BABBLE
Newsletter of the University of South Carolina Linguistics Program
Vol 6
2001-2002

Check out our previous issues in Babble Archives

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Word from the Director
Greetings! There's quite a lot to report this year, and there are a number of things in the works.
Let's start with a review of the year so far. Our program welcomed fourteen students into degree programs this past Fall (three of these, Craig Callender, Lori Donath, and Changyong Liao, are continuing students who were admitted from the M.A. into the Ph.D. program). We have seen the program's faculty membership grow this year, with the addition of three new faculty members. Janina Fenigsen (Anthropology) joined the core faculty in the area of linguistic anthropology. Her areas of interest include political economy of language, linguistic ideologies, and creole languages (an interview with Dr. Fenigsen is below ). Janice Jackson (Communication Sciences and Disorders) joined us as consulting faculty. Her areas of interest include child language, language impairment, and linguistic bases of African American English. Finally, Lara Lomicka (French and Classics) also joined us as consulting faculty. Her speciality is second language acquisition, and her specific research interests include classroom environments, technology (computer-mediated communication), and the teaching and learning of culture. As many of you know, we had a search this year to fill our (second) language acquisition position. I am pleased to report that the search was an unqualified success, and that we have hired Hyeson Park (our current visiting assistant professor) into that position. Hyeson has done an absolutely wonderful job in the two years that she has been with us, and we are grateful to know that she will continue in the program as regular faculty. On a less happy note, we will be losing Matt Traxler at the end of this year. Matt (together with Robin Morris ) has brought the program great strength in the area of psycholinguistics, and we will greatly miss his contributions.

I am very pleased to report some exciting news on the job front. A very healthy number of our alumni and an imminently graduating student have been successful in job searches over the past year. First, Miriam Moore (Ph.D. 1993), who teaches at Raritan Valley (NJ) Community College , has moved into a tenure-track position this year. Agnes Bolonyai (Ph.D. 1999) has accepted a tenure-track position in linguistics at North Carolina State University. Agnes, who has been an asst. professor at East Carolina University, moves into the position held by Tracey Weldon before she came here. Cathleen Bridgeman (Ph.D. 2000) was hired as an asst. professor at the American University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates), and Steve Gross (Ph.D. 2000) was hired this past year into a tenure-track position at East Tennessee State University. Also, Elena Schmitt (Ph.D. 2001) has accepted an asst. professor post at Southern Connecticut State University. Elena has been holding a senior instructor position in the Russian Program here since her graduation last year. Larry LaFond (Ph.D. 2001) began this past Fall as an asst. professor at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. Finally, Matt Ciscel (Ph.D. expected 2002) has accepted a tenure-track position for the coming Fall at Central Connecticut State University. We are proud of them, and wish them continued success. They, together with our other alumni, bring honor to us all. (By the way, with this issue of Babble, we are beginning a regular Alumni News section. So, please stay in touch and keep us informed.)

Of equal (and related) importance is the fact that our program was ranked 7th among linguistics graduate programs in the 2000 National Doctoral Program Survey conducted by the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students. We were bested by UCLA (Linguistics and Applied Linguistics), University of Massachusetts, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, and Brown. We tied with University of Delaware. What is worth noting is that, out of some 60-70 doctoral programs in linguistics in the US and Canada, only 19 had sufficient responses to merit a rating and a ranking (you needed 10). Our program, in fact, had the second highest number of responses in the survey, 23. The survey shows that we are not perfect, that we have plenty of room to improve, but also that we are doing a VERY good job as a graduate program, and that we have a lot to be proud of. If you are interested in checking out the rankings, click here: NAGPS Linguistics rankings

Looking ahead to next year, I am pleased to report that we are currently in negotiations for the establishment of an academic exchange with the Department of Language, Linguistics, and Literature at the University of the West Indies - Cave Hill Campus (Barbados) . The linguistics faculty there have much to offer in the field of creole linguistics, and we are hoping to create opportunities for some of our students to study and do field work down there. Jenina Fenigsen is heading up the organizational efforts from our end, and we hope to have something in place before the Fall.

—Stan Dubinsky

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Welcome New Students
We welcomed 14 new students into our program this year. Their interests are as varied as their backgrounds. Here is a "Who's Who" list of our new program members:
Raquel Blazquez-Domingo, Enrolled in Ph.D.. Interested in applied linguistics, language contact situations, and first and second language acquisition.

