Paper Presentation: Positional Verbs of Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec

A message from Dr. Troi Carleton:
Keiko Beers, a former MA student in our program, will be presenting a paper on positional verbs of Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec at the upcoming WAIL conference in Santa Barbara. She will be giving us a preview on Tuesday in HUM (room, TBA) at 3:30. Anyone one going to Oaxaca this summer should make a special effort to be there. I encourage all of you to come. Thanks!

SquibFest is Friday, May 15th!

Next Friday, May 15th, we will be hosting a research presentation and graduation party to honor the graduating students in the Masters Program in Linguistics. We hope you can attend SquibFest!

SquibFest Details: Friday, May 15th, 2-5 p.m., Humanities Room 102. Food and drinks will be provided, compliments of the LGSA. Presentation topics will be announced at the event...fascinating work from your peers that you won't want to miss, trust me!

Hope to see you all next Friday!

(Click on the image below to see the flyer)


For a brief backgrounder about 'Squibs', please click here: http://fledgelings.blogspot.com/2009/03/squibs-linguistic-kind.html

If you are not already a member of the LGSA listserve and would like to join, please click here: http://fledgelings.blogspot.com/2008/09/lgsa-listserv-101.html to stay up to date (traffic is approx. 1-2 email announcements per week).

Exploring Doctoral Studies, Presentation Today!

Exploring Doctoral Studies, An Orientation and Panel Discussion
Tuesday, April 28, 2009, 2:10-4:00 p.m., HUM 587
Alumni from different disciplines in the College of Humanities will share their grad school experiences and answer your questions. Refreshments will be provided. Sponsored by the College of Humanities.

Another chance to see "The Linguists"

Written about previously, here and here, the award-winning film "The Linguists" will be showing this Thursday, Feb. 26th on PBS, from 10-11pm. It's a fantastic feature-length film, jam-packed with the linguistic bits that make us both giddy and proud of what we do. Don't miss it!

Events, Meetings, Opportunities, OH MY!

Welcome to Spring 2009 Semester at SF State University!
There is a lot going on already! I will be updating this post with events for the month of February. Items listed here are also on the Fledgelings Calendars.

First up, this Thursday there are two important meetings:

• The Linguistics Program Meeting – for all new and returning graduate students, takes place this Thursday, Feb 5, from 12:00 - 12:45 in Humanities 203 (the Graduate Reading Room).
  
• Immediately before the Linguistics Program Meeting this Thursday, the LGSA will be kicking off the semester with its first public meeting, from 11:30 - 12:00, also in Humanities 203. We will get to know each other, discuss our plans for the semester, as well as schedule fun events with the first one to be happening very soon! This meeting is for all Fledgelings, anybody interested in linguistics, or if you just want to drop in and say hi and see what we're all about. You do not need to be in the Linguistics program or an LGSA member to attend! Future LGSA meetings will be occuring on the first Thursday of each month, from 11:00am, - 12:00pm, in HUM 203.
  

Some great entertainment happenings as well:

• A ONE NIGHT ONLY Special Performance: Word For Word's More Stories by Tobias Wolff. This Sunday, February 8, starting at 7:00pm, at the McKenna Theater (Creative Arts building). Discount rate for students! $10 tickets can be purchased by stopping by the Box Office (in the Creative Arts building). $12.50 per ticket online, here.
• Special potluck dinner, immediately before this Sunday's performance. The Lit/Comp dept will be hosting this event, from 5:30pm - 6:45pm in Humanities 294. Afterwards, we will all walk to the theater together to enjoy the 7:00pm Word for Word performance. Special dinner guests James Boyd (former chair of the GLA!) and the rest of the Composition instructors, as well as Harriet Rafter, whom so many of you have turned to for help in the English department. This is a GREAT opportunity for linguistics, composition, and literature students to meet and mingle! If you are interesting in attending and contributing, please let us know – leave a comment here or drop us an email at fledgelings at gmail dot com.
• Drinks + BATS Improv, with English Department's very own Dr. Whalley! On Sunday, February 22, starting at 5:30pm at the Horseshoe Tavern at 2028 Chestnut St. for drinks and conversation. This will be a great time to chat with MA TESOL students and faculty. After drinks, we will walk together to BATS improv to see Dr. Whalley and the rest of the troupe preform in a comedy improv performance! $5 at the door with student ID. BATS Improv is at Ft. Mason, starting at 7:00pm-9:00pm. For more information or to RSVP, send an e-mail to Keith Anderson at keith-and at hotmail dot com.
  

