WHAT'S HAPPENING AT SANTA CRUZ
A weekly digest of linguistics news and events from the University of California, Santa Cruz
Jack Duff, a fifth year PhD student, saw a paper appear recently in Semantic Field Methods, co-authored with long-time department collaborator Fe Silva-Robles, as well as Felipe H. Lopez and Carolyn Jane Anderson, on “Eliciting associated motion constructions in two Zapotec languages.” You can read the paper here.
There was a large UCSC contingent at CreteLing 2022 this year, the annual linguistics summer school hosted at the University of Crete in beautiful Rethymno. Two current faculty members, Professors Ivy Sichel and Donka Farkas, and incoming faculty member Professor Roumyana Pancheva, taught classes over the two-week program. Nine students from UCSC, both undergraduate and graduate, attended these classes and others. Here are some quotes from participants about their favorite part of the program:
UCSC students and professors at the Port of Rethymno. From left clockwise: Owen O’Brien (senior), Sophia Stremel (PhD), Sadie Lewis (senior), Donka Farkas (faculty), Eli Sharf (PhD), Jackson Confer (alum), Matthew Kogan (MA), Roumyana Pancheva (faculty), Ivy Sichel (faculty), and Niko Webster (PhD).
“Easily, the best part was getting to know so many brilliant professors and students from around the world, both in the classroom and out. Conversations with new friends were consistently insightful and rewarding, and I loved being able to explore the island during down time and end the days with good food and night swims in such great company.” – Jackson Confer, alum
“At CreteLing, I enjoyed many of the meals we shared together, lunch between classes, and late-night dinners, where everyone was welcome and we seemed to keep cramming chairs around the table. Some of the most exciting conversations were had over a great meal and a view of the Mediterranean.” – Sadie Lewis, senior
“I really enjoyed going out with our big Santa Cruz cohort to enjoy the tremendous food and culture in Crete. I was quite excited to be thinking about Linguistics with everyone in this very vacation-esque setting.” – Matthew Kogan, 2nd year MA
Donka Farkas, Professor Emerita at UCSC and Sabine Iatridou, Professor at MIT and Co-Director of CreteLing
“It was pure joy to be in a real classroom with real live students again. I loved interacting with the large and lively UCSC contingent, in class, at Brew your Mind cafe, on the bus, or even during a brief forced march from the classroom to the bus station.” – Donka Farkas, Professor Emerita
“I enjoyed dancing: whether in the club or in the streets!” – Owen O’Brien, senior
“Wednesday was our off-day in the middle of the week. I loved going to the local beach and swimming in the warm Mediterranean on this day, having some time to enjoy the sun and think about ideas I learned in class the previous few days.” – Eli Sharf, 2nd year PhD
UCSC MA student Delaney Gomez-Jackson enjoying the bus ride back to downtown Rethymno after a long day of classes
UCSC students celebrating at the dinner and dance party hosted on the final night of the program. From left clockwise: Sadie Lewis (senior), Sophia Stremel (PhD), Matthew Kogan (MA), Jackson Confer (alum), Owen O’Brien (senior), Elifnur Ulusoy (MA), Niko Webster (PhD), and Eli Sharf (PhD).
A collage of film photos of the Rethymno campus taken by Delaney Gomez-Jackson.
Niko Webster (left), Owen O’Brien (right, back), and Sadie Lewis (right, front) hang out and drink coffee in front of the common room during a class break.
The cover of Volume V of Syntax & Semantics at Santa Cruz
The fifth volume of Syntax & Semantics at Santa Cruz (SASC) — the Department’s working paper series on syntax and semantics — was just released. Edited by PhD students Lalitha Balachandran and Jack Duff, it features four articles by current and recently graduated students and faculty:
Zapotec Language Project team members in Santiago Laxopa in July 2022: Myke Brinkerhoff, Maya Wax Cavallaro, Delaney Gomez-Jackson, Maziar Toosarvandani, and Jack Duff (from left to right).
