Shengyun Gu successfully defended her doctoral dissertation titled Bimanual coordination: The non-dominant hand in Shanghai Sign Language on Friday October 27th.
Congratulations, Shengyun!
Shengyun during the defense:
Dr. Gu with her committee after the successful defense:
Dr. Gu cutting her well earned cake:
Željko Bošković will give two invited talks this week at the Peking University, sponsored by Peking University Overseas Famous Scholar Lecture Plan:
The talks will be titled:
Adrian Stegovec will give a colloquium talk at UMass, Amherst on October 27th, 2023. His talk will be titled “Short scrambling as smuggling: The argument from Slovenian ditransitives”. More information on the talk will be posted here.
The article “Deaf and Hearing American Sign Language–English Bilinguals: Typical Bilingual Language Development” by Corina Goodwin (PhD 2016) and Diane Lillo-Martin has just been published in The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education (https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enad026). Congratulations!
Abstract: Some studies have concluded that sign language hinders spoken language development for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children even though sign language exposure could protect DHH children from experiencing language deprivation. Furthermore, this research has rarely considered the bilingualism of children learning a signed and a spoken language. Here we compare spoken English development in 2–6-year-old deaf and hearing American Sign Language–English bilingual children to each other and to monolingual English speakers in a comparison database. Age predicted bilinguals’ language scores on all measures, whereas hearing status was only significant for one measure. Both bilingual groups tended to score below monolinguals. Deaf bilinguals’ scores differed more from monolinguals, potentially because of later age of and less total exposure to English, and/or to hearing through a cochlear implant. Overall, these results are consistent with typical early bilingual language development. Research and practice must treat signing-speaking children as bilinguals and consider the bilingual language development literature.
Hello! My name is Wu Qi (u35 tɕʰɪ35, 吴琪). I grew up in Shenzhen, China, a southern coastal city where, since the last few decades, people from over the country have come with them their own dialects and traditions. Meanwhile, some part of me has been shaped by years in the north, as an undergrad studying English literature (Beijing & UK). Dealing with words created by people across different time and space calls up my enthusiasm for languages, and I went on finishing a Master’s degree in linguistics. Currently, as a PhD student, I am primarily interested in Syntax and its interface with Morphology and Pragmatics.
Besides academics, I play badminton, video games, and would like to go for trekking a little. I enjoy cooking and exploring into it, and I wish I could have some time for sketches and scribbles, movies and music. It’s such a pleasure to be able to join the department with all the wonderful people!
Hi, I am Tyler Poisson. I am from Western Massachusetts. Prior to UConn, I studied Linguistics and Philosophy at UMass. Afterwards, I taught 4th grade in area public schools and ran child language experiments as a member of the Smith-UMass language acquisition group. Now, I am grateful to be a graduate student at UConn!
Some activities I enjoy outside of research include reading the independent press, using open-source software, listening to pre-2000s world music, and playing pick-up soccer.
Hi, I am Seungho Nam [nᵈam sɯŋʰo] from Seoul, Korea. I did my BA in Linguistics, Hispanic Linguistics, and Classical Latin, and my MA in Hispanic Linguistics, all at Seoul National University. My primary research interest is formal semantics, and I’m specifically interested in things like clause types, counterfactuality, modality, and tense. I wrote my MA thesis on counterfactual imperatives of Spanish and Korean.
I’m also interested in the historical linguistics of Romance languages (mostly Catalan, Spanish, and Latin), especially semantic changes, mood, and modality. Because of my experience as a Spanish teacher for about ten years, second and third language acquisition and translation are other topics that are inseparable from me.
Besides my academic interests, I love to translate, go grocery shopping, and spend some time alone. I’m also involved in the LGBT rights movement in my country as a member of the community (and here you see my interest in sociolinguistics, too).
My name is Jiabao Fan and I come from mainland China. I received a master’s degree in Linguistics from Soochow University this July. My primary research interests are language acquisition, syntax, formal semantics, and sentence processing. I was first attracted to the theory of first language acquisition, and after I read more books about generative grammar, I found syntactic theory and formal semantics so elegant and charming. So, I come to UConn’s linguistic department to learn more about them.
Besides my study, I love classical literature, Japanese anime (Volleyball Juvenile is my favorite), Nintendo video games and hiking.
I’m Jarry (Chia-Wei Chuang 莊家瑋), from Taipei, Taiwan. I just received my B.A. in English and Linguistics from National Chengchi University (2020-23). Currently, I serve as Student Director of Linguistic Society of Taiwan (LST) (2021-present).
My first love for linguistics is sound of language. I have conducted a great pool of studies on phonetics-phonology and morpho-phonology, paying attention to especially tonology, syllable structure, lenition, and non-native acquisition. Recently, I’ve expanded my research niche to formal syntax, syntax-phonology, and syntax-pragmatics interfaces. Left-periphery as well as tense-aspect-modality are also what I am interested in now.
My native languages are Mandarin Chinese and Southern Min. Aside from them, the languages that I study include Cantonese, Hakka, Vietnamese, and English. Exploring different languages always makes me enjoy a lot. Different as they are in form and meaning, they share the same system, which is the most exciting part for me.
In my leisure time, I love singing, chatting, cooking, shopping, and playing badminton. If you’re too, why not come along with me ([jarry.chaung@uconn.edu] [personal web]). I’ll be more than happy to have more friends with similar interests.
Si Kai Lee successfully defended his doctoral dissertation titled At the Edge of Contact, Insights from the Left Peripheries of Singlish on September 18th.
Congratulations, Si Kai!
Si Kai during the defense:
Dr. Lee with his committee after the successful defense:
Dr. Lee cutting his well earned cake:
