Linguistics Department News (Calques)

Recent Stories

Berkeley linguists @ WCCFL 41

March 23, 2023

The 41st meeting of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL) will take place May 5-7, 2023, at UC Santa Cruz and features work by a number of Berkeley linguists!

  • Madeline Bossi: "Two types of 'say'-complementation in Kipsigis"
  • Amy Rose Deal & Justin Royer: "Mayan animacy hierarchy effects: A dynamic interaction approach"
  • Amber Galvano: "A Q- and Exemplar-Theoretic approach to cross-dialect Spanish <st> production"
  • Shweta Akolkar, Sansan Claude Hien, Kang Franco Liu: "Nominal licensing without T: Switch reference and wh/focus fronting in Lobi"
  • Rebecca Jarvis: "Subject movement in Atchan relative clauses: A two-probe, mixed A/A'-account"

The full program is available here.

Language as Social Justice Working Group conference on raciolinguistic ideologies

March 23, 2023

Calques is happy to pass on this message from Gabriella Licata:

The Language as Social Justice Working Group (Berkeley Language Center) is hosting a free virtual conference April 6-7 titled "Visibilizing raciolinguistic ideologies across cultures, languages, and systems." Our keynote speakers are Clara Vaz Bauler (Adelphi University) and Ian Cushing (Edge Hill University). You can see program information and register here on our conference site.

Hyman honored by Resulam for contributions to Fè'éfè'ê

March 21, 2023

Larry Hyman was honored by Resulam, which promotes ancestral mother tongues, in a 2-1/2 hour Zoom session on Saturday, March 18, organized by the Cameroonian Bamileke community in the diaspora which chose the occasion to thank Larry for his contributions to the Fè'éfè'ê language. Larry's speech in Fè'éfè'ê-Bamileke can be heard here. The full meeting video is posted here. Matt Faytak (Berkeley PhD 2018) also attended and spoke.

Resulam video

Larry spent 6 months in Bafang in 1971 doing his dissertation research when he received a Certificate in Nufi (the Fe'fe' literacy program) and a title of nobility nzɑ᷆ and read a speech in Fe'fe'. The highlight of the Zoom event for Larry was when one of the women present spoke and said that as a little girl she had been at the huge event of several hundred people in the middle of the town when Larry gave his speech.

Resulam video

Linguistics events this week (Mar 17-24, 2023)

March 17, 2023

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

Drummond receives Firebird Foundation Research Grant

March 14, 2023

Emily Drummond has received a research grant from the Firebird Foundation to document and revitalize Nukuoro oral histories and traditional knowledge. This research will be conducted alongside collaborators Johnny Rudolph and former Berkeley undergraduate Margaret Asperheim (University of Hawaii) and will train several Nukuoro community members to continue the documentation of traditional knowledge.