Student Notices

The Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (DMLL), Linguistics Section present Linguistics Research Day 2016 with the theme, Language and Diversity in “Comm-Unities”.

This day of activities take place on Thursday March 24 from 9am to 4pm and 6 to 8pm at the Centre for Language Learning (CLL) Auditorium.

Sub-themes include:

• Language Documentation in the Caribbean
• Identities and Language Communities, and
• Fostering Acquisition and Literacy

Look out for presentations by the following persons as well as others:

• Tyrone Ali: When Fiction Becomes Real Life – Examining Language and Affect among the Transgender

• Ben Braithwaite and Ian Dhanoolal: Sign Language in Old Providence, Colombia

• Kathy-Ann Drayton: Wagonists Make the Most Noise: Performing Football Fandom through Language

• Renée Figuera: Globalisation and Translocalisation: Evidence from Trinidadian Gangspeak

• Jo-Anne Ferreira: Haitian in Brazil – An Ecolinguistic Approach

• Amina Ibrahim Ali, Natalie Bhawanie, Janet Fullerton-Rawlins, Lazina Siew, and Jamila Varacchia: When the adult language learner does not complete secondary school: Two exceptional cases at the EFL unit at the Centre for Language Learning, UWI St. Augustine

• Shaniese Pandohee: Market Vendor Discourse in Trinidad

• Nicha Selvon-Ramkissoon and Nadita Maharaj: A comparative study of differentiated instruction strategies employed by groups of practicum students from the University of Trinidad and Tobago

Students will also be formally relaunching the UWI Linguistics Society, there will also be having a fundraising cake sale.

Don’t miss guest speaker Silvia Kouwenberg (UWI Mona) and her LING 3099 Special Project in Linguistics class when they present at 6pmon the topic, The Quality of the Output is Determined by the Quality of the Input: Methodological Issues in New Computational Approaches to Creole Typology.

To view the event’s flyer, please click here.

For more information, please contact:

Dr Jo-Anne Ferreira

Lecturer - Linguistics; Undergraduate Coordinator - Portuguese

Modern Languages & Linguistics

E-mail: jo-anne.ferreira@sta.uwi.edu | Tel/ext: (868)-662-2002 ext. 83029

Also, visit the UWI Linguistics Research Day 2016 Facebook Event Page, here.

About Language and Diversity in “Comm-Unities”

We live in an era of unparalleled linguistic change. The forces of globalisation present an unprecedented threat to the world's linguistic diversity, with some estimates suggesting that up to 90% of the world's languages may be in imminent danger of disappearing, in favour of a small number of global languages. 

 At the same time, online networks, migration, and the spread of education, are giving rise to new connections. Out of these connections, new communities are emerging, and with them, new kinds of language use, and even completely new languages. 

The Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics' Linguistics Research Day presents ongoing research into the emergence of new communities, new language patterns, how we assess linguistic diversity and how language teachers can best approach diverse groups of learners. They will explore diverse communities, especially those which have been historically overlooked and marginalised, and how language is used to bind them together.

Anyone interested in understanding human diversity, and how this is reflected by and manifested in patterns of language use is invited.