Linguistics major Emily Grabowski '18 is the 1st Place winner of the Neukom Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Research in Computational Science for 2017. Emily developed software as part of Prof. Laura McPherson's ATLAS project. ATLAS is a computational tool designed to help linguists analyze pitch data from tonal languages.
"The Neukom Prizes were created to encourage undergraduate and graduate interest in research and to recognize outstanding research in the computational...
[more]“This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” says Corinne Kasper ’17.
Corinne Kasper ’17, who belongs to the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi tribe in southwestern Michigan, has been studying her native language since she was 13 years old. But fluent speakers and teachers of Potawatomi have been dwindling as English has become dominant. Kasper, a linguistics major, is developing teaching tools to help people learn or re-learn an...
[more]When linguists head into remote areas to study indigenous languages, they often face steep logistical hurdles: where to stay, what to eat (and what to avoid), how to find local speakers (known to linguists as “language consultants”), and how to reach them, all within a fixed budget and time frame.
At Dartmouth, that kind of planning for a foreign study program (FSP) is usually done by faculty, with support from the Frank J. Guarini Institute...
[more]Thursday, May 25, 2017
Dartmouth Hall 206
4:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Maggie Baird
Title: "Variable word-final vowel reduction and deletion in Gurmancema: a maximum entropy model"
Gurmancema (Gur, Burkina Faso) displays an overall dispreference for word-final tense vowels phrase-medially. Repairs include vowel reduction and vowel deletion, which vary both across and within phonological contexts. This work will provide an overview of the complex data patterns...
Lecture by Jie Zhang, Kansas University
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Hood Museum, Wilson 219, 4:45 pm
Reception to follow in Reed Hall, room 322
Free and open to the public!
The phonological properties of tonal alternation affect the nature of its variation
Phonological processes in languages often apply variably. For instance, the schwa in the word memory may or may not delete in actual...
[more]Greater Recognition of Africa’s Invisible Female Entrepreneurs Needed
by Laura McPherson May 4, 2017
Last month the Google doodle honored Esther Afua Ocloo, one of Ghana’s most successful entrepreneurs and an early advocate for women’s microfinance, on what would have been her 98th birthday.
Never heard of her? You’re not the only one.
Africa, which boasts some of the richest...
Evelyn Fernandez-Lizarraga ’16
San Diego, Calif.
Linguistics and comparative literature double major
English teaching assistant grant, South Korea
“My Dartmouth experience centered on studying language in all its contexts: from literature to linguistics, in culture and society—through my Spanish foreign study program in Argentina; my Spanish sociolinguistics project analyzing the relationship between family, language, and identity through the...
[more]Raffaella Zanuttini, Yale University
Tuesday, April 18, 2017, 4:45 pm, Haldeman 041
About:
It is well-known that American English exhibits variation in the phonological system and in the lexicon. Scholars have
been studying this type of variation extensively for several decades, and most speakers can easily think of different
intonational patterns, pronunciations, or different words for the same item used in different parts of the country.
...
Prof. Laura McPherson has been awared a 3-year NSF grant to study Seenku, an endangered language of West Africa
Abstract
A reference grammar and tonal documentation of Seenku, an endangered Mande language
Over half of the world's estimated 7,000 languages are tonal, and most are spoken by small populations, threatened by globalization and changing socioeconomic landscapes. This project will advance scientific understanding of tone and tonal languages more...
[more]“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” We’ve all heard this. From a young age we are taught not to judge something or someone based simply of what we see. We are taught that things are not always as they seem and that sometimes the most boring and inconspicuous “covers” are doors into the very best books. But does this same rule apply to what we hear? Our use of language plays an important role in how we are perceived. It can indicate our education level or social class and give insight to where...
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