Turns out that research assistant job in my professor's lab might be too good to be true. I already knew that it was something I was incredibly interested in and that it was here on campus, both things I really wanted. But I thought it was a part-time summer job.

Turns out...

1. Full-time.
2. Benefits eligible.
3. Two year commitment.

This would be a real job. And let me reiterate that it would be something I'd love and it would keep me in Chicago close to (among other things) Nick. Yes, I'm willing to admit that I'd like to stay close to Nick.

Oh, one other thing. Turns out the lead coder, the guy I'm set to meet a week from today, is Max M. from Sleeping Beauty. Like, Carabosse Max. And Bluebird Max. Max who I have officially seen in a bright blue unitard covered in feathers. Yep. He's the guy who gets to hire me, I think. That's just funny.

Labels: jobs, linguistics

I think I might have gotten a summer job. Not a permanent gig, but at least a full time summer thing on campus. It's actually a slightly amusing story.

As I'm desperately searching for jobs, Lauren's boyfriend Ian sent me this job here on campus that looked awesome:

We are seeking a research assistant to participate in a longitudinal research project examining the development of communication, both language and gesture, in a sample of young children and their families. The incumbent will be responsible for language and gesture coding of interaction between caregivers and young children. This position is especially appropriate for candidates who are interested in pursuing graduate studies in psychology or linguistics.

Gesture coding? Totally cool. I hear ASL in that. Anyway I get all excited (especially because the online form says it's full time with benefits) and fill out an application. Right before I submit it, I realize that there couldn't possibly be more than one person on campus doing gesture coding in young children - this job has to be in my language development professor's lab.

So I shoot her an email. It's really polite and over the top enthusiastic. I ask if the job is in fact in her department and if so, could we make take to meet and discuss my application.

I don't hear back for days, and when I do, it's a curt reply of basically "Well I'm not sure. Sorry."

Lame!

I sort of give up on that front, and regroup my efforts someplace else. I made an appointment with my other crazy (and wonderful wonderful) professor (of semantics) to talk about options for the future with my degree in linguistics.

When I met with her yesterday, the first thing out of her mouth is, "Do you have any interest in language development? Because I work with Susan Goldin-Meadow (my other prof!) and we have a job opening for coding.)" I enthuse about all three of my classes (semantics, lang dev, and ASL) for a bit, and then she insists on getting me this job, though she informs me it's only a summer position. (I can live with that. It's still way cool!) Her plan is to talk to Susan Goldin-Meadow tomorrow morning (i.e. this morning) at 9am and say my name so many times she won't be able to turn me down. Thanks, Anastasia. You're the greatest. :)

When I got home, absolutely bubbling over with happy, I have an email from Susan G-M. Remember that the two have not talked yet. She says YES the job I emailed her about is in her lab and...

Would I like to volunteer some time this spring quarter to see how I take to coding?

Now I'm sitting here thinking, "that's not a job offer" and "I want to work not volunteer." But the implication of her email is very clearly that if I am any good at coding she will then hire me for the summer, and that will in fact be paid. And really, isn't this job interesting enough to volunteer some time to anyway? Hell, it's even a resume bumper-upper.

So what I'm really thinking now is "I wonder what Susan G-M thought this morning with Anastasia bombarded her with my name."

Also I'm thinking, "awesome!"

Labels: job, linguistics

Quick! Look up there at that mido! Where did you look, at 1 or 2? I presume you looked at either 1 or 2, and I'm going to be so bold as to say you probably looked at 2, unless you were being purposefully difficult. Why? Because 1 is a dog. What's 2? I don't know, and you probably don't know either, so it might very well be a mido. If mido means "funny little squishy orange thing with saucer eyes and tufty hair in odd places," you would have been correct to look at 2. But what if mido meant "hot dog that has sprouted legs and head and likes being rubbed on the tummy?" Then it would have been better to look in 1's direction. After all, the word "dachshund" does exist. Similarly, the word "creature" exists. If I had said "look at the creature," looking at either 1 or 2 would be equally correct.