Carla Breidenbach, Originally born in California but then lived in Chicago. Enrolled in Ph.D.. Interesed in historical linguistics with a concentration is hispanic linguistics.

Ana Carrera-Hernandez, From Spain. Exchange student. Interested in syntax, especially coordination.

Caroline Chapman, Stay and finish the TEFL certificate and then I plan to go on to teach English as a foreign language and pursue further studies in Spanish.

Claudia Heinemann-Priest, Currently working on MA. Work with the Catawba Indian Nation on their Catawba language. Interested in Historical and Anthropological Linguistics mainly as it pertains to North American Indians. Also interested in language acquisition and bi- or multilingualism.

Yoojung Kim, From Korea. I have been here for about 2 years now. I'm taking 1 year TEFL ( Teaching English as a Foregin Language) program at graduate school for a certificate. I will go back to Korea next year. I hope that this program helps me to start my 2nd career as a teacher.

Kimberly Miller, Currently working on MA. Interested in American Sign Language (ASL), SLA, Sociolinguistics. Primary field - not decided yet.

Eva Moore, Enrolled in MA. Focusing on Syntax and UG. Life beyond linguistics: Indie rock, Murakami, Nabokov, and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Craig Callender, BA in German from Louisiana State University; MA in Linguistics from USC; currently enrolled in Ph.D. program. Interests: German Dialects, Phonology, Historical Linguistics.

Lori Donath, During the past two years my major research has focused on global language patterns in discourse. In my Master's Thesis I analyze debate over the Confederate flag and its presence at the State House, offering new evidence for linguistic relativity in the realm of discourse and an account of social reproduction and change in which human agency is central. I will continue socio and anthropological linguistic research as a PhD student, in variation as well as discourse, and will develop a greater focus in SLA. My other interests include the status of Spanish preverbal subjects, and dipthongization in that language.

Johnny Hancock, Enrolled in M.A.. Interested in psycholinguistics, semantics, pragmatics, non-literal language processing and music & film.

German Lopez Hernandez, From Spain. Enrolled in M.A and TEFL. Interested in SLA and TEFL/ESL.

Changyong Liao, From China. Enrolled in Ph.D.. Interested in syntax, semantics, language processing. (MA in linguistics, USC 2001)

Natalia Ramos-Silva, From Spain. Enrolled in TEFL Certificate, Interested in TEFL and historical linguistics.

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Colloquium Series
The Colloquium Series of 2000-2001 has been a great success, thanks to Eric Holt's coordination of the talks and our graduate students' efforts in providing colloquia receptions. As the list below shows, this year's colloquia have covered diverse topics of interest presented by our faculty at University of South Carolina and by our distinguished guests. Some of the talks have been co-sponsored by the Linguistics Program and other departments. For detailed information about the talks, please refer to the Colloquia webpage ( http://www.cla.sc.edu/ling/activities/coll.html ). The list of the 2001-2002 colloquia to date is as follows:
Anne Bezuidenhout & Robin Morris, University of South Carolina, Implicature, relevance, and default pragmatic inference.
Theresa McGarry , University of South Carolina, Focus structure in Sinhala. Linguistics Program Spontaneous Brown-bag.
Erik Thomas, North Carolina State University, Perception experiments in sociolinguistics and applications to ethnic variation.
Elaine R. Miller, Georgia State University, Formulae, Borrowing, and Code Switching in a Fifteenth-Century Hispano-Jewish Text.
William Labov, University of Pennsylvania, Testing linguistic solutions to the problems of struggling readers.
Michael Nelson, University of Arizona, Context-sensitivity and pragmatic implicature.
Hyeson Park, University of South Carolina, When -questions in second language acquisition.
Nan Jiang, Auburn University, Differentiating integrated and non-integrated linguistic knowledge in SLA.
Kamil Ud Deen, University of California, Los Angeles, The Underspecification of Functional Morphology in Swahili Child Language.
Darlene P. Lacharité & Carole Paradis, Département de langues, linguistique et traduction de l'Université Laval, Evaluating phonetic approximation in loanword adaptation.
Elizabeth Barber, Occidental College, Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, An archaeologist's view of language and cognition.
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Graduate Student Linguistics Organization(GSLING)
From the President of GSLING
Greetings! Halfway through the new academic year, linguistics students have already accomplished a great deal--both individually and as a group. This year's class has brought a wonderful range of talents and research interests to an active, inquisitive, and supportive circle of developing linguists.

