WHASC

COLLOQUIUM THIS FRIDAY: DIANA ARCHANGELI

Diana Archangeli, Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute at the University of Arizona, will deliver a colloquium at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, May 9, in 202 Humanities One. For the latest information on her talk, visit the Linguistics Department’s colloquium page, here.

ITO’S STEVENSON FACULTY LECTURE THIS WEDNESDAY

Junko Ito will deliver the Stevenson College Faculty Lecture at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 7, in the Stevenson College Fireside Lounge. Her title is “What anime and karaoke have in common: A linguistic perspective”. Here is the abstract:

The English words ‘animation’ and ‘orchestra’ were imported into Japanese, then modified into ‘anime’ and ‘karaoke’, and finally re-exported to English. Tempura, another such world traveler, came to Japan with Portuguese Christian missionaries in the 16th century (possibly derived from Latin ‘tempora’ in the meaning ‘Lenten period’), then made the trip back to the West in the 20th century as a culinary japonicum. Besides their intrinsic historical and cultural interest, such loanwords and their patterns of modification reveal hidden generalizations about the linguistic structure of the borrowing language. The lecture will address and discuss the significant role that prosody (moras, syllables, binary rhythmic structures and other metrical laws) plays in various areas, ranging from the poetic traditions of the language-haiku, senryu, waka-to the formal morphological factors involved in such loanword modifications.

INFO SESSION ON USC’S GRADUATE PROGRAMS THIS THURSDAY

Linguistics majors, Language Studies majors, and M.A. students are encouraged to attend the workshop on Linguistics graduate programs at the University of Southern California, to be held at 12:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 8, in Stevenson College’s Silverman Conference Room. Two USC professors — Andrew Simpson and alum Rachel Walker (Ph.D. 1998) — will be there, and so will some USC grad students. Learn about USC’s grad programs, funding opportunities, and how to prepare a strong application. Pizza will be served! For the event’s poster, go here.

TREND 2008 THIS SATURDAY

TREND 2008 will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 10, at the Stevenson College Fireside Lounge. TREND is an annual workshop at which graduate students and faculty from UCSC, UC Berkeley, and Stanford present their current research in an informal and collaborative setting. Among those presenting at TREND 2008 are UCSC grad students Scott AnderBois, Ryan Bennett, and Abby Kaplan. For the program, go here.

DISSERTATION DEFENSE NEXT WEEK ON MONDAY: AARON KAPLAN

Aaron Kaplan will defend his dissertation, “What noniterativity tells us about processes in phonology”, at 4:00 p.m. on Monday of next week, May 12, in the Cowell Senior Common Room. The chair of Aaron’s dissertation committee is Armin Mester; the other members are Jaye Padgett and Junko Ito. Mark your calendars!

ALUM REPORT: ADAM USSISHKIN

Many congratulations to Adam Ussishkin (Ph.D. 2000), who has just been promoted to Associate Professor in Linguistics at the University of Arizona. He writes, Just a quick note to share the good news that I’ve just received official notice that I have tenure.

REMINDER: UNDERGRAD RESEARCH FUNDS

The Linguistics Department has a limited amount of funds available to support research by (declared) Linguistics and Language Studies majors. The funds can be used to pay expenses connected with individual research projects, to subsidize travel to a conference to deliver a paper, and so on. To apply, submit a 1-2 page statement of your research project, plus a budget and a justification of expenses, to Sandy Chung (Cowell Faculty Services) by Monday, May 5.