Congratulations, Nicholas!

Nicholas Rolle (MA 2010) has recently defended his Ph.D. dissertation, "Grammatical tone: Typology and theory," at the University of California, Berkeley. He was co-supervised by Larry Hyman and Sharon Inkelas, with Peter Jenks and Darya Kavitskaya also on the committee. Congratulations, Dr. Rolle!

Department office now open again

A routine replacement of a lightbulb in the office yesterday unexpectedly brought down part of the ceiling. This necessitated an immediate and thorough check from Environmental Health & Safety, on top of the usual repair and cleanup. We have now been given the all-clear and the office has reopened. If anyone has any concerns or questions, please direct them to Jennifer. Also, please be gentle about any local claims that the sky is falling.

Goodbyes and hellos for 2018-19

As the new academic year begins, we bid farewell to:

• Clarissa Forbes (Ph.D.), who will be departing to take up a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona very shortly after her dissertation defence.
• Matt Hunt Gardner (Ph.D. 2017), beginning a contract faculty position at St. Mary's University in Halifax.
• Phil Howson (Ph.D. 2018), starting a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oregon.
• ...and all those currently completing the MA program.

And we welcome (and/or welcome back):

• Barend Beekhuizen (faculty), most recently a postdoc in the Department of Computer Science, joining the Department of Language Studies at UTM as an Assistant Professor (tenure-track).
• Gitanna Brito Bezerra (postdoc), here working with Suzi Lima.
• Marisa Brook (faculty) (MA 2011, Ph.D. 2016), beginning a contract-limited term appointment as an Assistant Professor of sociolinguistics.
• Karlien Franco (postdoc), working with Sali A. Tagliamonte.
• Zhanao Fu (University of Delaware), a visiting student working with Phil Monahan.
• Alessandro Jaker (postdoc), here working with Keren Rice.
• Alexandra Lowles ( Goethe University Frankfurt), a Ph.D. student visiting to work with Ana-Teresa Pérez-Leroux.
• Safieh Moghaddam (faculty) (Ph.D. 2016), joining the Centre for French and Linguistics at UTSC as an Assistant Professor (teaching steam).
• Keir Moulton (faculty) (BA 2001, MA 2002), taking up an appointment as a tenure-track Assistant Professor, focusing on syntax/semantics/psycholinguistics.
• Aleksei Nazarov (faculty), beginning a contract-limited term appointment as an Assistant Professor of phonology.
• Miriam Neuhausen (University of Freiburg), a visiting graduate student studying heritage German speakers near Kitchener-Waterloo and working with Sali.
• ...and 15 students beginning graduate programs in the Department of Linguistics: six in the Ph.D. program and 9 MAs.

Derek featured in a National Post article on regional dialects

Derek Denis (faculty) was recently featured in the National Post article "Despite cultural globalization, Canadian regional dialects are stronger than ever". Click here to read it. Here's an excerpt:

However, according to Derek Denis, assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto, such worries are completely unfounded. “The hype of linking media and the internet to language change has never panned out in the way we expected. People thought there would be this widespread standardization of languages, but that didn’t happen. Even though Peter Mansbridge was the host of The National and people in Newfoundland listened to him every day, Newfoundland English still sounds like Newfoundland English.”

Yu-Leng wins thesis award; dissertation to be published

Yu-Leng Lin (PhD 2016, now at Feng Chia University in Taiwan) has won the best thesis of 2017 award in a competition held by Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Peking University Research Center on Chinese Linguistics, and Peking University Press. Her dissertation, titled "Sonority Effects and Learning Bias in Nasal Harmony", will be published as a monograph by Springer and Peking University Press individually (expected in 2018). Congratulations, Yu-Leng!

Daphna Heller honoring Micheal Tanenhaus, the 2018 Rumerlhart prize winner

Daphna Heller traveled to Madison, WI to participate in the 40th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society where her former post-doc supervisor Michael Tanenhaus was awarded the 2018 Rumelhart prize, the highest distinction in cognitive science. See the Cognitive Science Society's page 2018 Recipient: Michael Tanenhaus for more.