Though it may be difficult to believe that students have sufficient energy for academic endeavors beyond coursework, they continue to carry on a number of extracurricular activities, organized through the Graduate Students in Linguistics (GSLING). Besides the three existing reading groups in second language acquisition, historical linguistics, and socio/anthropological linguistics, this year students have formed a fourth group, dedicated to syntax.

GSLING also organizes receptions after colloquia and professional development workshops on topics such as thesis/dissertation writing, data collection in the linguistics sub-fields, and use of specialized software programs. In its third year, our Carolina Working Papers in Linguistics develops slowly but surely; organizers have plans in the works for attracting greater numbers of submissions. Not the least of our responsibilities, we also create the much-anticipated annual Linguistics Program T-shirt. This year's subtle, yet cryptic mandate: "Free the bound morphemes."

In addition to these activities, GSLING has expanded its Good Deeds Department, thanks to Theresa McGarry's leadership. Partly as due payment for our spoof of Amnesty's logo, a group of us participated in Amnesty International's Holiday Card Action in January. This year we met to volunteer on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day once again, and have made plans to work a St. Patrick's Day festival booth in March, to benefit a local women's shelter. Also, a portion of this year's T-shirt profits will be used to sponsor a journal subscription for disadvantaged scholars elsewhere in the world.

Never for want of something to do, at times we also get together for no designated purpose in between so many scheduled activities, which lead to the semester's climax: The Pearson Award winner will present original student research at the last colloquium of the year. As ever, GSLING activities offer student linguists an array of opportunities for intellectual and professional development, as well as simple camaraderie.

— Loralee Donath
GSLING Volunteer Projects
USC linguistics students (at least collectively) have done a record number of good deeds this year. Our first project in 2002 was the Amnesty International Holiday Card Action in January. A small group of participants met at Lori and Jason's to write and address cards of support to prisoners of conscience in many parts of the world. Our second project was participation in the Martin Luther King day of service organized by the university. We joined a group of volunteers going to the Sue Kuhlen Camp for Children, a camp that benefits children infected with or affected by AIDS. On site, we sorted and folded many boxes of t-shirts and sweatshirts made for campers. Other projects currently being discussed or planned for the spring include possibly sponsoring a journal subscription for scholars working in countries lacking adequate resources, and volunteering at the scrip booth at the Five Points St. Patrick's Day festival to benefit Sistercare, a local battered organization that helps battered women.

— Theresa McGarry
Volunteer Coordinator
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Historical Linguistics Research Group (HLRG)
Historical Linguistics Research Group(HLRG)met on 7 December, 2001 at home of Kurt Goblirsch and Katja Froeba. Claudia Heinemann-Priest gave a speech on "Is the Catawba language really dead?" The next meeting is on 23 March at Cheryl's place. Dr. Kurt Goblirsch will give a speech on "The Voicing of Fricatives in the West Germanic Languages".
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Second Language Acquisition Reading Group (SLARG)
During the Fall 2001 semester, the Second Language Acquisition Reading Group (SLARG) met twice, discussing reading about current research and original student research in SLA. The first was about the "critical period" presented by Dr. Park. The second was "Native v.s. Non-native Knowledge of the Effects of Discourse Status on Word Order" presented at Boston University Conference Language Development (BUCLD) by Dr. Park and Lan.
As usual, the meeting have been informal, organized either as a pot-luck at the homes of students on Thursday evenings or as an informal discussion at the local deli.

This semester will see two more meetings. All students and faculty interested in issues related to SLA are welcome to join us for discussion.

