ALUMNUS REPORT: TRISTAN THORNE

Tristan Thorne graduated with the BA in Language Studies in Spring 2008 and has pursued an interesting career path focused on language ever since. Tristan was recently persuaded to write to WHASC to give an account of where his studies have taken him since 2008 and what his current projects are.


After graduating in 2008, I taught English to adults in a small town in Andalucía, Spain for one year. Studying Spanish as part of the BA degree in language studies was a huge help in acclimating to life there. The following year I applied to and was accepted into the JET Program, and taught English to high school students in a rural farming town in southern Japan for two years. During that time, I began to realize that my love for teaching and language, which I discovered soon after taking an introduction to linguistics course at UCSC, would benefit by returning to school.


Now, I’m about to graduate with an MA in applied linguistics from Teachers College, Columbia University in New York. For my master’s project, I conducted a survey on name use practices and beliefs of East Asian adults living in New York City with something of a phonology-oriented lens. I wanted to know, for example, how these individuals change their non-English names when introducing themselves to English speakers, such as name shortening, changing syllable stress, dropping tones, and changing sounds to conform to English phonological constraints (more information on the project can be found here). I’m really excited to be given the chance to present some of the material at an international conference in Rhode Island in August.


As phonology has been one of my favorite areas in linguistics, it seems fitting that I teach a pronunciation course for ESL adults here at TC. I’m also an instructor at an English school in midtown Manhattan. During the summer, I’ll work as an adjunct faculty instructor at the American Language Program at Columbia’s main campus, and also be a teacher coach for the TESOL Certification Program at TC. In the future, I may pursue a PhD with an emphasis on exploring the relationships between second language acquisition and identity.

CAROLYNN JIMENEZ WINS DEAN’S AWARD FOR UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH

Carolynn Jimenez is a senior pursuing a double major in Computer Science and Linguistics with a plan to graduate this year. She works as a Research Assistant in the Natural Language and Dialogue Systems Lab and is a UC Leads scholar. It was announced last week that Carolynn is to receive a Dean’s Award in the School of Engineering for her work in Marilyn Walker‘s lab on Evaluating Dynamic Storytelling in Fables.

CUSP 7 AT UCLA

CUSP 7 (California Universities Semantics and Pragmatics 7) will be held at UCLA on November 7th and 8th, 2014. A call for abstracts will be circulated in mid-August and abstracts will be due in late September. The program of scheduled talks will be posted in early October. The CUSP 7 web-site has much additional information.

The conference organizers are Jessica Rett of UCLA and UCSC alumna Lauren Winans, who is now a fourth year doctoral student in linguistics at UCLA.

TOOSARVANDANI IN ‘SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS’

The most recent issue of the journal Semantics and Pragmatics is now available online. Included in it is a paper by Maziar Toosarvandani on ‘Contrast and the Structure of Discourse.’ The paper deals with the meaning of the coordinator ‘but’ and proposes that it makes conventional reference to the question under discussion (QUD), in the sense of Craige Roberts. The analysis provides a new perspective on the relationships between the different uses of ‘but’ (as a type of modal polysemy in Kratzer’s sense), and suggests that other expressions that have been argued to have conventional implicatures might also make conventional reference to the QUD. The abstract can be read here and the paper itself can be downloaded here.

SCLP EVENTS

Besides the colloquium featured in our last issue and also featured here, the SCLP group is sponsoring two additional events in the coming week.

On Wednesday, April 30, at 11am, in Engineering Two, Room 599, Professor Jouko Väänänen, of the University of Helsinki, will give a talk on (in)dependence logic (of which he is the principal creator). An abstract is available here. Refreshments will be available in E2-559 at 10:45am. This event is co-sponsored by the UCSC Computer Science Department.

Later that same day, Professor Michela Ippolito, from the University of Toronto, will lead a discussion of recent work on conditionals. This event will take place in the Linguistics Common Room at 4:30pm. Michela will also hold office hours on Friday May 2nd from 11am to 12pm, and from 1:30pm to 3:30pm. A sign-up sheet will be posted shortly on the door of the Linguistics Visitor’s Office.

SCLP is the (Santa Cruz Linguistics and Philosophy Group), an interdisciplinary research and reading group involving students and faculty from linguistics and philosophy, whose work focuses on issues in formal semantics, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic. Funding for the group’s activities comes from the Institute for Humanities Research at UCSC.

NORRIS DISSERTATION DEFENSE

Mark Norris will defend his dissertation in the Stevenson Fireside Lounge between 4pm and 6pm on Tuesday May 20th. The title of Mark’s dissertation is A Theory of Nominal Concord, the dissertation advisor is Jorge Hankamer, and the other members of the committee are Sandy Chung and Jim McCloskey.

1 … 196 197 198 199 200 … 381