28 September 2015

Linguists presenting at the Center for Excellence in Teaching

Two professors from the Linguistics Department are presenting during Academic Careers Week (September 28 - October 1), organized by the Center for Excellence in Teaching. On Monday, Sept. 28, Professor Rachel Walker presented "Writing Your Cover Letter & CV." On Wed, Sept. 30Professor Dani Byrd will present "Negotiating the Academic Job Offer."  Lunch is provided. More information is available at the CET website.

Several USC linguists are representing the department in the CET this year. Ed Finegan, Professor of Linguistics and Law, is the Director of the CET. Rachel Walker is a Faculty Fellow, and Canan Ipek is a TA Fellow. The CET is looking for Graduate students who are interested in being involved in the CET as a TA Fellows. Interested students are encouraged to apply to the TA Fellows program. Talk with Rachel Walker to find out more!

17 September 2015

Welcome (Back) Picnic, Fall 2015

This past Saturday, September 12, was GSIL's annual Welcome (Back) picnic. The event was held in the Old Zoo area of Griffith Park, on an uncharacteristically muggy (for LA) day. Grad students, their significant others and pets, and USC linguistics alumni all came out and enjoyed the outdoors. Rousing games of Kubb and Jenga were played! Delicious food was enjoyed! Some highlights are on view below. Thanks to our GSIL Event Coordinators, Maury and Ana, for putting together this fun event.

The group gathers around our picnic table

L-R: Jessica, Monica, Thomas, Brian and Caitlin; starting a game of Jenga

Monica and Thomas with Jenga aftermath

Caitlin with her dog, Kirby

L-R: Sarah, Brian, Ana, Maury, AndrĂ©s, & Jesse; playing Kubb 

04 September 2015

Summer 2015 (and beyond) updates from Faculty and Students

Welcome back from summer break, everyone! The Fall 2015 semester is already off to a great start. Many people in the USC Linguistics community had a busy Spring and Summer 2015, so we'll share their updates here.

Sierra Chinn-Liu
A recent graduate of the Linguistics BA program at USC, Sierra was recently accepted to UCLA's very prestigious Law School. Congratulations, Sierra!

Sandy Disner
Professor Disner was interviewed by USA Today in June for a story about the National Spelling Bee and the value of spelling in the age of spell-check.

Professor Disner was also a discussant in the "Session on Forensic Phonetics and Speaker Characteristics" presented by Professor Francis Nolan of Cambridge University at the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences in Glasgow, Scotland in August.

Hajime Hoji

Professor Hoji is back at USC after his time off, and he has exciting news. He has finished writing a book on his research, Language Faculty Science, and it will be published soon. Follow the link to order your copy from Amazon.

Roumyana Pancheva
Professor Pancheva was an invited speaker at the workshop "Gradability, Scale Structure and Vagueness: Experimental Perspectives" in Madrid in May. Her talk was on "Cardinality Comparison and Plurality: The Processing of Comparative Illusions." She has also provided some lovely pictures (below) from her sightseeing in Madrid.
Parque del Retiro in Madrid, Spain
Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Spain
In July, Professor Pancheva taught a class on Quantifier Raising at the St. Petersburg Institute of Linguistics, Cognition, and Culture (NYI) at St. Petersburg State University in Russia.


Lastly, Professor Pancheva gave a workshop on "Patterns and Models of Semantic Change" during the 22nd International Conference on Historical Linguistics in Naples.

Saurov Syed
Graduate student Saurov spent much of the Spring 2015 semester traveling to present at conferences.  First up, he presented a talk called "Decomposing Definiteness: arguments for a split D-Domain in Bangla" at WCCFL 33, hosted by Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.
Saurov presenting at WCCFL 33 in March

Then, Saurov gave a poster presentation entitled "Is there a lexical distinction between lower and higher numerals in Bangla?" at FASAL 5, hosted by Yale University. 

Finally, Saurov presented a talk called "Definiteness in terms of Identifiablity and Inclusiveness: Splitting the D-domain in Bangla"  at CLS 51 hosted by the University of Chicago.


Congratulations to all of our students and faculty on an extremely productive spring and summer. We're looking forward to all of the updates that Fall 2015 will bring!