Spring 2018 Linguistics at Indiana University from the Chair Research in Germany on Refugees
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College of Arts & Sciences Volume 29 • Spring 2018 Linguistics at Indiana University From the Chair Research in Germany on Refugees Welcome to the Linguistics Department’s Spring, 2018, by Frances Trix Newsletter. The focus of this issue is to get you a chance to see some of the work that individual members of the department are doing in a more up-close and personal manner. The department is large and very diverse, both in terms of the individuals in the department, and in the range of interests and impacts. One exercise we have experimented with in the volume is that of trying to have an overview of the corpus of research that the department had published in 2017, and the simplest approach was to compile a bibliography. It turns out that this task was more complicated than envisioned, as you will see the bibliography runs many pages. Beyond just the scope of work that this suggests, we hope you have time to peruse the titles and names involved. There, you Frances Trix with refugees at Refugee Transit Camp, will see everyone from undergraduates to emeriti faculty, Gevgelija, Macedonia and topics from machine translation to gender marking, from semantics to ultrasound. Speaking of emeriti, our first article gives a report from the field by Frances Trix. In 2015 and 2016, I worked in Refugee Transit Camps in Macedonia on the Balkan Migrant We also include some of the unusual innovative teaching Trail. Sometimes 6,000 refugees from Syria, Iraq or that our graduate students are engaging in, as well as a Afghanistan would pass through in a single day. Earlier good sampling of their research. Much of what you see I had worked with refugees during the Balkan Wars, I here was not done without the help of many, including knew the region, and my language skills in colloquial the support of alumni and friends of the department. Arabic and in other local languages were most useful. We appreciate your support in all its forms, and hope The publisher of my most recent book, which is on you enjoy this volume. forced migrants, Urban Muslim Migrants in Istanbul: Dr. Ken de Jong (Chair) Identity and Trauma among Migrants (2017), had asked me to write on the new refugees. First I told him I did not want to write but to work with refugees. What’s Inside: After the Balkan Migrant Trail closed, I told him that more important than writing on refugees was writing From the Chair........................................................1 on what anthropologists call “host reception.” That Research in Germany on Refugees (Frances Trix).1 is, how willing are developed countries to take in Teaching Linguistics...............................................2 refugees. I wrote him a proposal which he accepted. But Dissertation Profiles...............................................5 I told him I needed to do added research in Germany, the developed country that had taken in the most Research Publications & Presentations.................10 refugees in an organized way, before I could write. Local Conferences..................................................17 Ending Matter & Fundraising..............................18 (Continued on page 2) 1 Linguistics at Indiana University Volume 29 That is how I ended up in Germany in the fall of trying to cope with such a large influx of strangers 2016 studying how communities of different sizes and the refugees themselves who have suffered were dealing with a million new asylum-seekers. I much. I also included the challenge of doing field studied villages of up to 10,000 people; small cities research in a bureaucratic culture. Often my allies of 30,000 to 70,000, and up to half a million; and were Turkish-speaking taxi-drivers who could get large cities of over a million people. I researched me into places I needed to go--I am fluent in Turkish. their strategies with the new refugees, especially the In small communities, single people made a positive strategies. I also interviewed people working difference, like the owner of an organic store who with refugees as well as the refugees themselves. told the mayor not to put all the refugees in the poor Crucial to this endeavor were the dedicated house, but to spread them out across the village, and volunteers, the Ehrenamtliche. They were different from who encouraged the young men to meet in a room in Helpers who came out to give blankets and food when the back of her store. In large cities it was the vision the refugees arrived. The dedicated volunteers were the of programs, like the Weichenstellung program in people I found in every German village, city and town Hamburg, an effective mentoring program named who regularly taught German to the refugees, who after the system that sets the trains on the correct took refugees to medical appointments, who mentored track in train stations. Near the end of my research I refugee students in schools, who did all manner of things received word that I had received