What does your potato chip bag say about your social class? This is the focus of the study by Dan Jurafsky and Joshua Freedman. Set to appear in the Dec 6 issue of Gastronomica, the study finds that there are distinct differences between the linguistic advertising techniques of expensive and inexpensive potato chip brands. But it turns out, for all classes, it’s all about authenticity. This article about the study appeared in Wednesday’s Stanford Report. You can also read about it in Dan’s blog!
And speaking of authenticity, Penny Eckert and Lauren Hall-Lew both presented last week at the conference “Indexing Authenticity: Perspectives from linguistics and anthropology” at the University of Freiburg!
Donka Farkas (UCSC) will speak in the department colloquium today, at 3:30pm in the Greenberg Room. Her topic is “Yes and No.” Here’s the abstract!
This talk reports on work done in collaboration with Floris Roelofsen from ILLC, Amsterdam. It proposes an account of the distribution and interpretation of ‘polarity particles’, i.e., morphemes exemplified by yes and no in English. The goal is to explain why utterances of the type Yes, she is/No, she isn’t can only occur in responses to assertions (She is home) or polar questions (Is she home?/Is she not home?) but not in ‘out of the blue’ contexts or in reactions to constituent questions or certain type of alternative questions. We approach the issue from an inquisitive semantics perspective by first refining semantic distinctions so as to allow us to capture the similarities and differences between assertions and polar questions, as well as the differences between questions such as Is the door open?/Is the door closed? so as to be able to account for the different interpretations yes and no reactions to these questions receive. After giving a detailed analysis of the data in English and formulating predictions concerning cross linguistic patterns we turn to checking them by looking at the facts in Romanian, a language whose polarity particle system contrasts with that of English along several parameters.
Middy Tice will be giving a talk with Melinda Woodley in the Phonetics and Phonology Workshop today, at 12pm in the Greenberg Room. Their title is “L2 Immersion Effects on L1 Speech Perception.”
The idea that second language (L2) learners’ phonological categories are tightly linked to their native language categories is not a new one (Laeufer 1996). Typically, the role of L2 phonology has been seen as subordinate to native (L1) phonology. However, in the present study we find that, though L1 and L2 categories may be tightly linked in early L2 acquisition, the relationship between them is not strictly one-way. Our findings demonstrate interference from the L2 on the L1 in both a phoneme discrimination task and a semantic priming experiment, underscoring the continued malleability of L1 phonological categories well into adulthood.
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Joan Bresnan can be found in Kioloa, Australia from December 5-9, where she will be teaching an Australian Linguistic Society master class on Probabilistic Syntax.
Ivan Sag and Penny Eckert celebrated Thanksgiving in Germany. They both gave talks in Tübingen, entitled `Sluicing without Deletion’, `Sex, Lies, and the English Auxiliary System’, and `Linguistic Variation and Social Meaning’ (who gave which left as an exercise for the reader..,). Penny then went on to Freiburg to give another talk, while Ivan did the same thing in Frankfurt. Thanksgiving dinner at an Indian restaurant in Germany? Makes sense – there were Indians at the first Thanksgiving…
In case you miss them in the Phonetics and Phonology Workshop today, Middy Tice will be giving a talk with Melinda Woodley entitled L2 Immersion Effects on L1 Speech Perception on Monday at the Berkeley Phonetics and Phonology Forum.
Plus, Victor Kuperman will be presenting on Monday as part of the Rochester Colloquia Series.
Want to keep the world posted on your academic travels? Let us know what you’re up to!
This quarter’s series of workshops on Context Dependence in Language and Communication will be coming to a close next week, with Laura Schroeter visiting from the University of Melbourne Department of Philosophy. She’ll be giving a tutorial on Wednesday from 4:30 to 6:00pm, and a talk on Thursday at the same time, all in the Greenberg Room.
The Context Dependence Workshops will continue next quarter, with appearances by Jeff Pelletier, Susan Gelman, and Sarah-Jane Leslie!
The department will be hosting its End-Of-Quarter Holiday Party in the colloquium timeslot this next Friday, 9 December (3:30 to 5:30pm in the Greenberg Room).
It’s a potluck, so bring food and drinks to share! A signup sheet is posted on the refrigerator in the kitchen.
See you there!
Here’s 21 reasons why English is problematic for L2 learners.
1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there was no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen on how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?