—Butsakorn Yodkamlue
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Language and Culture Reading Group (LangCult)
The Language and Culture Reading Group(LangCult) meets twice a semester to discuss issues related to sociolinguitics and linguistic anthropology. For our first meeting of Fall 2001, USC's own Lori Donath presented her paper on the absence of an African American voice in South Carolina's ongoing Confederate flag debate. For our second meeting, Dr. William Labov (University of Pennsylvania) discussed innovative data collection methods for sociolinguistics. The LangCult is planning to hold two additional meetings in the Spring 2002 semester.
—Adam Shambaugh
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Syntax Reading Group (SynRG)
SynRG, the syntax reading group, is brand new this semester ( our webpage ). We will be addressing formal syntax through readings and discussion. We hope also to serve as a support/review panel for publications and presentations by the group's members. The first meeting is Friday, February 1st, and meetings will continue thereafter every couple of weeks. Some of this semester's topics include possession, focus, mass/count noun distinctions, and Modal Phrases.
—Eva Moore
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Professional Development Workshops
Last semester's professional development workshop was on thesis and dissertation writing. Stan Dubinsky, Kurt Goblirsch, Eric Holt and Hyeson Park were our featured speakers, and roughly six students attended. Be sure to check the program website periodically for future PDWs, including one currently in the works on data gathering and analysis. If you have any suggestions for future PDWs, please send me an email.
—Craig Callender

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Faculty Research
Anne Bezuidenhout
2001 (with Cutting, C.) 'Literal Meaning, Minimal Propositions and Pragmatic Processing', Journal of Pragmatics. (Special issue on literal meaning edited by Mira Ariel). In press.
2001 'Metaphor and What is Said: A Defense of a Direct Expression View of Metaphor'. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, volume 25. In press.
2001 'Generalized Conversational Implicatures and Default Pragmatic Inferences.' In M. O'Rourke et. al, (eds.), Topics in Contemporary Philosophy: Meaning and Truth. New York: Seven Bridges Press, pp. 257-283.
2001 'Radical Pragmatics.' In M. O'Rourke et. al, (eds.), Topics in Contemporary Philosophy: Meaning and Truth. New York: Seven Bridges Press, pp.292-302.
2001 Review of Hahn, L. E., (ed.) The Philosophy of P.F. Strawson, Philosophical Review, volume 110, issue no.3, July 2001, pp. 460-465.
2001 Review of Recanati, F. Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta, Linguist List, Issue 12.481.
2001 (with Morris, R.) 'Implicature, Relevance and Default Inferences'. Invited contribution to a Workshop on Experimental Pragmatics, held in Lyon, France May 17-19, 2001. Also presented to the USC Linguistics Colloquium series, Columbia, SC, September 14, 2001.
Dorothy Disterheft
A grammual of English. 350 pages. Submitted to Prentice-Hall in Feburary. Under review.
Stanley Dubinsky
2001 (with William Davies). Objects and other subjects: Grammatical functions, functional categories, and configurationality. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press. 305 pp.
2000 (with Marie Egan, René Schmauder, and Matthew Traxler). Functional projections of predicates: Experimental evidence from coordinate structure processing. Syntax: A Journal of Theoretical, Experimental, and Interdisciplinary Research 3.182-214.
2001 (with William Davies). Remarks on grammatical functions in transformational syntax. In Davies and Dubinsky (eds.), Objects and other subjects: Grammatical functions, functional categories, and configurationality. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press, pp. 1-19.
2001 (with William Davies). Functional structure and a parameterization of subject properties. In Davies and Dubinsky (eds.), Objects and other subjects: Grammatical functions, functional categories, and configurationality. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press, pp. 247-279.
2001 (with William Davies). Bypassing subjacency effects: How event structure amnesties extraction out of object NPs. Proceedings of the North East Linguistics Society (NELS 31). Amherst, MA: GSLA Publications, pp. 199-214.
Kurt Goblirsch
2001. "The Icelandic Consonant Shift in its Germanic Context." Arkiv för nordisk filologi 116:117-33.
2002. "The North Frisian Lenition and Danish Linguistic Hegemony." New Insights in Germanic Linguistics III. Ed. Irmengard Rauch and Gerald F. Carr. New York: Lang. (forthcoming, 27 pages)
D. Eric Holt
Review of Christopher J. Pountain (2001) A History of the Spanish Language Through Texts. Routledge. LINGUIST List, 24 August 2001, http://linguistlist.org/issues/12/12-2100.html.
Michael B. Montgomery
"My Mother, Whenever She Passed Away, She Had Pneumonia": The History and Function of Punctual whenever. Journal of English Linguistics 29.234-49. (with John M. Kirk)
On the Trail of Early Nonstandard Grammar: An Electronic Corpus of Southern U.S. Antebellum Overseers' Letters. American Speech 79.388-409 (with Edgar W. Schneider).
Trans-Atlantic Connections for Variable Grammatical Features. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 7.3.205-24.
Yorkshire English Two Centuries Ago. Journal of English Linguistics 29.348-62. (with Maria F Garcia-Bermejo Giner)
Ulster Scots: A Language of Scotch-Irish Emigrants. Journal of Scotch-Irish Studies 2.125-37.
Eighteenth-Century Nomenclature for Ulster Emigrants. Journal of Scotch-Irish Studies 2.1-6.
British and Irish Antecedents of American English. Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume 6: American English, edited by John Algeo, 86-153. Cambridge University Press.
Carol Myers-Scotton
2001a. "Calculating speakers: Codeswitching in a rational choice model." Language in society 30: 1-28. (with Agnes Bolongyai).
2001b. "The matrix language frame model: Developments and responses." In codeswitching worldwide II, ed. by R. Jacobson, 23-58. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
October 2001. "Constraints on bilingual speech: you can't just say what you want to say". Paper given at NWAV 30 conference (New Ways of Analyzing Variation). Raleigh NC. (With Janice L. Jake).
November 2001. "With a little help from my friends: how two new sub-models enhance the MLF model". Main address at invited international conference on Migration and Multilingualism. University of Bayreuth, Germany.
January 2002. "Sources of inflection: testing the creold system morpheme hypothesis". Paper given at annual conference, Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. San Francisco.
Feb. 28, 2002. "Extending the Predictive Power of the Matrix Language Frame Model". Main address at the workshop on codeswitching that was part of the annual meeting of the German Linguistic society (Deutsche Gedsellschaft fur Sprachwissenschaft) at the University of mannheim, Germany. She also gave two seminars for PhD students and faculty at the university.
March 13-15, 2002. Served as an external evaluator for the Linguistics Program at Louisiana State University.
2002. "Implications of abstract grammatical structure: Two targets in creole formation". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 16:217-73.
April 2002. "Speaking two at once: a feat bilinguals manage every day". Main speaker at the symposium on language contact at the University of Texas - San Antonio.
Hyeson Park
to appear. (with Lan Zhang) Native vs. non-native knowledge of the effects of discourse status on word order. Proceedings of the 26th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press.
to appear. Object raising and theticity in Korean. Proceedings of the 9th Harvard international symposium on Korean linguistics.
2001 Object raising and theticity in Korean. Paper presented at the Summer Tropical Syntax Workshop. University of Georgia.
Alexandra Rowe
I have just been elected Commissioner for the Commission on English Language Program Accreditation (CEA), which accredits intensive English programs in the US and sets policy and standards for US intensive English programs. There are 12 Commissioners in the US. My term begins January 1, 2002, and is for 3 years.
Tracey L. Weldon
Publications
2001. Shorter Notice of John Baugh's Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. In English World-Wide 22: 1. 150-152.

