March 31, 2022

New Phonetics/Phonology Paper!

Frederick Gietz  (PhD Candidate), Peter Jurgec (Faculty) and Maida Percival (PhD Candidate) have published a paper in the Journal of Linguistics

"Shift in Harmonic Serialism" examines whether shift, in which a feature moves/flops from one segment to another, should be considered an operation.  They show that only the one-step shift analysis can capture the tonal patterns in Kibondei and the segmental patterns in Halkomelem; grammars that rely on spreading or floating features cannot. 

Great read for all the phonetics/phonology lovers! 

GIETZ, F., JURGEC, P., & PERCIVAL, M. (2022). Shift in Harmonic Serialism. Journal of Linguistics, 1-37. doi:10.1017/S0022226722000032

March 30, 2022

New Language Variation and Change Publication!

 Naomi Nagy (Faculty) and Timothy Gadanidis (PhD Candidate) have published "Looking for Covariation in Heritage Italian in Toronto 1". This paper is part of The Coherence of Linguistic Communities


This paper analyses the degree of coherence in Heritage Italian speech to understand the degree of coherence in a community's linguistic system. Nagy and Gadanidis find that the same speakers rarely have the highest usage rates across the variables and there is little correlation to factors expected to affect heritage language speakers, as in a similar analysis of Heritage Cantonese. 

 
Great job Nagy and Gadanidis!

March 29, 2022

Elaine Gold Award Recipient!

We want to give a huge congratulations to the 2021 recipient of the Elaine Gold Award; Robin Huo! 

This award is given in recognition of Outstanding Achievements in the required 200-level Linguistics courses. 

Robin is a third-year student studying linguistics and computer science. He has had an interest in languages and computing since middle school, which has led him to the University of Toronto for its reputation for excellence in both fields. He now hopes to combine these interests through the development or application of computational methods to contribute towards linguistic research.

Congrats on your amazing work Robin! 

March 28, 2022

Workshop on Linguistic Equity and Justice (29-30 April 2022)

Our friends at UTM Derek Denis (Faculty) and Samantha Jackson (Post Doctoral Fellow) are organizing a workshop on Linguistic Equity and Justice!  

While language functions as both a means and target of oppression, linguists have, until only recently, rarely critically engaged with historical and contemporary inequities and injustices (cf. Charity Hudley, Mallinson, and Bucholtz 2020). That said, we recognize that many scholars are currently working toward language-based anti-oppression goals. Although these researchers are diverse, we see among them a shared goal of advocacy through critical engagement with language and racism, ableism, transphobia, sexism, colonialism, and classism. We are so excited to bring together like-minded researchers for a two-day workshop of knowledge sharing and community building to be held virtually on April 29th and 30th, 2022. We would love for you to attend/participate in this workshop so our community can share and gain knowledge. 

Please register before the event. There will be  ASL interpretation and auto-generated captions for all sessions. 

For questions or more information, please contact Samantha Jackson.

March 24, 2022

Iranian Languages and Linguistics Lecture

We are excited to have PD Dr. Agnes Korn as a third-time speaker in the Iranian Language and Linguistic Lecture Series! 

This lecture took place March 25th at 4:00pm EST. 




March 22, 2022

Publication about COVID and Language Shift

 I don't know about you but I have been wondering about what linguistic change has been occuring during the COVID-19 pandemic. If you're like me then you're in luck as there has been a faculty publication entitled "Disruptions due to COVID-19: using mixed methods to identify factors and influencing language maintenance and shift". 

Maya Ravindranath Abrahian (University of Rochester) worked with Naomi Nagy (Faculty), Katharina Pabst (PhD Candidate) and Vidhya Elango (MA) to examine  principles of language maintenance and shifts during the COVID-19 lockdowns amongst people still involved in critical acts of identity creation; university students. This study is used to learn how lockdown is affecting young people's language ecologies and attitudes. 

A very interesting sign of the times paper! 



March 18, 2022

Speech, Language and Learning Intervention Research Symposium

Arizona State University will be hosting the Speech, Language and Learning Intervention Research Symposium virtually on March 25th -26th 2022.  The focus will be on advancing interventions and exploring creative solutions to improve the quality of education for children with disabilities across culturally and linguistically diverse background. 

