BABBLE
Newsletter of the University of South Carolina Linguistics Program
Vol 7
2002-2003

Check out our previous issues in Babble Archives

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Word from the Director
Greetings! Our program welcomed twelve students into degree programs in Fall 2002. You can check out their backgrounds and interests below. We anticipate another dozen students joining the program this Fall (2003).

The Program was involved in searches for core faculty in three areas (phonology/English linguistics, psycholinguistics, and linguistic anthropology), and I am pleased to report that John Alderete (Ph.D. University of Massachusetts 1999) has been hired into the English position in phonology/English linguistics and Amit Almor (Ph.D. Brown University 1995) has been hired into the Psychology position in psycholinguistics. Both of them join the Linguistics Program core faculty this Fall. John's areas of research include the morphology-phonology interface, phonology, Optimality Theory, cognitive science, and Athabaskan. Amit's research interests include psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, as well as human reasoning. There is also a strong likelihood that a linguistic anthropologist will be hired in the mid-year into the Department of Anthropology (we'll keep you posted!). We have also added a new consulting faculty member from the Department of Philosophy, Raffaella De Rosa (Ph.D. Rutgers University 2002). Her areas of interest include early modern philosophy, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language.

I am pleased to report that we have gotten a signed agreement with the Department of Language, Linguistics, and Literature at the University of the West Indies - Cave Hill Campus (Barbados) to establish an academic exchange with them. 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 this Fall.

Thanks to the efforts and inspiration of Mila Tasseva, we are hoping to host the 13th meeting of the Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics this coming Spring. Details have not been finalized yet, but the meeting will likely take place in the last week of February and will bring Slavic linguistics from across North America and Europe to our campus.

On a less happy note, Carol Myers-Scotton retired from the Linguistics Program at the end of June this year, bringing to a close her long and illustrious career as a senior scholar in our program. Carol joined the Linguistics Program at USC as a full professor in 1986, and served the Program for sixteen years (including two terms as Program director). Her departure leaves a void in the area of sociolinguistics that will not be easy to fill.

—Stan Dubinsky

Back to Top

Welcome New Students
We welcomed 12 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:

Tomoyuki Akiyama, From Japan. Currently working on MA. Interested in phonology and language change. Foreign language: Chinese, Korean, French.
Megan-Dawn Elder, I'm interested in the syntax of ASL, as well as language change, especially as it concerns the attrition of the Appalachian dialect in younger generations.

Denis Kopyl, from Russia. Currently working on M.A. Particular interest is in syntax and semantics.

Joe Martin, from Oregon; Previous lives as a carpenter, a self-defense school owner, sidetracked into studying Biology, Asian Studies, and Anthropology, accidentally ended up with a TEFL certificate and BA in linguistics from Western Washington University, top left corner, USA; current life as MA student. Interests = [+linguistic] signed languages; scripts and literacy; language genesis, paralinguistic gesture, animal language and culture, murky border areas that muddle up our ideas of language; [?linguistic] canoes, backpacking, seeing the East Coast and the South, self defense, Kosho Shorei Kempo, beaches, hot dogs.

Robert Moonan - enrolled in PhD. Interested in Historical Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, and SLA.

Bevin Roue, I am in MA program and interested in TESL and SLA. My goals are teaching English overseas and mission work.

Susan R. Scriven, Received BA in English Literature at East Tennessee State University. Currently enrolled in MA program with a concentration in Spanish and working toward TEFL certificate. I hope to teach English as a foreign language to Latino immigrants in the United States and conduct research in sociolinguistic topics. Away from the classroom, my two neices and car audio keep me going.

Lish Simpson, I am getting my M.A. in Linguistics with a focus in TESL and sociolinguistics. I teach freshman English at USC.I am newly married to Steve Simpson. I plan to go to Asia to teach after I'm done at USC.

Steve Simpson, I am getting my M.A. in Linguistics with a focus in TESL and SLA. It is my first semester here. Also, I am newly married to Lish Simpson, formerly Lish Choo. I plan to teach ESl and TESL in Asia.

Christian Tarazona, My areas of interest are the sociolinguistics and the computational linguistics specially the topics related to the simulation of the human language learning through computers.

Cherlon Ussery, Enrolled in M.A. Interested in syntax, semantics, and possibly psycholinguistics. Life outside of linguistics: food, wine, and books.

Kristen VanHeest, I am originally from Michigan. Currently I'm pursuing an M.A. I am interested in Sociolinguistics and Discourse, particularly as they both relate to conversation. As for outside of Linguistics, for the past 4 years I have been improving my ability to wheel throw ceramic pieces. Also, throughout high school and undergraduate work I figure skated competitively, although I am no longer competing, currently I am working toward becoming a judge.

