Colloquia & Events

Linguistics Colloquia

Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026 @ 3:30pm, LNCO 2110 & Zoom
Dr. Mykel Brinkeroff, University of Washington
Title: The role of stigma in phonetics and phonology

Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026 @ 3:30pm, LNCO 2110 & Zoom
Dr. Kirby Conrod, Swarthmore
Title: How to Nonbinary Your Language

Thursday, March 5, 2026 @ 3:30pm, LNCO 2110 & Zoom
Dr. Jon Rawski, San Jose State
Title: Abductive Learning of Phonological Constraints 

Thursday, March 19, 2026 @ 3:30pm Location: LNCO 2850 & Zoom
Dr. Connor Mayer, UC Irvine
Title: Towards an embodied phonology

Thursday, April 9, 2026 @ 3:30pm, LNCO 2110 & Zoom
Dr. Brian Dillon, UMass Amherst
Title: Linking linguistic computation to eye movements in reading

 

Linguistics Colloquia

Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025
3:30-5pm, LNCO 2110 & Zoom
Dr. Megha Sundara
How do infants establish noun and verb categories?

Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025
3:30-5pm, LNCO 2110 & Zoom
Dr. Andres Buxo-Lugo, University of Buffalo
Suprasegmental Cues as a Window Into Phonological and Prosodic Encoding in Production

Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025
3:30-5pm, LNCO 2120 & Zoom
Dr. Canan Deveci
Orthographic Transparency and Pronunciation: The Case of Turkish Learners of English

Thursday, March 27, 2025
3:30-5pm, LNCO 2110 & Zoom
Dr. Larry M. Hyman
Prosodic Domains in the Noun Phrase in Bantu

 

Coming soon!

Jan 12th 11am(ish) LNCO 2300

Welcome Back! Spring Social

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Feb 23rd 3:30-5PM LNCO 2110 & Zoom

Linguistics Colloquium- Dr. Benjamin Slade, University of Utah

Khā lo yā nikal jāo! “Eat up or get out!”: L2 acquisition of Hindi verb+verb collocations

Hindi V+V compounds, of the type exemplified by khā liyā “ate up” (lit. “eat took”), are a central part of idiomatic fluent Hindi speech. However, the rules governing not only possible combinations but also how the use of a V+V collocation affects other aspects of the clause, as well as the semantic contribution of the light verb, are all complex and involve idiosyncratic components; and thus pose a challenge to second language learners of Hindi. This is true not only for learners whose L1 is a non-Indo-Aryan language, but also for L1 speakers of other Indo-Aryan languages. Hindi V+V compounds, both in terms of their functions (e.g. aspect, speaker affect) and in terms of their idiomaticity are reminiscent of English verbal particle constructions (e.g. “eat up”), and L2 instructional techniques developed for the latter potentially relevant for Hindi V+Vs.

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Mar 2nd 3:30-5PM Virtual

Linguistics Career Pathways- Speech Language Pathology

Join us for a Q&A discussion with a panel of professional Speech Language Pathologists.

 

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Mar 30th 3:30-5PM Virtual

Linguistics Colloquium- Dr. Kelly E. Wright

Awareness, Objectification, & Equity

Linguistics in a Hostile Workplace

Metalinguistic awareness includes a language user’s knowledge about the relation of factors (like age, gender, or race) to linguistic usage, distribution, meaning, or context of occurrence variance (Wright 2022). Such embodied knowledge (Bucholtz & Hall 2016) is directly linked to the social meanings available to an individual across linguistic markets (Bourdieu 1977; Zhang 2005), and thus illuminates the ways in which linguistic markets (and the social meanings enacted through them) are simultaneously responsive both to personally held aspects of identity and the extant sociohistorical facts which afford identities their social power. 

