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Tellme (since May 2007 a subsidiary of Microsoft) is a company which has developed a platform which creates a bridge between the phone and the Internet, allowing people to find, use and share information via the phone. A number of alumni of our programs have worked there, at a variety of levels. Tellme has written to us, seeking to hire someone as soon as possible into a Contract Transcriber position. Here is the job description:

Contract Orthographic Transcriber

Responsibilities

As a transcriber, you’ll be responsible for transcribing spoken utterances into text for analysis by speech engineers and other teams
at Tellme. You’ll be:

• Analyzing utterances to determine whether the speaker is a native or non-native English speaker, etc.
• Determining correct pronunciation of words and names
• Finding correct spelling of obscure words and names
• Generating data that helps improve the performance of some of the most advanced phone applications in the world

Requirements:

• Excellent knowledge of the English language
• Strong typing, spelling, and basic computing skills
• Familiarity with phonetics, experience with arpabet, CPA, or other textual representation of phonetic symbols a plus
• A degree in Linguistics a plus

If interested, please send your resume to Todd Caplener: todcap@microsoft.com

This week’s colloquium is jointly sponsored by the Departments of Linguistics and Philosophy. It takes place on Friday November 16th at 4:30PM in the Cowell Conference Room. The speaker is Sam Cumming. Sam is a philosopher of language who trained at Rutgers in a context where there was a great deal of interaction between linguists and philosophers. His topic on this occasion is Hypercontexts.

UCSC undergraduates who are considering the option of applying to the Linguistics Department’s M.A. program should attend the informational meeting to be held at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, November 9. in the Linguistics Common Room (Stevenson 249). Chair Jim McCloskey, Graduate Director Armin Mester, and Department Manager Tanya Honig will present information about the Department’s MA program. Among the topics to be covered:

• application and admission procedures
• the structure of the program
• possible futures

Please bring your questions and queries to this meeting if you are interested in the advanced training in linguistics that the M.A. program can provide.

The seventh volume of Phonology at Santa Cruz (PASC) is now completed and available on-line here. The contributors are Aaron Kaplan, Abby Kaplan, Jesse Saba Kirchner, Ruth Kramer, Anya Lunden, Maíre Ní Chiosáin, Jaye Padgett, David Teeple, and Ember Van Allen.

Jon Ellis, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and a co-Director of the Santa Cruz Language and Linguistics Group (SCLL) will give a Psychology Department colloquium on November 7, 3:30-5:00 p.m. in 121 Soc Sci 2.

Grad student Robert Henderson traveled down to Texas last week to give a talk at the Congreso de Idiomas Indígenas de Latinoamérica, held between Oct 25-27 at the University of Texas, Austin. Robert’s talk was on La sintaxis de la extracción de los adjuntos en Kaqchikel (Maya). The talk went off without a hitch, or just to have something in Spanish in every sentence, sin contratiempos.

Besides pursuing the major in Language Studies, Cody Townsend is a world class skier who regularly travels around the world to take part in major competitive skiing events. Cody placed first in the Chinese Downhill at the Red Bull Cold Rush at Big Mountain, British Columbia last February, and second at the Big Mountain Pro freeski event in Switzerland last March. You can see what Cody gets up to when not doing his phonology assignments here.

Cody will be performing closer to home shortly. On November 20 and 21, the legendary ski film producer Warren Miller will be at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz to show his newest ski movie, Playground, a film in which Cody plays a starring role.
Cody reports:

I had the chance to go to the Todrillo Mountains in Alaska with Warren Miller this past Spring to ski and explore some of the biggest and baddest mountains this planet has to offer, all while catching it on film for this year’s ski movie, `Playground’. You see, I have been taking the Winter quarters off for the past three years to pursue my career as a professional skier. In between the Fall and Spring quarters jam-packed with Syntax and Semantics, I depart for the snowy lands to film movie segments, compete in big mountain skiing competitions and travel the world in search of winter perfection. So come one, come all (or don’t come at all) down to Warren Miller’s `Playground’ at the Rio Theatre on Nov. 20 and Nov 21 to check out some sick skiing from around the world and see what someone from the Linguistics Department does in between derivations and propositional logic.

Have a look at the movie’s tour schedule Cody Townsend is a world class skier who regularly travels around the world to take part in major competitive skiing events. Cody placed first in the Chinese Downhill at the Red Bull Cold Rush at Big Mountain, British Columbia last February, and second at the Big Mountain Pro freeski event in Switzerland last March. You can see what Cody gets up to when not doing his phonology assignments here.

Cody will be performing closer to home shortly. On November 20 and 21, the legendary ski film producer Warren Miller will be at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz to show his newest ski movie, Playground, a film in which Cody plays a starring role.

Cody reports:

I had the chance to go to the Todrillo Mountains in Alaska with Warren Miller this past Spring to ski and explore some of the biggest and baddest mountains this planet has to offer, all while catching it on film for this year’s ski movie, `Playground’. You see, I have been taking the Winter quarters off for the past three years to pursue my career as a professional skier. In between the Fall and Spring quarters jam-packed with Syntax and Semantics, I depart for the snowy lands to film movie segments, compete in big mountain skiing competitions and travel the world in search of winter perfection. So come one, come all (or don’t come at all) down to Warren Miller’s `Playground’ at the Rio Theatre on Nov. 20 and Nov 21 to check out some sick skiing from around the world and see what someone from the Linguistics Department does in between derivations and propositional logic.

Have a look at the movie’s tour schedule here, and at the trailer here.