a Retired Faculty on a regular basis. In all her major speeches Angela Grant-in-Aid of Research for which I am most grateful. Merkel thanked them. They were all ages but there were I am now living in Detroit where I continue probably more women than men. The journalists who to work with Syrian refugees every week. When have written on Germany seem to have ignored them, my book comes out I hope people working with but they are essential to dealing with the new refugees. refugees in different countries will find it valuable, I returned and from 400 pages of field notes wrote either to give them ideas of possible strategies or what will be the book, “Europeans and the Refugee to inspire them to come up with their own ways. Crisis: Local Responses to Migration.” I have written the book in a narrative way that is accessible and that Dr. Frances Trix emphasizes the humanity of both the German people Teaching Linguistics Reissue of Innovations in Linguistic From the Editor: Education I am excited to have the opportunity to make Indiana University Working Papers in Linguistics Innovations available in an open-access digital Volume: 17 format. This reissue consists of scans of the original Special Issue: 2-3 issues of the journal. Whenever possible, these Editor: Ann Bunger scans were made from article proofs, but when Associate Editor: Samson Lotven proofs were not available, scans were made from Editorial Board: Ashley Parker, Silvina Bongiovanni, printed issues of the journal. This production choice Charlene Gilbert, Eliot Raynor, Philip Weirich, preserves the charming typeface of the original Yiwen Zhang, and Ken de Jong publication as well as its occasional printing imperfections. By making these articles more easily Indiana University Linguistics Club Working accessible to a wider audience, I hope that they Papers Online is pleased to announce the digital will serve as both a resource and a stimulus in the reissue of the journal Innovations in Linguistics growing conversation about Linguistics pedagogy Education. This journal was originally published by and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. the Indiana University Linguistics Club between Ann Bunger October 1979 and September 1991 with a goal of providing a formal and enduring forum for Browse the issues: https://www.indiana. the exchange of ideas and materials for teaching edu/~iulcwp/wp/issue/archive linguistics. 2 Linguistics at Indiana University Volume 29 Teaching Linguistics have a Spanish/French/Korean/etc. accent?” Individualizing the L203 Intro to to get to the question of “What does accented Linguistic Analysis classroom speech tell us about Spanish/French/Korean/etc. By Samson Lotven phonology?” Through this process, students were able to work from messy observations through Four times, I have had the privilege of teaching L203 to cross-linguistic analysis, first by creating the Intro to Linguistic Analysis at IU and for my most most individually relevant pieces of the puzzle recent syllabus, I decided to develop a student- and then by crowd-sourcing the analysis within centered version of the course—a reinvention that the larger classroom community. Students noted asked students to develop analytical skills through an assortment of phenomena, but nearly every their own investigations of wild group discovered some degree of linguistic data. I started from the syllable- or word- final neutralization. central course goal: for students Although not a stated aim of the to develop techniques of linguistic phonology section of the course, our data collection, organization, and classroom community’s exposure analysis. I planned activities where to multiple types of contextual small groups collected data and neutralization allowed us to compare presented their observations to the and contrast different flavors of the community I worked to create of phenomenon—a deeper dive uniquely budding (if temporary) linguists. facilitated by that group of students. In doing so, I gave up control, Later activities in the course had constantly and deliberately, of pairs of students focusing on unique course content to the students, and specific speaker communities— cultivating an experience unique to the personalities those which offered ample online content to serve in the room. I asked that students take the initiative as sources for data collection. Lexicography, to individualize the course to their diverse morphology, and syntax units had students interests with projects first based on a language bringing half-analyzed data to class discussions of interest and later on a broader area of interest. from student-selected areas of interest such as Early in the course, students looked for Greek Life, Hip Hop, IU Basketball, Cheerleading, phonetic/phonological phenomena in a language specific online video game communities, and of interest. A poorly told story can overshadow constructed language forums. The lexicography good analysis, so creation and presentation of data unit asked students to find novel words and sets was my first priority.