Back to Top

Colloquium Series
The Colloquium Series of 2002-2003 was a great success. 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 2002-03 Colloquia webpage. The list of the 2002-2003 colloquia are as follows:

Keith Hutchison, Washington University, St. Louis , Semantic priming in the 21st century: Using word associations to test theories of attention, language, and memory.
Michael Kaschak, University of Wisconsin ,Madison,This Syntax Needs Learned: Adult Acquisition of Novel Syntactic Patterns.
Amit Almor,University of Southern California , Computation, Information, and Cost in the Processing of Reference in Discourse.
Chantal Tetreault, University of Texas, Austin , What's in a Name?: Parental Name-Calling among French Adolescents of Algerian Descent.
John Alderete, Rutgers University , Navigating the overlap between morphology and phonology: Perspectives from Optimality Theory.
Alan C. L. Yu, McGill University, Rethinking the Phonology-Morphology Interface.
Andrew Wedel, University of California, Santa Cruz . Self-organization and the origin of higher-order phonological patterns.
Adam Ussishkin, University of Arizona, Constraining Abstractness in the Lexicon.
Ernest Lepore, Rutgers University, Context Shifting Arguments.
Judith Kroll, Pennsylvania State University, Developing Lexical Proficiency in a Second Language.
Judith Kroll, Pennsylvania State University, Selecting the Language in Which to Speak: A Psycholinguistic Approach to Bilingual Language Production.

Carol Myers-Scotton, University of South Carolina, Supporting a Differential Access Hypothesis:Codeswitching and Other Contact Data.

Back to Top

Graduate Student Linguistics Organization(GSLING)
From the Presidents of GSLING

We are excited to have so many new students this semester and believe that we have a lot to learn from interaction with each object NPs. Proceedings of the North East Linguistics Society (NELS 31). Amherst, MA: GSLA Publications, pp. 199-214.

Kurt Goblirsch

Journal article:

"On the Development of Germanic Consonants: The Danish Shift and the Danish Lenition." Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 124: 199-232.
Conference presentations:

"The Partial Consonant in West Germanic." 2001 Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference, Bloomington, IN.
"Gemination and Lenition in the Middle Periods of the Germanic Languages." Second International Colloquium of SFB 471 "Variation und Entwicklung im Lexikon", Konstanz, Germany.
"The Voicing of Fricatives in West Germanic." Forum for Germanic Language Studies / Society for Germanic Linguistics Joint Conference, London, January 2003.

D. Eric Holt
To appear:
Book (ed.): Optimality Theory and Language Change. Approx. 450 pp. Kluwer Academic Press, Dordrecht, the Netherlands. Camera-ready ms. to be delivered November 2002.
“Remarks on Optimality Theory and Language Change” (31 pp.) and “On the collapse of contrastive vowel length in Late Latin and the evolution of mid vowels and geminate consonants in Hispano-Romance” (22 pp.). In Optimality Theory and Language Change. (D. Eric Holt, ed.)
“Optimization of syllable contact in Old Spanish via the sporadic sound change metathesis.” For inclusion in a thematic issue of the journal Probus. (17 pp.)
“Sobre los cambios fónicos esporádicos que optimizan el contacto silábico en el español antiguo: El caso de la metátesis” Proceedings of the XIII Congreso de la Asociación de Lingüística y Filología de América Latina (ALFAL), Universidad de Costa Rica, February 18-23, 2002.
In print:
“The articulator group and liquid geometry: Implications for Spanish phonology present and past.” In Caroline Wiltshire and Joaquim Camps, eds., Romance Phonology and Variation. Philadelphia and Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 85-99. 2002.
BOOK REVIEWS
Comparative software review article of the CD-ROMs Phonetics: An Interactive Introduction (Nicholas Reid, The University of New England, Australia, 1999) and The Mouton Interactive Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology (Jürgen Handke, Mouton de Gruyter, 2001). Language Learning & Technology 6.3 (September 2002). 37-45. Available from http://llt.msu.edu/vol6num3/review4/
Michael B. Montgomery

Publications:
Introduction to reprint of Lorenzo Dow Turner, Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, xi-lvii. (with Katherine Wyly Mille).
How the Ulster Plantation Shaped the Linguistic History of the Province. BBC website.
Joseph Hall: The Man and His Work. Now and Then: The Appalachian Magazine 20.1.1-4.
Review of Seldom Ask, Never Tell: Labor and Discourse in Appalachia by Anita Puckett. Journal of Appalachian Studies.
What is Ulster-Scots? Leaflet produced by the Ulster-Scots Agency, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
2002 The Linguistic History of Ulster. BBC website.
2003 Joseph Hall: The Man and His Work. Now and Then: The Appalachian Magazine 20.1.1-4.
2002 Review of Seldom Ask, Never Tell: Labor and Discourse in Appalachia by Anita Puckett. Journal of Appalachian Studies 8.244-46.
2003 The Scots Language Abroad, Edinburgh Companion to Scots, ed. by John Corbett et al., 233-50. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Honor:

Elected President of the American Dialect Society for 2003-2004.
My festschrift has just been published:

Nagle, Steve and Sara L. Sanders, eds. 2003. English in the southern United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Carol Myers-Scotton
Book.
2002. Contact linguistics, bilingual encounters and grammatical outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 342 pp.
Articles.
2002. "Frequency and intentionality in (un)marked choices in codeswitching: 'This is a 24-hour country'". International Journal of Bilingualism 6: 205-219.
2002. "Making a minimalist approach to codeswitching work: Adding the Matrix Language". Bilingualism, Language and Cognition 5: 69-91. (with Janice L. Jake and Steven Gross).
Review.
2002. Book review of Bilingual speech, a typology of code-mixing by Pieter Muysken. Review in Language 78.
Presentations:
"Codeswitching in multilngual African urban communities". Congress of the International Applied Linguistics Association. Dec 12, 2002. Singapore

"Creole formation and the divide in morpheme types". Annual meeting of the society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Jan 3, 2003. Atlanta.