Conferences and other Academic Opportunities:

• One of our own, Chris VanderStouwe, will be presenting his paper, "Restoring Tradition or Protecting Civil Rights: The Media's Discursive Role in the De-legitimization of Same-Sex Marriage through Coverage of Proposition 8" at this year's Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference. On February 13th, Chris will also be attending the special seminar "Is 'Hope' Enough? Anticipating the LGBTQ Discursive Landscape of the Obama Administration." The goals of this discussion panel are to identify how the Obama administration is constructing its queer-related policy arguments vs. its campaign trail rhetoric, and to discuss effective ways to invoke those arguments and address issues such as: employment rights and ENDA, the "marriage" issue, "Don't Ask Don't Tell," to develop a research agenda for lavender language inquiry that will allow scholars/activists to speak more directly to LGBTQ issues under the new administration, as well as many other issues. If you have feedback, comments, questions, or concerns that you would like Obama's team to address in regards to LGBT Discourse, Chris will be glad to bring these to the discussion at American University. You can send him an email at chrisv at sfsu dot edu.
• There is a Pre-Doctoral Program Workshop for junior, senior, and grad students. It will be held on Friday, Feb. 27th, from 2:00pm - 3:00pm, in Humanities 587. Campus coordinator Dr. William Christmas will be presenting this opportunity. The California Pre-Doctoral Program supports the doctoral aspirations of CSU students, particularly those who have had educational and economic disadvantages, and aims to increase the diversity of the pool from which the CSU draws its faculty. Each applicant selected as a Pre-Doctoral Scholar will work closely with a faculty sponsor to develop a plan that leads to preparation for and enrollment in a doctoral program. If you are interested in attending the workshop, please RSVP by emailing Dr. Christmas at xmas at sfsu dot edu. Final application deadline is March 30th, 4pm, Humanities 289. More info about the Pre-Doctoral Program can be found here: http://www.calstate.edu/PreDoc/
• The University of Florida Center for Latin American Studies is pleased to announce the Garifuna Language Summer Institute to be offered in La Ceiba, Honduras from May 10 - June 19, 2009. The Garifuna Summer Institute provides a unique opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students to acquire proficiency in Garifuna, an endangered Afro-Indigenous and Caribbean language. This six-week intensive immersion course will familiarize students with modern Garifuna language and culture through classroom study and excursions to local sites. Students will take 6 credits of Beginning Garifuna (LAS 4956) and 3 credits of Garifuna Culture (LAS 4956/LAS 6938). The Institute is a FLAS-approved program. The application deadline is March 16, 2009. Non-UF students are encouraged to apply. Additional program details, as well as information on how to apply online, can be found at: http://www.latam.ufl.edu/academic/Content/GarifunaSummerInstitute.pdf.
• The Graduate Research Competition deadline is coming up! February 18th is the last day to submit your entry. Click here for more information about the Graduate Research Competition.
• Registration and Fellowship Applications are now being accepted for the 2009 LSA Linguistic Institute, this summer at UC Berkeley. Click here for more information about the 2009 Linguistic Institute.

There's a lot of opportunity out there folks! If you have anything else to add, please let us know. Thanks!

Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting THIS WEEK!

The 83rd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) will take place this week, starting Thursday, January 8th and ending Sunday, January 9th. The meeting will be held at the Hilton Hotel, 333 O'Farrell Street, San Francisco.

Click HERE for the preliminary program, featuring speakers, times and topics.

Students who are members of the LSA can register to attend the conference on-site for $65. Non-member students can register on-site for $75. Pre-registration has already closed.

If you would like to purchase a student membership to the LSA you can sign up by clicking HERE. Student membership costs $30 and are valid through the end of this year. Also, member benefits (from their website):
"Members receive four issues of Language and are eligible to submit abstracts for the Annual LSA meetings and apply for tuition fellowships to the LSA Linguistic Institute. In addition, LSA members are now entitled to significant discounts on subscriptions to many journals of interest to linguists. There also is the intangible, but equally important, benefit that comes from knowing that membership supports the many significant educational and societal contributions of the LSA."

Hope to see you at the meeting!

Graduate Research Competition

The Twentieth Annual CSU Student Research Competition is underway! If you would like to enter your research project, paper or creative work, go to www.sfsu.edu/~gradstdy to obtain guidelines and a registration form.

The deadline for entries is February 18, 2009, and the SFSU campus competition will be held Feb 25-Mar 3, 2009. The University will provide travel funds for up to 10 campus winners to compete in the CSU-wide competition to be held May 1-2, 2009 at CSU Los Angeles.

2009 Linguistic Institute, July 6 - August 13, 2009
Linguistic Structure and Language Ecologies
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Sponsored by the Linguistic Society of America
& the University of California, Berkeley
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Director: Andrew Garrett (University of California, Berkeley)
Associate Director: Nick Evans (Australian National University)
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Registration and fellowship applications will go online from these websites in January.