Wright will begin this presentation with a discussion of how embodied perception–stretched over time–interacts with institutions to create the conditions for linguistic oppression. With this knowledge base, the consideration will shift to raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa 2015) and the extent to which they constrain one’s capability of exploiting the range of expectations available in a given context. Wright will then observe, in this light, the remarkable challenge of objectifying language data and present an innovative methodology–designed to elicit metalinguistic commentary and that stemmed from a desire to introduce representative and equitable models of data collection and experimentation: the metalinguistic method of sociolinguistic interview (Wright 2022). This talk will end with an active, large group discussion on this central issue of linguistic inquiry and the ways in which we–as a community of experts–can balance approaching empirical validity on one end and radical acceptance on the other.

 

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Apr 14th 9AM-5PM LNCO 2110 & 1100

University of Utah Student Conference In Linguistics (UUSCIL)

 

UUSCIL provides an opportunity for Linguistics students to present their research in a scholarly setting to members of the Linguistics community at the U. Come support your peers and learn about the cool things going on in Linguistics research!

 

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Apr 20th 4PM-6PM Cleone Peterson Eccles Alumni House Executive Boardroom and Patio

Open House for departing and retiring faculty.

 

We’d like to offer our many thanks and to congratulate our amazing faculty on thier new adventures. They will be greatly missed.

 

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Apr 25th 10AM-5PM LNCO 2300

Spring Finals Destress Activity

Take a study break and get those creative juices flowing. Join us for arts and crafts, of course food, drinks, and socializing. Some supplies will be provided for yarn and paper arts, origami, and coloring pages, but feel free to bring you're own or something to share! 

 

Sept 7th 

5-9pm Sunnyside Park Pavilion

Welcome (Back)! Department Picnic

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Sept 11th 

3-4:30pm LNCO 2945

Are you interested in learning more about Computational Linguistics?  Are you already enrolled in the Comp Ling certificate? Come meet others with similar interests, faculty mentors, and advisors!

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Sept 20th 

9-11:30am LNCO 2945

Brunch Open House

Miss the Dept. Picnic? No problem! Stop by before class to grab a bite and say hi to your favorite linguists!

 

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Oct 20th

10-11:30am Virtual

The Speech Acquisition Lab presents the Emerging Scholars in Language Science Series

Elijah Wilder, PhD student in Linguistics, University of Texas - Austin

Diachrony of stress change: A reconstruction of proto-Mayan stress parameters

The Mayan language family consists of roughly 30 languages spoken throughout Southern Mexico and Guatemala. Stress patterns in the family are under-studied, but what descriptions do exist show several different stress patterns that do not adhere to genetic relation and can differ dramatically between varieties of the same Mayan language. I propose that these differences in stress patterns can be broadly classified into two stress patterns, a quantity-sensitive pattern and a quantity-insensitive pattern.

By analyzing stress descriptions of languages belonging to either stress pattern, a set of parameters for stress assignment frequently appears. I propose that those parameters can be reconstructed to proto-Mayan. Additionally, by selecting for these parameters, it is possible to discern the ways in which Mayan languages changed to create the variety in stress patterns found in the modern languages.

 

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Oct 26th

3:30-5pm Hybrid LNCO 2945 & Virtual

Career Paths: Unified Languages

A panel of professionals discuss internships, employment options and their experience in the field.

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Nov 2nd

3:30-5pm Hybrid GC 2660 & Zoom 

Colloquium: Sonca Vo, Postdoctoral Scholar University of Utah

Investigation into the factor structure of a local English placement test of oral communication

This study describes the development process and examines the construct validity of an English placement test of oral communication (EPT OC) developed at a Midwestern university in the United States. This test includes a one-on-one oral interview and paired discussion task, and test performance is judged on an analytic rating scale. A confirmatory factor analysis conducted on the ratings of 338 students who took the initial fully operational EPT OC revealed the test structure was represented by a correlated four-factor model with interactional competence, fluency, pronunciation/comprehensibility, and grammar/vocabulary as sub-constructs, in line with its targeted theoretical framework. Both tasks were effective in measuring the targeted sub-constructs, but the sub-constructs were not sufficiently distinct from each other to completely justify a four-factor model. The findings provide some support for the proposed interpretations of the EPT OC test scores but indicate the need for some modifications to the assessment, such as more thorough rater training and/or revised rating scales to better distinguish the targeted sub-constructs

