Oksana and Muhammad’s research featured in Pithy Papers
Language Sciences has organized Pithy Papers, a series of brief descriptions of UBC Language Sciences recent research. The inaugural installment features work by Oksana Tkachman on conventionalization in sign languages and by Muhammad Abdul-Mageed on ‘micro-dialects’.
New course on the languages of Africa
The department is offering a new survey course, LING 308: Languages of Africa. Students will study African languages and cultures from the ground up, including through inquisitive exploration in language projects.
Three grad students recognized as UBC Public Scholars
Three grad students have been recognized as UBC Public Scholars. The Public Scholars Initiative supports doctoral students “make purposeful contributions to the public good through collaborative, action-oriented, and/or creative forms of scholarship.” They are Anne Bertrand, Roger Yu-Hsiang Lo, and Michael Schwan. Congratulations all around!
Two students win Edna Dharmaratne Award
Two students have been honored with the Edna Dharmaratne Award: Nicole Ebbutt, an undergrad in speech sciences, and Ife Adebara, a Ph.D. student in linguistics. Congratulations to both!
Samuel Akinbo on talking drums
Linguistics grad student Samuel Akinbo’s research on ‘talking drums’ is profiled in an interesting and entertainingly pun-filled discussion on the Language Sciences site. The crucial observation is that the gángan, a drum used in Nigeria, can convey a rich array of linguistic information about spoken Yorùbá.
Coronavirus phonetics cookbook
As a way to boost morale during isolation, the LING 314 (Instrumental Phonetics) class had an online potluck party, but, as they couldn’t actually share food, they shared recipes. The result was a coronavirus cookbook available to all.
West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics
UBC is hosting the annual West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics in March, and the program is now available.
Guggenheim Fellow!
Congratulations to our current department head, Dr. Bryan Gick, on being selected as a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow! “As a Guggenheim Fellow, Dr. Gick will work with top interdisciplinary experts developing and extending his body-based approach to speech, with the goal of deepening links between biomechanics, the nervous system, the digestive system and the evolution of […]
Congratulations — Outstanding Dissertation
Congratulations to Dr. Patrick Littell, whose 2016 dissertation “Focus, predication, and polarity in Kwak’wala” (supervised by Dr. Hotze Rullmann) has been chosen by UBC as a finalist for the national competition for the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies’ Distinguished Dissertation Award.
Three new PhDs!
Congratulations to Blake Allen, Scott Mackie, and Jennifer Glougie, who all successfully defended their PhDs in September. Blake: “Bayesian models of learning and generating inflectional morphology” (Supervisor: Doug Pulleyblank) Scott: “Simulating the Evolution of Consonant Inventories” (Supervisor: Gunnar Hansson) Jennifer: “The semantics and pragmatics of English evidential expressions: The expression of evidentiality in police interviews” […]