Presentations
"Stories from the Field." Methodology workshop presented at New York University as part of the "Working Group in Urban Sociolinguistics" guest lecture series. November, 2001.
"Testing the Creolist Hypothesis: Copula Variability in Gullah and AAVE." Invited talk given at New York University as part of the "Working Group in Urban Sociolinguistics" guest lecture series. November, 2001.
"Negation of the copula in AAVE and Gullah." Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL), Atlanta, Georgia. November, 2001.
"Negation in Gullah." New Ways of Analyzing Variation (in English) (NWAV(E)), Raleigh, North Carolina. October, 2001.
Symposium moderator. "Ethnicity and Variation Studies." New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV 30) conference. North Carolina State University. October, 2001.
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Student Research
Lori Donath
2001. "Unravelling the Confederate Flag: Discourse Frameworks as Ideological Constraints." Texas Linguistic Forum. (Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Language and Society). Austin, TX. August.
2001. "Terms of Agreement: The Absence of African American Experience in Confederate Flag Discourse." Graduate Student Day. University of South Carolina. April.
2001. "What is the EPP, and does Spanish have it?" Presented at the Subtropical Summer Syntax Workshop. University of Georgia, Athens. July
Theresa McGarry
2001. The discourse functions of directives in laboratory discourse. March 31, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Spring Linguistics Colloquium.(with Leticia Trower).
2001. "A narrator's distribution of responsibility." April 7, Knoxville, TN: SouthEastern Conference on Linguistics.
2001. Focus structure in Sinhala.Oct. 9. Konstanz, Germany: South Asian Languages Analysis Roundtable.
Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva
2001. "Multiple wh-movement in Bulgarian: What is still not explained". Subtropical Summer Syntax Workshop. Athens. Georgia.
2001. "On FocP and multiple wh-movement in Bulgarian". Paper accepted for presentation at Formal Descriptions of Slavic Languages 4. Potsdam, Germany.
Lan Zhang
to appear. (with Hyeson Park) Native vs. non-native knowledge of the effects of discourse status on word order. Proceedings of the 26th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press.