 

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Nov 9th

3:30-5pm Hybrid GC 2660 & Zoom 

CONTENT WARNING! Vulgar Language

Colloquium: Randall Eggert, Assistant Professor (Lecturer) University of Utah

Toward a Lexically Realistic Semantics of Taboo (and other) Words

Sadock (1994: 396) argues there are “simultaneous, independent, orthogonal communicative dimensions” to natural language. He then proposes three communicative aspects to acts of speech: informational, social, and emotional. Sadock’s focus is on speech acts and conversation; however, we can conclude that if these communicative functions exist, there must be conventional correlates in language proper. In other words, the same three aspects can be found in the meaning of words, i.e. lexical semantics. In this paper, I demonstrate the necessity for these three independent aspects of meaning in lexical semantics by closely examining the meaning of certain taboo words.

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Nov 16th

3:30-5pm Hybrid GC 2660 & Zoom 

Colloquium: Sopuruchi Aboh, Department of English and Communication, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Understanding and examining attitudes towards Nigerian Englishes
Research has shown the existence of localised or naturalised Englishes in Nigeria, primarily attributed to the impact of the first language (Nigerian indigenous language) on English language usage. From an ethnic perspective, the major localised Englishes are Hausa English (HE), Igbo English (IE) and Yoruba English (YE), spoken by the three major ethnolinguistic groups in Nigeria. From an attitude perspective, this talk will provide a background to language attitude research and Nigeria’s linguistic landscape, and present the findings of ongoing research on the attitudes of Nigerian students towards these Nigerian Englishes. The talk also summarises the findings on the association between ethnic categorisation and underlying reasons for categorising Nigerian Englishes. The talk highlights the contribution of the findings to the understanding of discrimination against language varieties and the sociopsychological processes that underlie accent recognition and ethnic categorisation of accents. This understanding can help in challenging stereotypes related to language varieties, promoting inclusivity, and fostering linguistic tolerance.

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Nov 17th

10-11:30am Virtual

The Speech Acquisition Lab presents the Emerging Scholars in Language Science Series

Yuka Tashiro, PhD student in Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Indiana University

The Roles of Canonical and Non-Canonical Vowels in Phonetic Context Effects

Despite of the lack of invariance problem in the acoustic signal (Liberman et al., 1967), listeners generally seem to be successful at retrieving speakers' intended phonemes. How do listeners parse coarticulated speech given the high nature of acoustic context-sensitivity? Earlier studies (e.g., Kunisaki & Fujisaki, 1977; Mann & Repp, 1980) have discovered that listeners' parsing behaviors reflect listeners' shifting the categorization of a target sound according to a preceding or following phonetic context (known as phonetic context effects, Repp, 1982). According to the literature, there are two types of phonetic context effects, which I refer to as dissimilative parsing (e.g., Kunisaki & Fujisaki, 1977; Mann & Repp, 1980) and assimilative parsing (e.g., Fujimura et al., 1978; Rysling et al., 2019) in the current study. In a dissimilative parsing, listeners parse two successive segments to identify one as more different from the other, while in an assimilative parsing, listeners parse two successive segments in a way that identifies one as more similar to the other. For example, an ambiguous target fricative noise between [s] and [ʃ] may be identified as [s] more often when its phonetic context is [u] than [i] for a dissimilative parsing, but the target sound may be identified as [ʃ] more often when its phonetic context is [u] than [i] for an assimilative parsing. When do listeners decide to use a dissimilative parsing over an assimilative parsing, and vice versa? More recently, Rysling et al. (2019) suggested that a dissimilative parsing is the default mechanism of parsing, but listeners do an assimilative parsing in particular when an ambiguous target is immediately followed by its phonetic context with smooth continuous spectral transitions. Hence, an assimilative parsing should not happen when a sibilant fricative noise is a preceding ambiguous target. My preliminary study using a sibilant fricative noise as an ambiguous target and canonical and non-canonical vowels as contexts, however, indicates that listeners may exhibit an assimilative parsing within-category. According to Lotto and Holt (2006) and Mitterer (2006), listeners may show an assimilative parsing when a non-speech context sound follows an ambiguous sibilant fricative target. Since the vowel stimuli used in the preliminary study did not have formant transitions and sound quality was not great, new stimuli sets with better quality were synthesized. The current study thus investigates the role of canonical and non-canonical vowels with and without formant transitions in phonetic context effects. The results showed that when the stimuli were CV syllables, the listeners exhibit a dissimilative parsing for the phonological vowel category ([u] vs. [i]). However, within the vowel category [u] (with and without formant transitions), the listeners exhibit an assimilative parsing. Within the vowel category [i], the listeners exhibited a dissimilative parsing only when the vowels do not have formant transitions. The results showed that when the stimuli were VC syllables, the listeners exhibit a dissimilative parsing for the phonological vowel category ([u] vs. [i]) but with smaller effects compared to the CV stimuli. The role of non-canonical vowels was similar but the effect diminished as well. The role of the [+round] feature and cognitive exemplar vowels will be further discussed.

