NWAV 52 in Miami Beach, Florida

New Ways of Analyzing Variation 52, the world's largest annual event in variationist sociolinguistics, was held in Miami Beach, Florida from November 7th to 9th, co-hosted by Florida International University and the University of Miami. 

Official poster of NWAV 52 (taken from the conference's website)

The program can be accessed here: NWAV 52 program

There was strong presence from the University of Toronto! Both current and former members of the department delivered talks, poster presentations, and project launches:

Sali A. Tagliamonte (faculty)

Clara grows up: Lifespan change from adolescence to middle-age

Xinyu Liao (PhD Student)

Asymmetries in the learnability of new dialect features across the lifespan

Atiqa Hachimi (faculty) and Gareth Smail (College of Charleston)

Stylized performance of ‘mock Berber’ in a Moroccan Stand-Up comedy talent show

Lee Jiang (PhD Student)

Resistance to singular ‘they’ in Reddit communities

Vanina Machado (PhD Alum, Spanish and Portuguese, now at California State University Channel Islands) and Chandan Narayan (York University)

Sociolinguistic dynamics in a bilingual border community: Investigating the acoustic properties of palatal liquid vocalization in Uruguayan Portuguese

Aaron Dinkin (former faculty, now at San Diego State University)

A lack of a New York State Accent: Perceptual change echoing dialect change

Miriam Neuhausen (former visiting scholar, now at Heidelberg University)

Identity work in language shift settings: Socio-spatial distance from the Old Order Mennonites

Erin Hall (PhD Alum, now at CSU San Bernardino), Lisa Ly (CSU San Bernardino), Patrick Nocon (CSU San Bernardino), David Ramos (California Baptist University), Kendra Tallchief-Stanley (CSU San Bernardino), Jonathan Robinson (CSU San Bernardino)

Using automated alignment with Spanish-influenced English data

Alexandra D’Arcy (PhD Alum, not at the University of Victoria)

What is dad’s job in language change?

Marisa Brook (PhD Alum, former faculty, now at St. Mary’s) 

Becoming a ‘Treehouser’: Identity, power, and language variation in a small online community

Here are some photos from NWAV (Thanks to Xinyu for sharing these with us!)

Xinyu giving a talk on the adoption of second dialect features

Lee giving a talk on singular they

Miami Beach

Guest speaker: Isaac L. Bleaman (UC Berkeley)

The Department of Linguistics and the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies (CJS) hosted a guest talk by Isaac L. Bleaman (Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley) on Friday, November 22, 2024. He delivered a talk entitled, "Social dimensions of variation in Yiddish: Historical perspectives and new insights". He also gave the same talk in Yiddish at CJS two days prior. 

We extend our thanks to the Department of Linguistics Guest Speakers Committee for organizing the event: Samuel Akinbo (faculty), Emily Atkinson (faculty), Tahohtháratye Joe Brant (faculty), and Ivan Bondoc (faculty). 

The abstract of his talk is provided below:

Yiddish contributed significantly to the development of sociolinguistics and language contact, particularly through the pioneering work of Uriel Weinreich and Joshua Fishman. However, very little quantitative variationist research has been conducted on either contemporary or historical varieties of the language. In this talk, I will present my findings on the social significance of variation in New York-based communities that are committed to language maintenance in Yiddish. The results show how differences in communities' maintenance practices and ideologies (e.g., whether to prioritize language dominance; whether to standardize the language) have contributed to inter-community differences in the quantitative patterning of two variables: voice onset time and number agreement. At the end of the talk, I will preview the resources available in the Corpus of Spoken Yiddish in Europe (CSYE), which is now being developed through a National Science Foundation CAREER grant. Among other applications in research and language revitalization, the CSYE will provide the data necessary to address questions related to the social meaning of variation and the direction of language change in the pre-Holocaust period.

The talk was followed by a lively reception at the lounge.

And dinner at Her Father's Cider Bar + Kitchen! In attendance were Isaac L. Bleaman (Guest Speaker) along with Elan Dresher (faculty), Avery Ozburn (faculty), Costanza Vallicelli (PhD Student), Xinyu Liao (PhD Student), and Naomi Nagy (faculty). 

From L-R: Elan, Costanza, Naomi, Xinyu, and Issac. Thanks to Avery for taking this group photo!

Will Williams successfully defends Thesis Proposal!

On November 15, 2024, Will Williams (now PhD Candidate) presented his thesis proposal, "Presuppositions, entailments, and other inferences: The case of factive-implicatives". 

His supervisory committee consists of Guillaume Thomas (senior supervisor; faculty), Michela Ippolito (faculty), and Keir Moulton (faculty).

Congrats Will on a successful thesis proposal presentation!  

Pedro Mateo Pedro Publishes The Itza' Pedagogical Grammar

The department is pleased to congratulate Pedro Mateo Pedro (faculty) on the publication of the Itza' Pedagogical Grammar, in collaboration with the Comindad Lingüística Itza' of the Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala.

Itza’ is an endangered language spoken in Guatemala that belongs to the Yucatecan branch of Mayan languages. 80% of the pedagogical grammar appears only in Itza’, since the aim is to strengthen the understanding and oral expression of the language. The development of the grammar is part of a larger project on the revitalization of Itza’. 

This project was a joint effort with individuals in the language community and at UofT: Jorge Francisco Mex Tesucún (Comunidad Lingüística Itza'), Ana López Sipac (Kaqchikel speaker), Aki Zhang, Sooyoun Im, David Ramsay, Jevan Konyar, and Daniela Lopez Loncar (UofT).  

This is a great step towards revitalization and documentation. Congratulations everyone! 

The book is available here: 

Itza' Pedagogical Grammar

Grad Convocation 2024

On October 28 and November 1, we celebrated the conferral of our graduate students' MA and PhD degrees. This marks the culmination of hard work, dedication, and perseverance. Your achievements are a testament to your determination––we are incredibly proud of each and every one of you!

Our newly minted PhDs:

• Angelika Kiss
• Emilia Melara
• Virgilio Partida Penalva
• Maida Percival

We even had our own hooding ceremony! Angelika was hooded by her supervisor, Michela Ippolito (faculty).

Our new MAs:

• Louis Careri
• Laura Escobar
• Siyi Fan
• Fredrik Gao
• Olanrewaju Samuel
• Mechelle Wu
• Aliya Zhaksybek
  
  

Kelly, Dave, Naomi, Keir, Michela, Nathan, Angelika, Pocholo, and Emily

Guillaume Thomas (Graduate Coordinator) giving a toast

Naomi Nagy (Department Chair) congratulating our grads

Thank you to everyone (colleagues, friends, and family) who celebrated with us! And once again, a huge congratulations to our grads!