Alumni News
Agnes Bolonyai (Ph.D. 1999), currently an Asst. Professor in the Department of English at Eastern Carolina University, gave a paper at the Fall 2001 NWAV Meeting on "Variable effects of language contact on possessive structures in bilingual children's L1". I am delighted to move to NC State, and have the opportunity to work with such remarkable faculty as Walt, David, and Eric. I will be teaching a course in Language and Gender, Intro to Linguistics, and a seminar on Lang contact and bilingualism.
Cathleen Bridgeman (Ph.D. 2000), an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Ericka Danou-Hasan (M.A. 1998), an English instructor in Elgin Community College. Married in May, 1997, expecting first child in October, 2001.

Janet Fuller (Ph.D. 1997), an Assistant Professor in the Linguistics Department at Southern Illinois University. Current and ongoing research interests are the social uses of discourse markers and power and gender in couples' talk. Had a baby NICHOLAS MATTHEW JOHNSON-FULLER at 4:25 AM January 30, 2002. For a picture, go to: http://www.siu.edu/~dfll/classics/Johnson/baby.html

Steven Gross (Ph.D. 2000), an Assistant Professor in the English Department at East Tennessee State University.

Kathy Groves (M.A. 1999), shortly before graduating from the Linguistics Program, I was awarded a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati's Communication Sciences and Disorders program. I have done very well here and have received my M.A. in speech-language pathology (June 2001). I am currently a doctoral student in speech-language pathology at UC (University Distinguished Graduate Fellowship), with concentrations in neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience. I have developed strong interests in neurogenic disorders of communication and cognition (specifically those resulting from brain injury in adults), and what brain injury can tell us about the functional organization of higher-order cognitive functions such as language and memory. I am really enjoying my current coursework and am beginning to work on research, including a project investigating features of verbal and written language in early and moderate stage Alzheimer's disease. Also, I am working clinically (part time) as a speech-language pathologist at the VA Medical Center here in Cincinnati, where I assess and treat patients with a wide range of cognitive, communication, and swallowing disorders, including aphasia and dementia. I love working clinically and plan to always maintain some clinical activity. Finally, I just received word that I have been admitted to the Summer Institute of the International Neuropsychological Society entitled "Language and the Brain", a series of courses to be given by an international faculty that will be held in Xylocastro, Greece. (I can't wait!)

Since coming to Cincinnati in 1999, my linguistics M.A. has provided me with an invaluable edge. I arrived with strong academic skills and a solid base of knowledge that has been infinitely advantageous as I have progressed in the field of speech language pathology (and now in my coursework in neuropsychology). I know that the academic skills that I developed in the Linguistics Program at USC and the excellent quality of instruction I received have played a big role in my later academic successes. I am truly grateful for the training I received at USC. I want you to know that I greatly value my introduction to the study of language and the exceptional academic experiences that I received within the Linguistics Program. In fact, now that I am a doctoral student and have greater flexibility than during the clinical training of my SLP M.A., I am returning to studying of the structure of language and how it is represented in the mind, and I am very happy to be doing so.

Richard Hallett (Ph.D. 2000), an assistant professor of linguistics at Northeastern Illinois University. Primary interests right now are second language acquisition (especially vocabulary acquisition) and world Englishes. Presented a paper entitled "The Facilitative Effect of Simplified Input on L2 Vocabulary Acquisition" at the Pacific Second Language Research Forum (PacSLRF), held at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in October.

