Evaluation of Comparative Reconstructions 

Kiranpreet Nara: An acoustic study of Punjabi tones and an investigation of ongoing tonal changes

The Graduate Office congratulates and welcomes their newest alumni into this exciting next chapter of their journeys. 

Tri-Agency Confirms Increased Funding for CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC Awards!

Earlier in June, Tri-Agency confirmed that, effective September 1st, 2024, the Government of Canada will be increasing award values for students and postgraduate researchers, including new and current award holders.

Advocating for "fairness for every generation," and a commitment to researchers of the future, this increase in budget is funded by Canada’s federal granting agencies, including CIHR, (Canadian Institutes of Health Research) NSERC, (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) and SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada).

The value of master's scholarships will be increased to $27,000/year, while those for doctoral students will jump to $40,000/year. Current and new postdoctoral fellowships will increase to $70,000.

Students holding an SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship are also included in this increase, totaling $40,000/year. 

Programs not affected by this increase include Vanier and Banting, worth $50,000 and $70,000 respectively.

More goals expected to be met by this budget increase can be found on the Budget Canada website.

To apply for any of these incredibly exciting awards, see the list below:

CIHR Health Research Training Award Programs

NSERC Students and Fellows

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

At the Linguistics Department blog, we strongly encourage any and all interested and qualifying parties to apply for these awards, especially after these recent increases, and we look forward to writing many posts documenting your success.

The Linguistic Dept. Gets a New Social Media Coordinator!

The Linguistics Department at UofT has just acquired a new Social Media Coordinator for the summer, and if you're confused by the sharp increase in exclamation point usage among WHITL blog posts, it's my fault!

Hello everyone, my name is Marija Buzanin, and I am a first-year undergraduate student in the Linguistics Department. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone reading this and reporting on your wins.

Some fun facts about me: I speak 3 languages, love Python (for coding), and am learning Spanish. My favourite aspect of linguistics is semiotics, and I have just enrolled in the minor program offered by the department while I study something else as a major - I am open to recommendations. 

While holding this position, I aim to accomplish several goals, all of which I hope will contribute to an informative, accurate, aesthetically-pleasing, and up-to-date social media presence:

1. At least 4 spotlight interviews on faculty, students, staff and their research, 1 of which has already been conducted (keep an eye out!)

2. Effective and interesting reporting on events held within the department, and out-of-town events in which UofT linguists are participating. 

3. A 10% increase in social media following and successful collaboration with other UofT pages, important for increased awareness among undergraduate/incoming students

4. 1-2 guest writers’ posts on the blog/website: this would be great for interaction with our upper-year students

I am excited to celebrate your successes for the larger UofT community to celebrate with you. My (virtual) door is always open should you have a noteworthy event on which you would like me to report, a fun update on your personal successes, and/or if you’d be interested in having a spotlight on your research and work.

A short and friendly reminder that this is the only active email for the blog: utlinblog@gmail.com.

Please direct your communication here. If you are looking for a quicker reply, try my UofT email: marija.buzanin@mail.utoronto.ca. 

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to connecting with all of you in the future!

April in Paris

 Spring in the Jardin de Luxembourg

Jetlag beakfast

A  bit of Puglia in Paris

In the shadow of the Panthéon

COVID spreader

My photo of the Eiffel Tour, and that of a Faetar friend, Eva!

Naomi Nagy (faculty) couldn't get enough teaching this year. So just as soon as she finished teaching at UofT, she rushed off to Paris, where she is teaching a short course, Language contact, Language Variation and Large Corpora, for France's LabEx Program.

While in the timezone, she's also giving 2 talks at the International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE), by Zooming to Vienna, and then keynoting at Heritage Languages around the World, in Lisbon. Stay tuned for a post on that in May!

 

But, while adjusting to jetlag and waiting for everything to start, she revisited some favourite Paris spots and was so happy to see signs of SPRING! 

Linguistics...in nature!

Naomi Nagy (faculty),  Abram Clear (graduate student) and Angela Cristiano (visiting from U Bologna) enjoyed a beautiful walk through Bronte Creek Provincial Park! They spent the day hiking, carving pumpkins and of course, chatting all things sociolinguistics!  Who wouldn't want to discuss language change while the leaves change colour?

3 linguistics and their Jack-o'-lanterns

Angela and Abram taking in the view 

The view

Proof linguists can make excellent pumpkin carvers! 