Esther Geva (Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development at OISE) is a keynote speaker and will be presenting a talk entitled "Language and Literacy Skills Development of Typically and Atypically Developing Second Language Learners". 

For more information and registration, see their website which is linked above! 

March 17, 2022

Syntax of Nominal Linkers Project Luncheon!

 The members of the Syntax of Nominal Linkers Project linked together (no pun intended) over lunch at the Gilaneh Restaurant! They enjoyed a wonderful Persian meal and discussed linkers in the context of superlatives (among other things)! 

Going clockwise from the left we have Christina Duong, Sahar Taghipour, Koorosh Ariyaee, Arsalan Kahnemuyipour, Andrew Peters and Samuel Jambrović. 



March 16, 2022

The Western Interdisciplinary Student Symposium on Language Research!

 The Western Interdisciplinary Student Symposium on Language Research took place on March 5th 2022. 

WISSLR showcased student-lead language research projects from a wide range of language topics! Two of our wonderful undergraduate linguists were among the presenters. 

Yixin Wang presented on "Vowel Reduction and Deletion in Palauan" and Runze Qian's talk was on "The Sociolinguistics of Naso"! 

Their fascinating abstracts can be found in the program

March 15, 2022

Traditional Ukrainian Song Performed by F-Zero

To show our solidarity to Ukrainians, we want to share a recording for the Waltz from Levkivka, a traditional Ukrainian song covered by our favourite band of linguists F-Zero. 

This was recorded in June 2002 for The Olive Sessions CD. It includes an original cello part by Daniel Currie Hall (B.A, M.A, and Ph.D Alum) .




March 14, 2022

Multilingual Caseloads: Clinical Perspectives from Pediatric SLPS!

We are excited to share that the Bilingualism and Multilingualism developmental (BAM!TO) Lab will be hosting a FREE online workshop and roundtable discussion on Friday April 1st (11:00 am - 3:00 pm EST). 

The focus will be on speech language pathologists' perspectives on providing assessment and intervention for multilingual children in Canada and on the future areas of research in the provision of multilingualism pediatric SLP services.

Featured speakers include Diane Dacquay, RSLP, S-LP(C) and Rachel Lévesque, RSLP, S-LP(C) who have experience providing bilingual services at the Division Scolaire Franco-Manitobaine; as well as, Fern Westernoff, Ed.D., M.H.Sc. Reg. CASLPO from the Toronto District School Board and co-chair of the OSLA Multicultural and Multilingual Interest Group. 

See their webpage for registration and the preliminary schedule!  



March 10, 2022

Publication: Timing of brain entrainment to the speech envelope during speaking, listening and self-listening

 Alejandro Pérez (University of Cambridge), Matthew H. Davis (University of Cambridge), Robin A.A. Ince (University of Glasgow), Hanna Zhang (MA Student)Zhanao Fu (PhD Student), Melanie Lamarca  (MHSc. Speech Language Pathology, UofT ), Matthew A. Lambon Ralph (University of Cambridge), and Philip J. Monahan (Faculty) have teamed up to publish "Timing of brain entrainment to the speech envelope during speaking, listening and self-listening"! It has been published in Cognition.

This paper investigates the dynamics of speech envelope tracking during speech production, listening and self-listening. Their results describe a specific timeline for speech tracking in both speakers and listeners in line with the idea of a speech chain, therefore showing delays in communication.


                                             
 

Pérez, A., Davis, M.H., Ince, R.A., Zhang, Hanna., Fu, Z., Lamarce, M., Ralph, M.A.L., Monahan, P.J. (2022) Timing of brain entrainment to the speech envelope during speaking, listening and self-listening. Cognition, 224, 105051





March 9, 2022

Upcoming Colloquium: Dr. Rachel Weissler

The next Colloquium will be held on April 1st with guest speaker Rachel Weissler (University of Oregon). Weissler's talk is entitled "What Indicates Race and Emotion in Speech? A Sociolinguistic Experimental Approach to Multidialectal Processing". 

Weissler will also be hosting individual meetings with members of the department from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm on April 1st. This is a great opportunity to chat with her! 

