Field Methods Class

Each year, working closely with a language consultant, students enrolled in the Field Methods class (LING 431, 432, 531, 532) embark on original research projects.

At the end of the academic year, the students present the results of their research to the department in a poster session. Below are a few notable Field Methods presentations from previous years.

Language: Dagaare (a Niger-Congo language spoken in Ghana and Burkina Faso)

Consultant: Alexander Angsongna

Instructor: Rose-Marie Déchaine

Language: Gitksan (a Tsimshianic language spoken in northern British Columbia)

Consultants: Barbara Sennott (Gitxsanimx), Vincent Gogag (Giyanimx), Hector Hill (Gitxsenimx)

Instructor: Lisa Matthewson

Language: Medumba (a Grassfields Bantu language spoken in the Nde division of the West Region of Cameroon)

Consultant: Hermann Keupdjio

Facilitator: Rose-Marie Dechaine

Language: ʔayʔaǰuθəm (a Central Salish language traditionally spoken both on Vancouver Island and on the coast of the mainland, north of Powell River, in BC)

Consultant: Joanne Francis

Instructor: Henry Davis

Language: Ktunaxa (a language isolate spoken in the southern interior of BC, as well as areas in Alberta, Washington, Idaho and Montana)

Consultant: Violet Birdstone

Facilitator: Martina Wiltschko

Language: Gitksan (a Tsimshianic language spoken in northern British Columbia)

Consultant: Barbara Harris

Instructor: Henry Davis

Projects:

Samuel Akinbo: Labialization in Gitksan

Katie Bicevskis: Tests for lexical aspect in Gitksan

Kyra Borland-Walker: Dialectal Variation in Vowel Quality in Gitksan

Kevin Dickie: How do you feel in English? How do you feel in Gitksan?

  1. J. Heins: Some uses of Gitksan gi

Elise McClay: Prosody of Ambiguity in Gitxsanimx–First Look

Avery Ozburn & Michael Schwan: Using Phonological CorpusTools for Gitksan Fieldwork

Aidan Pine: Connecting Linguistics to Language Learners: A Lesson Plan for Gitksan

Yimeng Wang: Translating New English Nouns into Gitxsan

Language: Tlingit (a Na-Dene language spoken in southeastern Alaska and western Canada)

Consultant: Bessie Cooley & John Martin

Instructor: Lisa Matthewson

Projects:

Dylan Bandstra: Modification in the Tlingit Noun Phrase

Colin Brown: Towards a Unified Semantics of Tlingit Clefts and Determiners

Sihwei Chen: A Report on Tlingít Quantifiers and Scope

Evan Clarke: Tone in Tlingít

Vikanda Gonzales: Sluicing in Tlingit

Ka Wing Ng: Tlingit Classifactory Verbs

Mackenzie Skillin: The Tlingit Areal and Indefinite Human Object Marker Ku-

Storyboards (stories told by Keihéenouk’ John Martin):

Dylan Bandstra: ‘Sue’s Fingers’

Colin Brown: ‘John Starts Smoking Again’

Sihwei Chen: ‘There Are Many … And More Bears!’

Evan Clarke and Ka Wing Ng: ‘The Black Bear and the Salmon’

Vikanda Gonzales: ‘Two Girls and a Salmon’

Mackenzie Skillin: ‘The Seal Woman’

Language: Nata (a Lacustrine Bantu language spoken in northwestern Tanzania)

Consultant: Joash Johannes

Facilitator: Rose-Marie Déchaine

Projects: 

Colin Brown & Herman Keupdjio: Information structure

Allie Entwistle & Zoe Lam: Verbal Tone in Nata

Naomi Francis: Modality in Nata

Erin Guntly & Yoshiko Yoshino: The general noun template

Jamie Ma: Nata passive

Adriana Osa & Sophia Walters: Tense and aspect in Nata

Emily Sadlier-Brown & Robert Furhman: Object marking

Dayanqi Si: Deverbal nouns

Language: Blackfoot (an Algonquian language of the northwestern plains in Canada and the US)

Consultant: Beatrice Bullshields

Facilitator: Strang Burton

Projects: 

Andrei Anghelescu: Perceptual Salience of Blackfoot syllabic /s/

Clarissa Forbes: Blackfoot demonstratives: Compositionality and the lack thereof

Tianhan Liu: How to Express Desires in Blackfoot

Valerie Marshall: The Scope of Negation and Modals in Blackfoot: Is it Ambiguous?

Natalie Weber & Blake Allen. Blackfoot Pitch Accent: Insights from Morpho-Phonology

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