The point is that we as language learners (and yes we are all language learners on a daily basis whether we like it or know it or not) enter into a situation with certain constraints. There is this pretty nifty article by Au & Glusman (I'd link to it, but I only have access to it through my class's course reserves through the library here) on mutual exclusivity published in 1990. The paper details a number of studies designed to figure out when we honor the principle of mutual exclusivity (because in order to learn to words at the most basic level, we must honor it) and when we don't honor it (because there are so very many times when learning new words requires that we do not honor it). I'm not going to get into the details of the studies they did - though they were kind of cool experiments, but I am going to mention some situations I think are pretty interesting.

Hierarchies. They're neat. They are! Why? Well, because you came into the mido situation thinking well, I know that's a dog, so it can't be a mido. You assumed whatever a mido is it's on the same hierarchical level as dog. It didn't occur to you that it might be on the more general level of animal/creature or more specific level of dachshund. Granted, there is already a word for animal, and one for creature, and one for dachshund. Ok, so how about...

Synonyms! There's no way mido could have meant the same thing as dog? Our first response to a new word is to assign it to a new item. If an object already has a label, why give it another one? But of course, no language has perfect one-to-one mapping of words and referents. Though I'm not giving a list of synonyms here, a dog might also be a hound, a beast, a furball, a mutt, a cur, a puppy, a pooch, a mongrel...and whatever else. Those are all (except maybe puppy) on the same hierarchical level as dog, but they are secondary (or tertiary or further). You learned the word mongrel years after you learned doggie, I will bet money and/or yarn on it. So at what point did you say, "Ok, mutual exclusivity out! Synonyms in!"? I bet you don't know, because researchers don't know either.

And what about an even cooler and more complicated case: bilingualism? Specifically bilingualism in kids young enough to still be acquiring the basics of both languages. The situation gets so much more complicated! Think about it. I'm a bilingual (French-English) baby in my first critical language-learning months (in other words, I'm moving past mama, ba-ba (bottle), no, and picking up words for animals, small objects, people, etc.) and here comes this four-legged furry thing that barks and chews bones and lives in my house. I can't make out most of the words my mother says, so I hear "Gobbledygook DOG." I have to look at the dog. I hear "Gobbledygook CHIEN." I have to look at the dog (chien in French, of course). I hear "Gobbledygook MIDO." I have to look at SOMETHING ELSE and attach mido to the cat that just walked in (or whatever). I have to be able to apply mutual exclusivity within each language but not cross-linguistically. Is it based on phonological features? Do I have to be able to tell that dog sounds English while chien sounds French and mido sounds, well, I'm not so sure. Somehow, I have to catch on pretty freaking fast!

Somehow we both honor and choose not to honor this principle of mutual exclusivity, and I just think it's fascinating how and when we do and do not, and that the whole thing happens without our being aware of it. Tell me that isn't at least a tiny bit cool.

Labels: linguistics

I may post about Christmas and the like later, because it was all very nice, but after a hellish quarter of phonetics and phonology and then Linguick turning this up on Twitter, I have to post:
Cheat on Your Phonetics Exam/Geeky Vowel Chart Tattoo

Labels: amusing, linguistics

Nattily(.org), you are being ignored. I've been giving all my html love to the UBallet site, which is totally undeserving. Really, you are where my attention belongs. Also, octopus.

So it is safe to say I'm getting pretty into this whole ASL thing. I'll stop linking everything though, as I imagine that could get annoying. Sorry.

But really, go back and click on "octopus," it's well worth knowing.

Did you know Turkish phonology is terrible? I mean it's just miserable. Don't be Turkish, guys. Just say no. All this glides inserted to break up vowel clusters but then double vowels and even vowel clusters with different degrees of backness in them show up! Uncalled for, Turkish! I won't even start with k deletion.

And my Teach for America interview is Thursday. It's from 9am to 6pm. How is that reasonable? Still, it's my one shot for a job next year instead of grad school, so let's make it count. Again, I'd rather not hear anything negative about TFA until after the interview, thanks. Let's focus on all the great work they do and how IT'S A POTENTIAL JOB instead of the notion that it might eat up college graduates' souls. Oh man...I have to teach a five-minute lesson to the other applicants and the interviewers. It can be anything academic, at any grade level. It just has to have a goal you can reach by the end of the five minutes. Any ideas? Originality would help...alas I have none.

