Dunstan is the NCSU Assistant Director of the Office of Assessment. Her research examines dialect as an element of diversity that shapes the college experience, particularly for speakers of non-standardized dialects of English. Dunstan and Jaeger (2015) found that students from rural, Southern Appalachia felt that their use of a regional dialect put them at a disadvantage in the college classroom. The students interviewed by Dunstan reported that “they had been hesitant to speak in class, felt singled out, dreaded oral presentations, tried to change the way they talked, and felt that they had to work harder to earn the respect of faculty and peers”. In addition to speaking about her work with Appalachian college students, Dunstan would accompany members of the Department of Linguistics to a meeting with the UK office of Academic and Student Affairs to discuss how to meet the needs of all UK students, regardless of linguistic background.

    Part of diversity is linguistic diversity; part of equity is

    linguistic equity; and part of inclusion is linguistic inclusion.

 Yet, despite the many university initiatives around diversity,

    equity, inclusion and access, language and linguistic diversity

    are rarely part of the constellation of identity practices that

 are seen outside of linguistics as warranting efforts toward

    greater justice. Linguists can and should play an important

    role in advocating for the centrality of language within 

    inclusivity efforts, but many of our efforts to do so are less

    effective than we might hope.

    In this talk, I’ll explore some of the potential reasons why

    this has been the case and imagine (with your insight and help) 

    some ways that linguists could have more success in our efforts

    to enhance linguistic justice. By framing linguistic inclusion 

    in the context of standardized language privilege, I’ll present

    what we know about linguistic discrimination, pinpoint the

    linguistic stakes of DEI efforts, highlight some flashpoints

    that occur in public discussions about language such as with

    pronouns and political correctness, and finally offer some

    concrete steps that we as linguists can take to effectively

    advocate for the importance of language at all levels of

    intervention linked to greater inclusion and equity.

 
This talk is made possible by generous support from our friends in Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures; English; Gender and Women’s studies; Sociology; Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Studies; African American and Africana Studies; and the College of Arts and Sciences.

In this presentation, David Costa will provide an introduction to MiamiIllinois, an Algonquian language of Indiana and Illinois. Costa will first discuss the geographic setting of Miami-Illinois and its place with Algonquian, following with an overview of the data sources on the language. He will also provide a brief sketch of the phonology of the Miami-Illinois, and, time permitting, finish with a discussion of some of the more notable grammatical features of the language, such as animacy, transitivity, pro-drop, obviation, and basic word order

Pre-Reading

https://educationallinguist.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/why-we-need-raciolinguistics/

Software/Corpus Tools

Please come to seminar with your laptop, prepared to access the following corpus tools. All of these are web-based, so there are no downloads required; however, some require advance registration.

Datenbank für gesprochenes Deutsch (Please register for an account–registration takes 1-2 business days, so please do so in advance!)

Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (No registration required. Just be ready to navigate to the homepage and we will take it from there)

Sketch Engine (Please register for 30-day free trial within 30 days of Oct. 11; in the long-term, subscriptions are affordable and many Universities purchase institutional subscriptions)

In honor of the memory of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. and the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages, this talk highlights the place of attitudes towards indigenous languages in the formation and reproduction of the human rights violations seen in recent events involving Central American immigrants seeking refuge in the United States. In 2018, two children died in the Border Patrol custody and a Border Patrol agent shot a young woman in the head. All three were native speakers of indigenous (Mayan) languages from Guatemala. The talk will first outline the history and current state of the issues behind the current immigration by Guatemalan Maya. The central role of language in the creation and current perpetuation of human rights violations will focus on two related factors. The first issue is that of language access. The denial of language access is sustained through negative attitudes towards indigenous languages and the persistent myth of the “desperate need” for indigenous interpreters. The second major issue is the failure to recognize or legitimize indigenous traditions of language use needed in the interpreting context. These include the conventions for holding a conversation, expectations for who should speak in what context, and forms of politeness. Consideration of these issues suggests that equality for indigenous peoples will never be achieved unless we first come to recognize and respect the languages they speak.

Warning:  to accurately present reality this talk contains graphic content.

The Central Kentucky Linguistics Conference (CKLiC) is an annual springtime conference hosted by the University of Kentucky Department of Linguistics. It provides a place for graduate students in linguistics to engage in professional development, as well as showcase their own work in a full conference environment.

CKLiC participants please click here for more information. 

The Central Kentucky Linguistics Conference (CKLiC) is an annual springtime conference hosted by the University of Kentucky Department of Linguistics. It provides a place for graduate students in linguistics to engage in professional development, as well as showcase their own work in a full conference environment.

CKLiC participants please click here for more information. 

An event in honor of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. sponsored by the UK Department of Linguistics