Red-and-grey day

Several times recently, multiple faculty members have unwittingly selected the same colour palette for the day. Here, Craig Chambers (faculty), Sali A. Tagliamonte (faculty), and Derek Denis (faculty) provide an example (photo courtesy of Sali).

Chalkboard throwback #2: Everywug (Spring 2014)

Photo by Tomohiro Yokoyama (Ph.D. 2019). Collaborative art by, inter alia, Naomi Francis (faculty), Maida Percival (Ph.D.), Marisa Brook (faculty), and Radu Craioveanu (Ph.D.).

​Spot the cross-country skiing wug, programmer wug, hockey wug, farmer wug, Canadian wug, graduating wug, Easter egg wug, librarian wug, photographic negative wug, umbrella-hat wug, knitter wug, left-handed wug, golf wug, skateboarder wug, gardener wug, dragon wug without wings, leiderhosen wug, phonetician wug, winter wug, mutant wug, downhill skiing wug, Santa wug, underwater wug, Doctor Who wug, ballerina wug, guitar wug, alligator wug, medieval wug, tipsy wug, math-nerd wug, royal monarch wug, angel wug, arrow'd wug, Wuglo, jazz wug, Victorian-gentleman wug, dragon wug with wings, wug on fire, wug on a brick wall, chef wug, fairy wug, Harry Potter wug, bunny wug, hiker wug, jousting wug, business wug, prisoner wug, birthday wug, traveller wug, hula-hoop wug, and more - as well as a number of wugs whose features correspond to underspecified contrasts.

For bonus points: wugs aside, without peeking, whose birthday was it?

Halloween wug cookies!

(Photo by Mia Sara Misic.)

Happy Halloween, linguists! Laura Davidson (a graduate student in Speech-Language Pathology) and Mia Sara Misic (MA 2018, now also in Speech-Language Pathology) baked a whole bunch of mummy-wug and Frankenstein-wug cookies - plus some chocolate pops - for the bake-sale in the Sidney Smith lobby earlier this afternoon.

The proceeds went to Hear2Speak, a charity established by Speech-Language Pathology students and faculty at the U of T. Hear2Speak aims to improve the quality and accessibility of speech-language and hearing services around the world. The Halloween bake-sale is specifically supporting underserved clinics in Pakistan with resources and various assessment tools.

Laura and Mia and wug cookies all getting into the holiday spirit. (Photo by Marisa Brook.)

Happy many birthdays!

Around the table, left to right: Ph.D. students Radu Craioveanu, Fiona Wilson,
Jessica Yeung, Lex Konnelly, and Robert Prazeres (photo by Marisa Brook).

Our department has a statistically improbable number of people born in October. On Friday, October 18, in order to celebrate, ardent baker Emily Blamire (Ph.D.) brought along a vegan pumpkin cake and we had a birthday party for a whole bunch of us.

Freaky Friday

Did someone tell Marisa Brook (faculty) and Sadaf Kalami (MA) to try to dress as similarly as possible on Friday the 4th? Nope, but Gabrielle Dumais (MA) pointed out that it sure looked like it!

Coordinated coral colleagues

July around the department is normally quiet, but this at least frees up some time for everyone - up to and including our hard-working department chair, Sali A. Tagliamonte (faculty) - to get some research done! Here, Sali and Katharina Pabst (Ph.D.) have a chance to work on the final revisions for a paper going into the Journal of English Linguistics - and discover an ability to be synchronized in more than one way!

Bulletin-board overhaul

Our bulletin-board for job-postings has received a makeover, just in time for spring! (Photo by Naomi Nagy.)

Distinctive featured linguists

From the CRC-Sponsored Summer Phonetics/Phonology Workshop. (Credit: Naomi Nagy)

Easter egg hunt!

Happy Easter, linguists! There are 96 eggs hidden around the department. You can find them in the lounge, the library, and the downstairs grad-space. Whether you're an undergrad, grad student, postdoc, faculty member, instructor, or alumnus, feel free to join the hunt!

If you don't want to keep your egg once you've enjoyed your treat, please put them in the box labelled 'eggs' in the department lounge so that they can be used again. Thanks!

(Photos by Keren Rice.)

PsychologyHenge 2014

Twice a year, the setting sun aligns exactly with the Department of Psychology's windows at the far end of our hall. This eagerly anticipated event is PsychologyHenge.

Baby's first visit

The department had a visit yesterday from Keren's new grandson Felix!

Linguists Show their Stripes

...just another Wednesday!

(photo courtesty of Sali Tagliamonte)