Robert Hamilton (Ph.D. 1997), currently in Taichung, Taiwan as Christian missionaries with SEND International, a Christian mission agency. Scheduled to return to Columbia in December of 2002 for our first one-year sabbatical.

Yuri Kite (Ph.D. 1996), will be promoted to a full professor starting April, 2002 in Kansai Univ. in Japan.

Chang-Kyum Kim (Ph.D. 2000), a full-time instructor teaching phonology and English at Uiduk University in Kyungju, one of the internationally known historic cities in Korea.

Larry LaFond (Ph.D. 2001), an Assistant Professor in the English Language and Literature Department of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Miriam Moore (Ph.D. 1993), just received a tenure track position at Raritan Valley Community College as an Instructor of ESL. Daughter Mandy was born in 1994, and daughter Mallory was born in 1996. Our family moved to Somerville, New Jersey, in 1998.

Cynthia Quinn (M.A. 1999), currently I'm an Associate Lecturer of English and Program Co-coordinator at Kwansei Gakuin University's School of Policy Studies' English department. The students here study a broad range of topics addressing the effects of globalization, such as environmental problems, cultural change, international and domestic policy making and other social-oriented issues. In addition to teaching and coordinating the program, I am responsible for coordinating one component of the core (content-based) curriculum, which means I am responsible for designing the courses and writing course materials for part-time staff. Up until now I have been the 2nd year academic writing coordinator. The work load is very heavy (!!), but I'm learning a lot. Fortunately, I have generous research and conference funding which has allowed me to take advantage of several professional development opportunities and keep up with what's going on in the rest of the world. Overall, I enjoy the job and Japan a lot. I've been studying Japanese pretty diligently (and forgetting German, I'm afraid...)...my husband (Brad) works for an English language magazine... I expect to be here for another 2 years at least... We haven't had any (even little) earthquakes in over 2 months - that's unusual!

David Reid (Ph.D. 1998 ), currently an instructor at Xavier Univerisity. Teaching primarily literature courses, and get the occasional linguistics course.

Deborah Ruuskanen (B.A. 1968), professor of English Linguistics at the University of Vaasa, teaching translation and the introductory linguistics courses. While in USC, was interested in the use of computers in language, and did a SNOBAL (extinct computer programming language) program to count the number of times the word 'grass' was used in 'Leaves of Grass'. Also a member of the Ask-A-Linguist panel, answering questions on translation. The language that I have studied most closely is Finnish.

When I was at USC, I was one of the first occupants of what was then called 'South Tower' and now has another name I believe [Capstone, ed.] - is the revolving restaurant still on the top floor? Ah. Dormitories. Guardians at the gate for girls, who were not allowed to wear trousers or skirts that were shorter than one inch below the knee (the guardians measured them), and who could only be allowed out of the dormitory one night a week (until 23:00) and twice for 'library nights' (22:15) - the library closed at 22:00 and you had to have a signed slip from the librarian that you'd been there. There were bed checks. It is not only the study of linguistics that has changed.

Karen Stanley (M.A. 1998), as well as continuing to teach ESL at CPCC, I do freelance item writing for the TOEIC, I'm still on the board of the TESL-L email list, and am list manager for TESLJB-L as well as a moderator for TESL-L. I'm on the steering committee for the TESOL Caucus on Part-Time Employment Concerns (COPTEC) as well as the listowner for its email list. I am also listowner for two other smaller professional email lists. I write the Forum column for TESL-EJ - the September 2001 issue was on "Varieties of English - Definition & Instruction", the December 2001 column was "Student-Centered Instruction: What does it really mean?"; I presented at TESOL 2001, and am scheduled to make two presentations (one on employment issues, one on assessment & testing) at TESOL 2002 in April. My review of "River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze" appeared in the January 2002 issue of Language Magazine.

Longxing Wei (Ph.D. 1996), currently an asst. Professor in Department of Linguistics at the Montclair State University. Research Interests includes second language acquisition theories and research methodologies, language acquisition and language development, the bilingual mental lexicon, sociolinguistics and second language acquisition, bilingualism and language contact phenomena, stylistics: linguistic analysis of literary works, and teaching English as a second/foreign language.