Future::
Will teach a three week-course at the LSA Summer Linguistics Institute to be held at Michigan State University in summer 2003. The course will be titled "Contact Linguistics".
Hyeson Park
2003 (with Lan Zhang) Verb Copying and Situation Delimiters in Chinese. Paper presented at LSA, Atlanta, Georgia.
Bruce Pearson
Bruce L. Pearson, professor emeritus, has received a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a three-year project to develop a dictionary and related materials for the Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma. The award comes one year after his publication of a story collection in the Wyandotte language for another tribe based in Oklahoma. He will complete work on a handbook and dictionary to accompany the story collection while beginning the Delaware project.
Tracey L. Weldon
Publications
2002. "Gullah Gullah Islands". _Language Magazine_. February edition. 31, 33-34.
Forthcoming. "Copula variability in Gullah". To appear in _Language Variation and Change_ 15:1.
Presentations
2002. "Language" workshop. Professional development seminar for teachers from Kazakhstan and Russia. Organized by the English Program for Internationals (EPI) at The University of South Carolina.

2002. "Gender and communication in work team interactions: Similarities and differences." Victoria J. Gallagher, Tracey L. Weldon, Cynthia R. Haller, William J. Jordan, and Richard M. Felder. Gender Division of the Southern States Communication Association (SSCA) Convention, Winston-Salem, N.C.

2003. "Copula variability in Gullah and AAVE." Linguistic Society of America (LSA), Atlanta Georgia.

2003. "African-American English in the College Curriculum: Ideological and Pedagogical Issues." LSA, Atlanta, Georgia.

Back to Top

Student Research
Craig Callender
'Evidence from the Second Consonant Shift for a Hybrid Model of Sound Change.' Presented at the Joint Meeting of the Forum for Germanic Language Studies and the Society for Germanic Linguistics. London, UK. Jan. 3-5, 2003.
'From the Brain to the Ear and Beyond.' (With Elizabeth Joiner). To be presented at the South Carolina Foreign Language Teachers' Association Conference. Columbia, SC. March 28-29, 2003.
Theresa McGarry

Forthcoming 2003. Teaching and grading in conferences: Improving students’ understanding of expectations and evaluations. June 22-25, 2003. Nashville, TN: American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference. (with Edward Young)
Forthcoming 2003. Consulting with second language learners in discipline-specific communications centers. Jan. 13-15, 2003. Charlotte, NC: Southeastern Writing Center Association. (with Elizabeth Davidson)
2002. Contextualizing topic development in women’s discourse. April 18-20, 2002. Memphis, TN: SouthEastern Conference on Linguistics
2002. Contextualizing topic development in women’s discourse. April 12, 2002. Columbia, SC: Linguistics Program Colloquium Series.
Eva Moore

2003. "Metonymy and indexicals: a relevance theory account" To be presented at SECOL, Georgetown.

Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva
2002. "On possessives in Bulgarian". Paper presented at Graduate Student Day. University of South Carolina. April 3.
2002. "The Possessor that came home". Paper presented at Workshop on Syntax and Semantics of Possessives. University of Massachusetts, Amherst. May 2-6.

Kristen VanHeest
2002 (with Robert F. Belli, Eun Ha Lee, Frank P. Stafford) "Calendar Survey Methods: Association between Verbal behaviors and Data Quality". Paper presented at the International Conference on Questionnaire Development, Testing, and Evaluation Methods, November , Charleston, South Carolina.
Lan Zhang
2003 (with Hyeson Park) Verb Copying and Situation Delimiters in Chinese. Paper presented at LSA, Atlanta, Georgia.

Alumni News

Petia Alexieva (M.A. 2002), starting a Ph.D. in Slavic Linguistics at the University of Chicago in Fall 2003. Granted a full scholarship and a fellowship.

Collin F. Baker (M.A. 1984), Project Manager, FrameNet at International Computer Science Institute . Here is my website: http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/Ecollinb/

Alina Ciscel (M.A. 2001), an ESL instructor at Goodwin College (a private, two-year institution) in East Hartford, Connecticut. Primarily teaches recent immigrants in an intensive English program.

Matthew Ciscel (Ph.D. 2002), Asst. Professor in the Department of English at Central Connecticut State University. Both Alina and I are very happy in our jobs.

Elizabeth Drury (M.A. 2000), We're doing wonderfully and ha