Linguistics

Once best known for its cows and coal mines, the Spanish region of Asturias has become a cultural capital in recent years. Rural pueblos are at the epicenter of this renaissance, challenging urban-centric ideas of cultural production. Musicians, writers, and other artists look to the region’s agrarian and industrial past to imagine new futures. They incorporate folklore and ways of knowing inspired by older generations, constructing alternative notions of rurality grounded in queerness, inclusivity, and sustainability.

Jasmin Msuya will give the first talk in the annual Anthro & Friends Winter Speaker Series, titled “Rethinking Language of Instruction in Public Secondary Schools in Tanzania: Ethnographic Case Study on the Implementation of the Educational Language Policy in the Classroom.” Jasmin’s research centers on how the transition from Kiswahili instruction in primary school to English instruction in secondary education shapes teaching, learning, and language ideologies in a semi-urban Tanzanian public secondary school.

In this lecture, Dr. Showstack will present a set of barriers to equitable healthcare communication for speakers of Spanish and Mayan languages in Kansas and describe the processes of engaging community members, interpreters, and healthcare leaders in a project aimed at improving healthcare language access across the state.

A talk by Maria Luz Garcia, Associate Professor
Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Crimonology, Eastern Michigan University.

Discussions about miscommunications that take place when people from different language and cultural backgrounds interact with each other often focus on the linguistic and cultural differences between the participants and how these differences can lead to breakdowns in communication.

Thesis presentation by Mark Balderston.

‘Language Matters’ A series of open discussions on issues of language and linguistics txt msgs r running language *ruining ^lol,jk!! :) The topic of the second episode of the Language Matters series is ‘internet language’ and ‘textspeak.’ Bring your internet language and textspeak experience and join us for an informal chat over cookies and drinks.

This public presentation explores the anti-peddling campaigns undertaken by a group of elite American deaf people during the late nineteenth until the mid-twentieth century. As historian Octavian Robinson demonstrates, whiteness, class, masculinity, disability and nondisability converged with language politics in this campaign to influence American public policy governing the presence of disabled bodies in public spaces.

How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk In our first discussion, we will talk about regional variation in American English. The title was taken from a New York Times quiz, which was the most visited NYT page in 2013. We will use that quiz as a starting point for our discussion.