This summer, linguists working on the Zapotec Language Project traveled to Santiago Laxopa in the Sierra Norte mountains of Oaxaca for the first time since 2019, to work with speakers of the Zapotec language spoken there (Dille’ xhunh).
The first team, comprised of fifth year PhD student Jack Duff, MA student Delaney Gomez-Jackson, and Professor Maziar Toosarvandani, carried out an eyetracking study on the interpretation of relative clauses, in collaboration with language expert Fe Silva-Robles. This project was supported by a National Science Foundation grant, directed by Toosarvandani with Professors Ivy Sichel and Matt Wagers, which is also supporting a range of other activities in the Department on resumption and animacy.
Members of the team also met one on one with speakers to investigate different aspects of Zapotec grammar and made recordings of narratives.
Jack Duff (left) and Delaney Gomez-Jackson (right) painting a sign in Zapotec, which eventually will read De’nh tsekwelle’ nakenh lalldo’ yell tsedzu (Music is the soul of our town)
As service to the community, they taught math classes for the town’s children in Spanish and Zapotec and supported Silva Robles as she led reading and writing workshops for the language. As part of these workshops, the team presented the town with an alphabet poster featuring a preliminary orthography for their Zapotec language, as well as three illustrated books and (hand painted) signs using the orthography. These gifts contributed to the town’s ongoing conversations about how best to write its language.
A second team, comprised of fourth years PhD students Myke Brinkerhoff and Maya Wax Cavallaro, collected data for phonetic and phonological projects on tone and phonation. They also recorded narratives, vocabulary related to healing plants, recipes, and a description of how to make capisallos (multipurpose textiles made from palm leaves). Wax Cavallaro also had the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of previous UC Santa Cruz grad students, playing in the town’s banda during the annual fiesta.
Myke Brinkhoff (back center) and Maya Wax Cavallaro (right) recording (and learning) how to make yetgu’ (tamales) from Olivia Maldonado Maldonado
Fourth year PhD student Dan Brodkin, who spent part of the summer in Indonesia, sent in this report from his fieldwork:
Dan Brodkin (left) and collaborator Jupri Talib (right) at the Mandar Cultural Library in Pambusuang, West Sulawesi
“This summer I spent a month in Indonesia, setting up a new field site and building toward a new theory of engagement with foreign academia. This trip continued my pre-pandemic work in the country, and it provided me with the opportunity to engage with the local linguistics scene in new ways — by presenting research to departments, giving talks on the value of generative grammar, and putting on a Praat workshop for the Government Language Office of South Sulawesi. After three years of Zoom, this trip also allowed me to engage with a broader segment of the Mandar community, and to ask questions, listen and take new steps toward giving back.
“As part of that process, I appeared on a local podcast to discuss language ideology and the challenge of language loss with a prominent author and cultural expert, Ridwan Alimuddin.” The episode, which can also be viewed on YouTube, is below.
Since the last WHASC post, the Department’s students have received a number of honors.
PhD students Stephanie Rich (left) and Morwenna Hoeks (center), receiving the Jorge Hankamer Outstanding Graduate Instructor Award in Linguistics from Professor Pranav Anand (right)
Fifth-year PhD students Morwenna Hoeks and Stephanie Rich received the inaugural Jorge Hankamer Outstanding Graduate Instructor Award in Linguistics at the Humanities Award Ceremony on June 6. The award recognized their outstanding records as Teaching Assistants and contributions to the Department’s pedagogical community.
Several seniors graduating in Spring or Summer 2022 received department honors in the linguistics major:
as well as in the language studies major:
Numerous graduating seniors in the Department’s two majors were also elected to Phi Beta Kappa for 2021-2022:
Congratulations to all on their academic achievements!
Four PhD students defended their dissertations at the end of spring quarter or over the summer:
Congratulations to all four, and best of luck in your future pursuits!