Turkish...you still misbehaving? Yes, of course. Long vowels popping up unexpectedly? You guys were not invited to the dative case party!

And finally...where I need to be right now.

Labels: asl, linguistics, tfa

Because some words are just better than others...apparently.

Labels: linguistics

This is an excerpt from a reading for Topics in Japanese Grammar class:

For instance:
(31) Kaseijin-tati-ga semetekita
Martian-TATI-Nom came to attack
‘Martians came to attack.’
Imagine the following situation. Martians conquered every part of the earth,
except for Canada, and Canadians now await the last assault. The army
storming towards Canada actually consists mainly of earthlings, led by a
handful of Martians. In this situation, Canadians are likely to say the
sentence in (31) even if they are aware that the number of Martians in
the army is rather small. Thus, in certain cases, the majority does not matter.

Just thought I'd share. I like the idea of Canadians suddenly speaking Japanese when under attack from outer space.

Labels: amusing, linguistics, martians

As I am a person who appreciates both words and sex, I found this article interesting:
http://www.slate.com/id/2227971/pagenum/all/

Labels: linguistics

SO I'm finally a student again. Alright well I will be on Wednesday anyway. I was finally approved to register for summer and fall quarters, and I proceeded to do so, like a total badass.

This summer I'm taking an art history class called "Art in Unexpected Places":
This course studies public art (including murals, commissioned public sculpture, and experimental installations), art collections, and independent art centers located around the "peripheries" of Chicago--outside the Loop on the south, west, and far north sides, but with a particular focus on Hyde Park and surrounding neighborhoods. Classroom discussion is supplemented by multiple site visits. Readings include studies of the recent history of the arts in Chicago and theoretical works on public and community art. Assignments include an ongoing journal and a group project as well as critical essays.

Sounds relatively interesting. Relatively, since my interest in art history is about none. Maybe that will change.

But that's summer, more fun is fall, when I will be a full time student again.

Because all the linguistics requirements got shifted around, there don't even exist course descriptions for what I'm taking.

• Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology - this should be easy enough, LING 202 last year was basically all about the good old phons. I beasted that quarter with my "LOL" essay, so I figure I'll be all right. Also, Nick might take this with me, which would be pretty solid.
• Language and Communication - I think this will just be your standard linguistics elective. Sounds pretty general. I guess as opposed to Language and Keeping Your Mouth Shut.
• Topics in Japanese Grammar - Yeah. I'm serious. I'm taking a class all about Japanese. It is an elective. I am electing to take a class about Japanese. I'm told no knowledge of Japanese is required (which is good, since I don't have any). I told Lauren she better get ready to hear me start complaining about Japanese again.

I also emailed the ASL prof begging to be in her class, but that was a week ago and I haven't heard back, so I'm guessing that's a no go. If this ends up being my schedule, I'll probably get my PE credit out of the way this quarter (Social Dance, because I can't deal with the woman who teaches ballet/jazz/modern, and Pilates is at 8:30am three days a week). That means I will have M/W/F totally free. So badass. I feel like a badass just thinking about it. Of course, if I had the chance to take ASL I would jump at that shit even though it would mess up my little M/W/F badassness.

Oh, right...the other option. The reason I want to take ASL (one of the reasons) is because a year of it would count for three of my remaining five electives. But sign language is not the only language that does that. My options are:

• Modern Greek
• Kazakh
• Modern Hebrew
• Georgian
• Hittite
• Swahili
• and of course, American Sign Language

ASL is the only class that's full, so I could take any of these others. Do I dare try Greek? It would be kind of cool...but would it be like Japanese? Don't know. I really like the idea of doing another language for a year and only doing two electives. Maybe I'll just sign up.

Labels: art, asl, greek, linguistics, school

Because Joe asked what my paper is about, I'm posting it. And I'm sticking my tongue out at you as I write this. It's about the term lol. It was really fun to write, so who knows, maybe it's fun to read as well.

