FLAUT lecture by Jack Chambers on May 30

Post courtesy of Elaine Gold

Friends of Linguistics At the University of Toronto [flaut]
and Spring Reunion 2013
present a lecture by

JACK CHAMBERS
Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto
 
Title: "Sleeping with an Elephant: English at the Canada-U.S. Border" 

Abstract:

Generally, we sound more like our neighbours than like people who live
farther away from us. But sometimes the continuum is disrupted by a barrier
of some kind ‹ an ocean, mountains or something less tangible like a
political boundary. The longest political boundary is the one that divides
Canada and the United States. Evidence from the Dialect Topography of Canada
shows that the border sometimes functions like a brick wall, blocking the
diffusion of linguistic elements. In other cases, it is permeable to some
extent, more like a screen door. The difference between what stops at the
border and what crosses it partly distinguishes local phenomena from global.
But sometimes it seems simply arbitrary, and those differences signal our
individuality and our independence.

PRESENTATION, INFORMAL DISCUSSION AND RECEPTION

Thursday May 30
 7-9 p.m.
 
DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS
SIDNEY SMITH HALL
4th floor 
LINGUISTICS LOUNGE
OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS, ALUMNI, FACULTY AND FRIENDS

Updated: photos from the event below

(Photo credit: Dan Milway)

(Photo credit: Dan Milway)

(Photo credit: Emily Clare)

(Photo credit: Emily Clare)