This fall we welcomed ten new graduate students, three new students in our Bachelors + Masters program, and many undergraduates back to campus. Classes are well underway and we’re looking forward to a productive, if uncertain new academic year. As political change is taking
place at the national level, the university is reporting an $18 million budget deficit that must be dealt with.This will undoubtedly mean changes to the university and the people who are working for it, especially as most of those cuts are going to need to come from personnel. If you are interested in what’s happening on that front, you can find more information on the university’s Financial Sustainability webpage.

 On a more positive note, our proposal for a joint degree with computer science has moved on to
the next stage of approval. After some discussion, we have renamed it “Linguistics and
Computer Science” from “Computational Linguistics” which may add more flexibility to the
degree while preparing students to work in computational linguistics, natural language
processing, and related fields. Given the explosion of artificial intelligence recently, this is a very
timely degree.

In this newsletter, you’ll see some updates from our student organization, some cool research
from one of our undergraduates, and a profile of our latest Nattinger Scholarship winner.
We’re also eager to hear from our wider community – Where are you? What are you doing?
We’d love to hear!

You can connect with us online through our LinkedIn or Facebook pages. If you’re in the Portland, please join us First Friday: Pizza Jerk., 1708 SW 7th 4:30-5:30 or later the first Friday of every month.

Recent B.A. graduate, Aubrey LeWarne will present her honors thesis work at the American Association of Applied Linguistics conference in March in Denver, CO. Aubrey’s paper: Talking Yourself Up: Multimodal Conversation Analysis of Status in an Improvised Setting uses Multimodal Conversation Analysis to describe paralinguistic and extralinguistic resources that
participants used to indicate status in an applied improvisation workshop. Low status enactment often involved a higher frequency of pausal phenomena, non-lexical markers, and restarts; whereas high status enactment often involved greater frequency of utterance-final creaky voice. Embodied actions, like gesture and gaze, also varied based on status. These initial findings highlight the role of the body as a status making resource, as well as the role of creaky voice as a style marker (Becker et al., 2022).

My passion for language began in childhood when my mother advised me to avoid our family dialect to appear professional. Though I started college studying physics, an acting class reignited my interest in linguistics, leading me to shift my focus. At PSU, I am exploring how language reflects societal power dynamics, creating a custom corpus to study university communications during the 2024 student protests. As a Nattinger Scholarship recipient, I am dedicated to combining linguistic analysis with technology to tackle critical social issues.

To find read more about Wil Waring or our other Nattinger recipients visit our department webiste.

 

Attention all PSU students interested in meeting like-minded language fans! SOAL welcomes you to hang out, study, and chill weekly on Wednesdays from 4 - 6! 

If you love languages, are looking to build community at PSU, and enjoy free snacks, SOAL hangouts are the right place for you! 

So far this year, SOAL has hosted events such as our Game Night and Hoyt Hike, which have been lots of fun! We are always open for event suggestions – our suggestion boxes are located at the Front Desk and in the Student Lounge, both in UCB 325. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at our future events!

Also, stay tuned for our first event of winter term, the Language Exchange night, on 1/15/25. Meet and mingle with multilingual speakers, share favorite words and phrases in all languages! Light snacks and drinks are available!

We’re currently planning events for upcoming terms, so if you are interested in leadership opportunities and being involved with crafting future events, please join our organizer meetings in UCB 325 (Linguistics classroom) on Mondays, 4:30 - 5:30. Questions? Comments? Email soal@pdx.edu or DM us on Instagram @soalpdx.

TL;DR: Join us for….

Hangout Wednesdays - 4-6pm in the Linguistics Student Lounge

Organizer Mondays - 4:30-5:30 in the Linguistics classroom 

Language Exchange Night - January 15, 2024 in the Linguistics Student Lounge

This fall, we’re seeking donations for our student snack fund to help keep our students nourished and focused as over half of PSU students report food insecurity. Even a contribution of $10 or $15 can make a difference! We aim to stock our student lounge with healthy options like nuts, granola bars, soup cups, and occasionally fresh fruit. We have a goal of $300 for winter term, so anything our LING community can provide would be appreciated.

Interested in finding out more about our UG/TESL certificate or MA TESOL program? Our department holds monthly information sessions where you can learn more about our programs and get all your questions answered. So what are you waiting for, register today for our next session.