Announcement

We are pleased to announce that four nationally and internationally recognized linguists have been invited to lecture on their areas of interest:  David Poeppel, Cynthia Clopper, Monica Heller, and William Labov. We welcome all in the Triangle area who are interested in the field of Linguistics to attend.  Please link back to this page for more information in the future.

When:  October 6-9, 2008 from 5:00-6:30 pm

Where:

Nelson Music Room
East Duke Building
East Campus Drive
Durham, NC 27708

Directions and Information

Monday, October 6
5:00-6:30 PM

David Poeppel
Professor
University of Maryland
http://www.ling.umd.edu/~poeppel/

Neurolinguistics

Dr. Poeppel will talk about the relation between linguistics and neuroscience and sketch out a proposal for a contemporary cognitive neuroscience of language.

Tuesday, October 7
5:00-6:30 PM

Cynthia Clopper
Assistant Professor
Ohio State University
http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~cclopper/

Speech Perception

Dr. Clopper will talk about the effects of social and linguistic sources of variability on speech processing.

Wednesday, October 8
5:00-6:30 PM

Monica Heller
Professor
University of Toronto
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/depts/sese/monicaheller.html

Globalization

Title:   Paradoxes of multilingualism in the globalized new economy

This talk will examine some of the paradoxical consequences of the increasing centrality of communication in general, and multilingualism in particular, in the globalized new economy. Emphasis on standardized forms and practices competes with pressures for flexibility and variability; linguistic authority can be drawn from mastery of technical procedures or from the value of authenticity; and globally circulating linguistic resources are appropriated in local struggles over social difference and social inequality. These paradoxes have consequences in a number of areas, ranging from evaluation of linguistic competence (for employment and for immigration and asylum-seeking) to what counts as language teaching. I will draw on fieldwork based in francophone Canada to illustrate these paradoxes, and to explore in particular some of their consequences for the constitution of who gets to count as a francophone and what gets to count as speaking French under these new conditions.

Thursday, October 9
5:00-6:30 PM

William Labov
Professor
University of Pennsylvania
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/

Sociolinguistics

Title:  Where is Southern English heading? Pressures from the north, south, east and west

The Atlas of North American English gives us an over-all view of  Southern States English in relation to the other dialect regions of North America. In the large metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Dallas and Houston, one can observe a major impact of northern inmigrants, with a marked decline of monophthongal /ay/. In contrast, monophrhongization of /ay/  is dominant in other cities, led by the Appalachian Inland South and west Texas. The expansion of monophthongization of /ay/ before voiceless consonants promotes the Southern Shift, reversing the relative positions of /e/ and /ey/, /i/ and /iy/. Although the Southern Shift is slowly receding, the South leads in the general fronting of /uw/ and the fronting of /ow/ and /aw/ that is characteristic of the larger Southeastern super-region, including the Midland and Mid-Atlantic regions. Local Southern dialects like that of Charleston are being replaced by extreme versions of this general Southeastern pattern.  Finally, one must account for the massive shift to r-pronounciation in formerly r-less areas of the South, in contrast with the limited shift the Northeastern areas that is confined to formal styles of speech.