The theme of the 2009 Institute is Linguistic Structure and Language Ecologies, highlighting the relation between linguistic structures and the ecologies in which they are embedded, including physical and psychological contexts, demographic and social contexts, and historical and geographic contexts.

20 six-week courses and 60 three-week courses are offered. Course listing here.

Students receive full academic credit (and all campus privileges) at the lowest per-week cost of any Linguistic Institute since 2003. Student members of the LSA may apply for fellowships that cover all tuition and fees. Information about the fellowship process.

Information about Forum and Institute lectures by Mark Baker, Stephen C. Levinson, Malcolm Ross, Natalie Schilling-Estes, Donca Steriade, and Michael Tomasello.

T.A. spot available for the Spring 2009 semester

Dr. Waksler just announced one T.A. (Teaching Assistant) spot open up in the 804 Teaching Practicum class for next semester. The class is a T.A. training course for linguistics, and it has 4 workshops to be scheduled by the group during the semester, rather than regular weekly meetings. (Ignore the Thursday afternoon listing on the University website schedule.) If you would like more info, or would like to apply for the class, please e-mail Dr. Waksler.

ENG 804, Teaching Practicum in Linguistics

A note from Dr. Waksler:
You'll be figuring out your Spr09 schedules, so here's info about ENG 804, the Teaching Practicum in Linguistics. It is an excellent elective for MA Ling students' programs.

Five students will be accepted in the course, with the meeting time to be decided by the group. We meet formally for one hour ~4 times in the semester (not weekly, as in the schedule) for discussions and teaching workshops. 804 students are teaching assistants for the large Intro Linguistics course, ENG 420. Teaching assistants are available for one office hour per week, at a time of their choosing. Attendance at the 420 class lectures is not required, though each TA will proctor one exam during one class period, scheduled for Tu/Th 2:10-3:25 for Spr09.

The course is particularly recommended as excellent preparation for anyone wanting to enter academia. It is beneficial to have a teaching practicum on your graduate transcript, and, of course, in your letters of recommendation. It counts as an elective graduate course in either the MA Linguistics or MA TESOL programs. Below is a course outline to give you an idea of what we will do.

This course will enable students to apprentice with faculty who teach undergraduate language studies classes in order to gain knowledge and experience in the various skills needed to teach linguistics concepts in the classroom.

Students will aid in the teaching of a large language studies course.
Under the direct guidance of the professor, students will have the opportunity to learn about and/or gain experience in:

• Leading a class discussion
• Giving a class lecture
• Assessing undergraduate progress by evaluating projects, papers, and/or exams*
• Advising undergraduates by holding office hours outside of class

Students may make grade suggestions; the instructor of record will be responsible for all final grades.

Note: To be eligible, a student must be enrolled in the MA Program in English, Concentration in Linguistics or TESOL, and must formally apply for this Practicum on a semester-by-semester basis. Only students who have been accepted to Eng 804 by the instructor of record may enroll.

New additions!

We now have a calendar and a discussion board!
A few things:

• You must be a member of the Google group to visit the discussion board and add posts or comments. Please click on the "Sign in and apply for membership" link and one of us will approve it.
• This requires a Google account. If you use gmail, reader, iGoogle, Picassa, Blogger, GoogleTalk, or are already a member in another Google group, then you already have a login you can use. If not, well, I can't encourage you enough to sign up. Any one of the above mentioned apps are awesome, but all of them together are quite spectacular.
• Note the three links at the top of the calendar page — Academic | Events | Courses — these will take you to individual calendars for each. Pretty nifty, no?

I'll add more to this list as things come up.

LGSA Fledgelings Calendar

Academic Calendar: iCal XML | Events Calendar: iCal XML


See this icon:
It's in the upper right corner of the Calendar. You can use it to display/hide various categories of calendar events.

Info Meeting for the Advanced Field Methods Seminar in Teotitlán de Valle, Mexico!

The informational meeting for the 6th Annual Advanced Field Methods Seminar is coming up. Please spread the word and tell your friends and classmates about this opportunity!

Come find out more about this exciting study abroad program! The meeting will be held NEXT Thursday, October 23rd, 2008, at 12:30 pm, in HUM 203.
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ABOUT THE PROGRAM:
When: June 13 — July 4, 2009
Where: Teotitlán de Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico
Prerequisites: English 424, English 421, English 727 (offered this Spring 2009), and proficiency in Spanish with at least one year of college level Spanish.

