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Linguistics
News from the Field
Saving languages - " The Linguists"
Have you heard about the new film "The Linguists?" View the trailer here.
Rhodes scholar finalist would pursue Ph.D. in linguistics
Susana Hancock '07, was selected in late 2008 as a Rhodes Scholarship finalist. Read the news release. Rhodes Scholarships provide all expenses for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford in England.
In her senior year at Connecticut College, Hancock was named a Winthrop Scholar, the College's highest academic award, given to members of the senior class who demonstrate exceptional scholarship, personal fitness and promise. A linguistics and Slavic studies majors, Hancock won the Slavic Studies Award for Consistent Excellence in 2007 and the Best Translation of Slavic Fiction Award in 2006 and 2007. She also earned the Svetlana Kasem-Beg Award for fluency and pronunciation in Russian in 2005.
Since graduation, she has studied at Universitetet I Tromso in Norway where, in addition to her work at the Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical Linguistics and the Institute for Social Anthropology, she also has presided over the Norway chapter of Amnesty International.
New opportunity for saving languages from extinction
When a language dies, a piece of our civilization is irretrievably lost. But languages can be resurrected as well when the political and social climate is favorable, and speakers have powerful reasons why they need the language back, a language that would bind them and represent them.
Hebrew is a famous example of that. Through language we reconstruct our history; language is a reservoir of our culture.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently instituted a program aimed at teaching linguists how to reconstruct American Indian languages. The program's goal is to give native speakers the tools to revive their languages.
The program’s first student, Stephanie Fielding of the Mohegan Tribe in Connecticut, graduated in May 2005. Her great-great-great-aunt Fidelia Fielding, the last speaker of Mohegan, died in 1908. Today, Stephanie Fielding is devoted to reviving the language that Fidelia Fielding spoke.
Linguistics study at Connecticut College could prepare YOU for such an opportunity!
"Nelly's English Teacher"
An amusing animated look at how language - and how we look at it - changes daily. Here, rap singer Nelly has his paper graded by English teacher Mr. Brown!