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Nov 30th

3:30-5pm Hybrid GC 2660 & Zoom 

Colloquium: Caleb Belth, Assistant Professor, University of Utah

A Learning-Based Perspective on Abstract Representations

While phonological theory has often made use of the concept of the underlying form, debates have raged regarding their status: some have argued that phonology should abandon such representations altogether, and many feel that they should at least be justified on a case-by-case basis. Underlying forms are often characterized as hidden structure, which insinuates that they present an acquisition challenge. Yet a key motivation for such structures is to capture generalizations, which is of great use to a child facing the sparse statistical profile of the input. It seems then that the character of the input ought to be taken into account when considering the status of underlying forms. In this talk, we will consider an algorithmic, learning-based approach to the question. I propose a model that, by default, constructs concrete, surface-faithful representations of morphemes. When and only when these concrete representations make it challenging to generalize in the face of the sparse statistical profile of language—a tipping point that will be made precise—the proposed model constructs abstract underlying forms that allow for effective generalization. I consider the highly-agglutinative language, Turkish, and the heavily-studied Dutch noun voicing alternation as two case studies. The systemic character of Turkish vowel harmony drives the learner to collapse the allomorphs of some morphemes into an abstract, underlying category. This makes developmental predictions, which tentatively appear consistent with Turkish-learning children. This suggests the importance of some non-concrete forms to generalization. I then argue that the model provides a possible learning-based account of why Dutch-learning children do not productively extend voicing alternations: such alternations are not prevalent enough in a child’s input to prevent the construction of productive and accurate morphophonological generalizations from concrete representations.

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Dec 5th

11:00am-3:00pm LNCO 2945 

You've made it! Another semester has come and gone. Take a moment to appreciate this achievement.

Join us for pizza and puzzles.

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Dec 7th

3:30-5pm Hybrid GC 2660 & Zoom 

Colloquium: Matteo Fiorini, PhD Graduate Student, University of Utah

Deriving focus structures: a Minimalist exploration of Camuno

In this talk, I discuss the properties of focus structures in Camuno, an endangered Gallo-Romance variety spoken in the Italian Alps. In this language, foci generally appear right-adjacent to the lexical verb and align with the main sentence stress.

Focalization is attested across numerous language families, and it has been investigated from a variety perspectives. My discussion provides an overview of the main lines of analyses proposed to account for the distribution and interpretation of foci cross-linguistically and explore their applicability in accounting for the data from Camuno.  

I then propose a Minimalist derivation based on movement to satisfy interpretative requirements at the interfaces and pragmatically-informed constraints on the phonetic realization of the structure.