To sign up for an individual meeting, please email Colloquium Committee member Avery Osburn (Faculty) with your availability preferences. 

Abstract
    In order to better understand how American listeners cognitively interact with Black and White voices, I engage theories of language variation and social cognition from the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives. I will briefly touch upon my research that investigates how listeners alter their linguistic expectations when hearing Standardized American English (SdAE) and African American English (AAE) through two Electroencephalography (EEG) experiments. I will then focus on the aspect of my research that investigates how individuals process multidialectal linguistic input through emotional prosody and race perception studies. I focus on emotional prosody processing in the pursuit of understanding how identity perception relates to stereotypes, people’s experience with a variety, and results from cognition. African American English (AAE) is the most well-studied minoritized variety of English in the U.S., yet there is still much we do not know about cognitive processing of the variety. Understanding the mechanisms of AAE cognition is critical to building an inclusive model of language. Given the current sociopolitical climate in the United States where linguistic prejudice and discrimination continue to persist, the need to understand the impact of implicit linguistic bias is paramount (Craft, Wright, Weissler, & Queen 2020). In the first study, participants listened to isolated words from an African AAE speaker and an SdAE speaker in happy, neutral, and angry prosodies, and were asked to indicate perceived race and emotion of the speaker. Results showed that SdAE was rated whitest in the happy condition, whereas AAE was rated blackest in neutral and angry conditions. Across the board, however, there was a low base rate for correct identification of race, with a bias for picking the white voice. This choosing of the white voice aligns with hegemonic standards regarding normativity and neutrality, a colorblind effect of “I don’t see race, I don’t hear race.” However, there was an evidenced disconnect between the survey results with participants’ free-write responses, in which by and large they indicated their awareness of what the study was about (i.e., self-reporting that when the voices were “low and aggressive” they went with Black but when “high-pitched and happy,” they went with white). The second study tests listeners with varied experiences with AAE as demonstrated through exposure, familiarity, and usage measures. Participants listened to emotional and racially indexed voices while looking at faces; eye gaze to the matching face was measured. Varied exposure and familiarity did not show a statistically significant relationship with variation in eye gaze. The usage measure was just at the level of significance, suggesting that usage of African American English features can predict participants’ stereotyped looking preferences. This work contributes to further understanding of how social information and stereotypes interface with cognitive processing within a multidialectal frame, and leaves open questions to explore regarding which (if any) parts of the prosodic signal indicate emotion and perception.

March 3, 2022

Congrats Paul Poirier!!!

HUGE CONGRATS to Paul Poirier (Alum) and his partner Piper Gilles on placing 7th in Olympic Figure Skating!! After two amazing performances, they had a final score of 204.78! ⛸

Thanks for making UofT proud! ⭐



Check out this article for some details on the bright Peter DeFreitas costumes that go with their Elton John tribute.  


March 2, 2022

Book Publication: Music and Hearing Aids: A Clinical Approach

In case you haven't heard (no pun intended), audiologist Marshall Chasin (Faculty) has released his book entitled Music and Hearing Aids: A Clinical Approach

This book was written for hearing health care professionals who work with hard-of-hearing musicians and music lovers. It breaks down the research for how music can, and should, be processed through modern hearing aids, in addition to offering audiologists clinically-based strategies to optimize the sound of amplified music for hard-of-hearing people.

For those who are passionate about both audiology and music, this book probably sounds like music to your ears! 


Chasin, M. (2022). Musicians and Hearing Loss: A Clinical Approach. Plural Publishing

March 1, 2022

Publication: Ageist Communication Experienced by Middle-Aged and Older Canadians

Sali. A Tagliamonte (Faculty) and Katharina Pabst (PhD Candidate) have teamed up with UofT's Department of Psychology to publish "Ageist Communication Experienced by Middle Aged and Older Canadians"!  Their paper was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 

This article investigates how ageism manifests in the daily lives of Canadians and helps in understanding the nuances of the expression of ageism in North America. 

Great job team! 

Chasteen, A. L., Tagliamonte, S. A., Pabst, K., & Brunet, S. (2022). Ageist Communication Experienced by Middle-Aged and Older Canadians. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health19(4), 2004.