Naomi and Maya guest talk for U of T Student Life

Naomi Nagy (faculty) and collaborator Maya Abtahian (University of Rochester) are presenting a talk and question-and-answer session online on Wednesday, August 26, from 1-2 PM Eastern time, for the Stories Through Research series being held by the U of T Student Life's Innovation Hub: "Our Languages, Our Lives, and the Global Pandemic."

We all have experienced some disruption in our daily lives as a result of the pandemic, and although we can make predictions, only time will tell which disruptions will lead to long-term change. Linguists who study language change already pay attention to the relationship between short-term variation and long-term change. We already know that relatively minor disruptions in communication patterns and networks can lead to major shifts in language ecologies (the languages we speak and the people with whom and places where we speak them). As COVID-19 spread around the world, the question that occurred to us was this: How do disruptions related to the COVID lockdown affect multilingual students' language ecologies? Does it change how often we use the languages we know? And/or the contexts in which we use certain languages? 

Note that registration is required; those interested can either follow the 'Register Here' link at the bottom of this page or go directly to Eventbrite.