Joe, this is all for you. Seriously. I have no idea who else would be interested.

Labels: linguistics, lol, writing

Japanese is over! Just finished my final (yes it's only 10:05am) and that means I'm completely done with it. Forever if I so choose, and I probably will choose, thank you very much.

I also have my linguistics exam today. It should be fine, I did pretty well on the midterm and I got this in my inbox yesterday:

I enjoyed your paper: do you mind if I share it? you are exploring new linguistic territory!
John Goldsmith

That gives me an unreasonable amount of confidence in my abilities to do well on the final. But in my minimal preparation for it last night, I read a really interesting article about ASL. I won't get into why it was interesting, because I'm sure in reality it's really boring. I just want to point out that I was interested in it, with hopes that next year will be the same. :)

Oh, and...
I am tougher than I look.

Labels: asl, done, japanese, linguistics, nattily

Midterm arrived in my inbox this morning as I was looking over some stuff to help me do my ling homework. Now I'm paranoid that my professor will see that I was on Chalk and will assume I was cheating. Then again, when he grades my exam I think it will be pretty obvious that I didn't cheat, since all I've got going for me is a little bit of rote memorization and a lot of hopeful guesses.

Now, to work on that or my civ final paper...

I think I've decided not to take civ again next quarter. I can fulfill the same requirement with a fine arts or art history class. I think I am going to take an intro art class. I hear it's a crazy amount of work, but not really that stressful. I mean, you get to draw and paint, so it can't be that bad.

I can't believe I'm thinking about next quarter already. That means it's eigth week. That means my civ paper and ling midterm are due Monday, my ling problem set that was due last Thursday really needs to get turned in Tuesday, my ling paper is due a week from Tuesday, my oral exam in Japanese has to happen in the next two weeks, and oh yeah, Cinderella is in less than a week!!

The stresssssssssssssssssss.

Labels: cinderella, linguistics, school, stressed out

My linguistics midterm was stolen. Forty-three students, six stolen midterms, mine one of them. Lame. Seriously lame. Really it sucks more for my TA, whose apartment was broken into. But still, sucks a little for me, too.

Now I have to take the damn thing again. Good, because it didn't suck enough the first time. And I am faced with a moral dilemma. He's giving us the retest on the honor system. As in take it home for the weekend and do it in an hour and a half without looking up answers. Also it's the same test I already took. I want to be a good person, I think.

Ah, damn.

Labels: linguistics, moral dilemmas, school

I have not blogged in a long time. That is a true statement. Good job, Natalie.

Sometimes I get in moods where I want to limit my blog to things completely impersonal, and typically at those times my personal life gets explosive and squeezes out anything bloggable.

1. I'm quitting ballet. I can't do it anymore. It makes me hate myself. I look shitty, I feel shitty, and that sort of just makes me shitty. So I'm performing in Cinderella and then I won't dance anymore. It used to be fun. Now it's only hurtful. It also makes other dancers who were close friends lose respect for me, and that isn't worth it.

2. Japanese is hard.

3. I don't understand anything in my linguistics class. I find this to be a pretty big problem since I'm just in an intro course, and it's my damn major.

4. I have a hell of a lot of Japanese homework due and a civ presentation today. I have a Japanese midterm and a linguistics (impossible) problem due tomorrow. I have a linguistics midterm on Thursday.

5. I was in the hospital on Wednesday unable to stand up or see straight and no one can tell me what was wrong. In a 48 hour period this weekend I slept for 40 hours.

6. Japanese is hard.

7. I think I'm losing my grip.

Labels: ballet, japanese, linguistics, lists, school

(xkcd, of course)

I feel very threatened...

Labels: comics, linguistics, xkcd

I have missed you!! I forgot how boring life is without gmail and rss feeds. MacLab is closed. I am on a stupid pc outside of it that is really really slow.

Stuff:

1. I got kitties! I will post pictures when my internet is existent (hopefully Wednesday). I will talk more about them, too, because they are very interesting kitties.