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Faculty Profile: Janina Fenigsen

The Linguistics Program is delighted to welcome Janina Fenigsen, who joined our faculty in Fall 2001. Dr. Fenigsen is a native of Poland. She has an M.A. in Sociology from Jagiellonian University, an M.A. in Anthropology from Brandeis University, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Brandeis University, where she specialized in linguistic anthropology. Her dissertation was titled, "Regimes of Inequality: Linguistic Ideologies and Practices in Barbados."

How did you get interested in linguistic anthropology?
My interest in linguistic anthropology has crystallized during the initial stages of my graduate work in anthropology when I realized that the questions in anthropology that appealed to me the most evolved around the ways that people, individually and collectively, negotiate their own statuses and social roles, their relations with others and, in the process, (re)produce social relations and cultural forms. As I was looking for approaches and methodologies that would allow me to engage with these issues, I came across two articles, one by Judith T. Irvine, "When Talk Isn't Cheap: Language and Political Economy," the other, a review article, by Susan Gal, "Language and Political Economy." I realized that I finally found my way for addressing questions central to my anthropological interests: relations of inequality, processual aspects of social life, the politics of gender and emotion, the politics of race and ethnicity, postcolonial personhood. Linguistic anthropology offered me a compelling theoretical perspective and a methodological tool-kit for pursuing these issues. I was hooked.

How would you describe what you do to a non-linguist?
My research in linguistic anthropology emphasizes the integration of social theory and analysis with the analysis of linguistic forms and practices. By studying the linguistic practices through which people negotiate and (re)produce their social and cultural environments (conversations, literary texts, mass media, theatrical performance, calypso), I engage with the ways in which language figures in the calculus of social inequalities. My work centrally concerns language relations in postcolonial and diasporic settings. I have been doing fieldwork and research in Barbados on processes through which linguistic distinctions, and postcolonial personhood are discursively engendered. I examine two legacies of colonialism, cultural alienation and racially inflected inequality. Using macro and micro politics of language as a point of entry, I consider topics such as the politics of pressing Bajan (Barbadian creole dialect) into print and linguistic standardization; language, modernity, and nationalism; the discursive production of racial identities; and the linguistic influences of romance tourism in Barbados.

What plans do you have for research or other projects here over the next few years?
1. Writing and research
I am currently finishing three articles and a book review for publication. I am also preparing a book concerned with the relationship between language, colonialism, and the formation of postcolonial identities in the British West Indies. In my ongoing research project I seek to further a theoretical understanding of sociosemiotic processes by which discursive regimes of identity come into being, and to trace the ideological forces and interactional practices that propel the renewal of Barbadian official and popular commitment to English. I probe multiple sites that are pivotal in the production and licensing of cultural orders of language, and where ideological tensions surrounding language and its coupling with social and national identities are scripted and articulated -- mass media and popular theater. During the summer of 2002 I will continue my fieldwork in Barbados working with Barbadian writers, journalists, and performers. This is part of my ongoing project intended to investigate the ways Bajan and Barbadian English are drawn into projects of producing culture and Barbadian identities within insular and diasporic Barbadian settings.

2. Conferences.
I am organizing a session for the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in the Fall 2002. In August, I will be presenting a paper at the conference of the Society of the Caribbean Linguistics in Trinindad.

3. Teaching.
This semester, in addition to an introductory antropology course for the Honors College, I am teaching a seminar, "Language as Social Action." My plans for the Fall include teaching a 500-level course, "Discourse, Gender, and the Politics of Emotion," and "Language, Culture, and Society." In the Spring I am planning to teach, "Language and Colonialism," and --possibly-- "Language as Social Action." My office is in Hamilton, 307. Email me if you are interested in the courses, I'll be happy to give you a preliminary syllabus. Or just drop by and chat -- my office hours this semester are TuTh 1:45-2:45, or easily by appointment. I see teaching as an integral part of my scholarly development and enjoy meeting with students, regardless of whether you are taking my classes. Good scholarship emerges from dialogue.

Are there any improvements you'd like to see in the linguistics programs in the next few years?
I am delighted to be part of the program and look forward to my increasing participation in it. I very much value its multidisciplinary character, commitment to students, and the intellectual environment it offers. Of special interest to me is the project of establishing a scholarly exchange with the Program in Linguistics at the University of the West Indies in Barbados. That would be an excellent opportunity for the students, especially anyone who might be interested in specializing in Creole languages.