FOS: Sociolinguistics talk and workshops next week

[Suzanne Evans Wagner]

Friends of Sociolinguistics,

These upcoming events, led by the excellent Janneke Van Hofwegen of
Stanford University, are at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti next
week.

Thanks to the University of Michigan SoConDi list for passing on the
information.

Suzanne



*1. TALK (Monday, 10/19, 6pm; Pray-Harrold 318) *
*Style from the ground up: A look at stylistic variation from an
unconventional vantage point - Janneke Van Hofwegen*
What is *style* in spoken language, and would you recognize it if you heard
it? This talk explores the construct of linguistic*style* from a variety of
vantage points. Starting with traditional perspectives—where styles are
differentiated via varying contexually-constrained levels of attention paid
to speech—and moving on to more recent characterizations of style as the
performance of identity and social meanings, I discuss how theories of
style have enriched the study of linguistic variation, and yet have gone in
diverging and seemingly unreconcilable directions. In an attempt to bridge
these perspectives, my approach flips the study of stylistic variation
around by looking at speech data from the ground up. Starting from the
assumption that *style* is about *distinctiveness*, I explore various ways
in which speakers make linguistic variables distinguishable in the act of
*styling* (Coupland 2007). Using data from both a sociolinguistic interview
and hours of self-recorded data by one young female speaker, I show how the
study of language and style benefits from the analysis of large quantities
of speech data not typically afforded by the conventional sociolinguistic
interview.

*2. SOCIOLINGUISTIC FIELDWORK WORKSHOP*
Are you interested in the different ways that people talk depending on
where they're from, what they're doing and who they're talking to?  Have
you ever wondered how people study dialects?

If any of these topics interest you, we have an excellent learning
opportunity coming up for you!  On October 20-21, the Linguistics Program
and the Jewish Studies Program will be hosting a workshop on these very
issues.

Much of our understanding of dialects and how language changes across
different times, places, and people comes from sociolinguistic fieldwork:
time spent in communities meeting, observing, and collecting speech from
local people of various walks of life.  In this informal, hands-on
workshop, you'll learn how sociolinguistic fieldwork is done--how to get
people talking, how to get valuable information about their speech, how to
protect their personal information, how to use recording equipment, and
more.

No background in linguistics is required, all students are welcome to
attend!  You're welcome to join for any or all of the sessions, and there's
no need to register.  Here's the schedule (all locations TBA):

*1. Sociolinguistic Fieldwork, Part I (Tuesday, 10/20, 9:30am - Halle
Library 320):*  Participants will learn about how to conduct conversational
sociolinguistic interviews and use recording equipment, and we'll get a
chance to practice conducting interviews of our own.

*2. Sociolinguistic Fieldwork, Part II* *(Tuesday, 10/20, 2pm - **Halle
Library 320):*  Participants will learn how to and practice eliciting other
kinds of sociolinguistic data in the interview setting. We'll also discuss
some of the guiding principles of sociolinguistic fieldwork, and go over
best practices for data management, storage, and organization.

*3. Transcription and Interview Processing (Wednesday 10/21, 9:30am - **Halle
Library 302): *Transcription is a vital part of sociolinguistic research.
In this module, participants will learn how to transcribe sociolinguistic
interviews, using the transcribing software package ELAN (downloadable
here: http://tinyurl.com/nu7wlrt).

Sessions will be run by Janneke Van Hofwegen, PhD candidate at Stanford
University and expert in sociolinguistic fieldwork.  Students who are
interested are also encouraged to attend a special talk she'll be
giving on *Monday,
10/19 at 6pm* *(Pray-Harrold 318)*.

Please contact Professor Eric Acton at eacton1 at emich.edu with any
questions.  Looking forward to seeing you at the workshop!

*Bio*
Janneke Van Hofwegen is a PhD candidate in linguistics at Stanford
University. A sociolinguist primarily, she focuses her research on ethnic
and world varieties of English. At Stanford, she is a contributing member
of the Voices of California research team, where she documents and analyzes
sociophonetic variation in the as-yet understudied California inland
(non-urban) dialect region, with particular attention paid to minority
ethnic and LGBT communities. In addition to her work at Stanford, she is an
associate on the North Carolina Language and Life Project (NCLLP), where
she studies morphosyntactic variation in African American English from a
one-of-a-kind longitudinal sample of African American children, as well as
sociophonetic variation in both African American and Chicano Englishes
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