This three-week short-term study abroad program offered as a 3-unit summer school course through the College of Humanities and CEL, is a unique opportunity for students to participate in an ongoing linguistic field project in Oaxaca, Mexico. Be a part of helping document an endangered language and preserving a culture.

Participants will:

• Participate in a collaborative community-based research project
• Conduct linguistic fieldwork on location
• Help document the endangered dialect of Teotitlán, Zapotec
• Learn about dictionary making and archiving oral tradition
• Build community ties through living in a Zapotec village

Program includes:

• Lodging with a Zapotec family
• Breakfast, lunch, and dinner buffets with seminar group
• 3 SFSU course units that will count as an elective toward an English BA, Linguistics MA, and MATESOL degrees and possibly other degrees.

Independent Student Travel Funding!

Recently an email went out to all LGSA listserv members regarding how to get funding for independent travel for SFSU students. If you missed it, here's the scoop:

Enrolled students at SFSU can receive up to $600 per fiscal year to attend conferences, cover travel expenses, and the like. Funding is limited, and there are a few guidelines:

• Student must be an active participant (i.e. a presenter of a paper or performer) in the conference/meeting, not just an attendee.
  
• Student will not be funded if he/she is eligible to receive travel funds to attend the same conference/meeting through any other IRA (Instructionally Related Activities) budget (e.g. Forensics, Model UN).
  
• Students may not be reimbursed for mileage or the cost of a rental car unless they are employed by the University (or appointed as a volunteer) and meet the SFSU Driver Safety Program requirements.

Here's what to do to apply:

• Click here to download application
• Send a written request addressed to the Chair of your major department indicating the name, location, dates of the conference/meeting, and amount of travel funds needed (airfare, hotel, etc). Your name, address, SFSU ID, phone #, and email address must be included in the request. Includes a brief statement indicating how participation in this conference/meeting will enhance your education goals and attach a letter of invitation or acceptance to the conference.
• The Chair will either endorse or deny the request based on adherence to the guidelines stated above and/or its educational merits. If endorsed, the Department Chair signs the application and forwards to Jennifer Daly in the College Office. Do Not Forward to Dean Sherwin. Then Dean of Humanities either endorses or denies the request based on this same criteria (guideline adherence and educational merit). If endorsed, the College Office forwards the request to the Provost/Vice President for Academic Affairs. He/She either endorses or denies the request, based on same criteria as The Chair and the Dean.
  
• If approved by the Provost/Vice President for Academic Affairs, the College Office will notify you via email (Dept Chairs will be cc'd) in January, 2009. Within 30 days of receiving notification, you will need to submit receipts along with a brief written evaluation of the conference/meetings attended and the value of the experience to Nancy Pappas in the College Office.
• Airfare receipts must indicate student's name, itinerary, method of payment and the last four digits of their credit card number. If the receipt is inadequate, student will need to provide a copy of their credit card statement that shows their name and the airfare charge. Hotel receipts must be original on hotel letterhead in student's name that shows room/tax rate, and a zero balance.
• Registration (original or electronic) receipt must show student's name, amount paid, and the last four digits of their credit card number or a photocopy of the front and back of the cancelled check, if payment was made by check.

For more information, including full guidelines, click here.
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Also, there are two scholarship awards available for English Dept. majors! They are:
The Ellanore and Maurice Bassan English Department Scholarship
The Randall Nakayama Memorial Scholarship
Applications for these two awards are due November 6th. Click on the scholarships for more information from the English dept.
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Information about the upcoming LSA meeting, next post! Keep checking back!

Welcome to the new LGSA!

Thanks for stopping by!

There's a lot going on here, and we are excited about sharing it with you. This semester we have plans for meetings, lectures, squibfests, pubnights, and much more!

This blog will also be updated with interesting posts about linguistics, SFSU, resource links, and helpful information about the LGSA.

We also have a new email address. Please contact us at lgsasfsu at gmail dot com for any questions, comments, or just to say hi. And if one wasn't enough, we have an alternate email address. It's easier to remember, and reaches the LGSA officers (Kim, Noah, and Heather) directly. You can send us emails at fledgelings at gmail dot com. Don't worry though, both these emails are connected, so it doesn't matter which you use, we'll get your message and get back to you soon.

Thanks! We are looking forward to a fantastic year!

New Website

As you may have guessed by now, the LGSA has a new website. It's a little bare at the moment, but a lot of content will be added soon. We'll send out an announcement to the LGSA list as soon as it's all ready.

By the way, if you aren't on the LGSA mailing list (remember, we have moved to an SFSU mailing list and don't use the Yahoo list anymore), and you want to receive occasional announcements about linguistics-related activities at SFSU, why not take a moment to sign up? It takes just a minute if you go here.