2. I beasted my linguistics class. Well, I mean, I got an A. And I passed (it was pass/fail) my philosophy class. (Note that this makes my major GPA a 4.0, haha. Yay for only being one class into my major.)

3. Now I have the incredibly exciting task ahead of me which is summer social sciences!!! Yay for Self, Culture, and Society for nine hours a week! My first class begins in approximately 27 minutes.

4. Gabe is rocking Chicago for three weeks for the U of C high school summer session. It's badass.

5. Jon is stinky. Ok, well...not really. Actually he smells really good. I have decided he is not going to break up with me. You hear me Jon? You might try. You will fail. Sorry, tough luck.

6. Bob Loblaw Lobs Law Bomb.

On to the land of sosc now...

Labels: arrested development, Gabe, jon, kitties, linguistics, school, sosc

The more I consider the English guy, the more certain I am that it cannot exist ubiquitously. Maybe eventually it will develop into some universal word that can be applied to any noun, animal, vegetable, or mineral. At present, however, it exists in the language under strict, though admittedly broad, grammatical boundaries. Though the data provided seem to imply that "guy" may reference a male, female, animal, or inanimate object, in reality, such liberal usage would be absurd and convoluted, if not completely incomprehensible.

It seems the most common usage of guy fits nicely into the gender package for human reference words of most romance languages. The Spanish amigo, for instance, operates under the same conditions. The terms of use for amigo(s) offer it a certain amount of flexibility of gender, seeing as under certain circumstances it can apply to females. The same is true of many other person referencing nouns, such as Spanish padre(s) and hermano(s), and the French ami(s) and cousin(s). Amigo in its singular form will refer to one male friend. If the friend were female, it would of course take the feminine singular amiga. Describing groups of friends is slightly more complicated, but still follows strict rules. A group of male friends is amigos, a group of female friends is amigas, but as soon as one male enters the group of females, the feminine plural is unacceptable. Equally unacceptable is referring to a purely male group as amigas. It would be nonsensical, and probably insulting.

In casual speech - though it's not terribly common to come across guy anywhere but casual speech - guy functions in a parallel manner. One male can be called a "guy", and a group of males or a mixed gender group can be called "guys" with no objections from the parties involved. Calling any of the aforementioned by a strictly feminine reference would, like in the case of amigas, be nonsensical and insulting, except under very specific circumstances where the male prefers to consider himself a member of the opposite gender. Equally, to address a single female as a "guy" or a group of females as some "guys" would be very irregular. Though it is possible and even likely that the desired message would be communicated, it is certain that the listener's cognition would stumble momentarily.

Of course, there exist what appear to be contradictions to these conditions, as evidenced by the data set. While you could never say "este coche es un amigo" logically, one could easily say "Watch this guy on your left (31)," referencing a car, and be perfectly understood. Similarly, one can refer to molecules as "these guys" (35) and a gun (29) or a galaxy (27) as "this guy." These genderless (in English, at least) objects can adopt the guy reference, but require a demonstrative modifier. If one were to say, "There's a guy in there between the carbon and oxygen," the mind jumps to an image of a tiny man squeezed between two atoms, instead of the intended idea of an unknown or unnamed molecule.

With reference to females, guy functions similarly. If it is perfectly definitive who is being reference, as well as their gender, guy is an acceptable replacement. For instance, saying “Olivia and Rachel are at my apartment, so I’m going to hang out with those guys,” is understood to mean that the speaker will visit with two females, Olivia and Rachel. On the other hand, if the speaker were not to specify the guests and say simply, “I’m going to hang out with the guys at my apartment,” the listener would likely assume the speaker to be visiting with a group of males or a group of mixed gender. In the data provided, “We’ve got our two little guys going in first” (32) is only a clear statement because a specific group of people is being discussed, and it is assumed that the listener understands exactly who the speaker is referring to and what gender they are, since they are “our…guys” and not just some guys.

One additional oddity in the use of guy is when using it to address the listener. “Hi guys,” is perfectly acceptable is casual conversation, regardless of the gender of the audience. So long as one is addressing a group informally, you guys is appropriate, and is generally preferred to addressing both the males and females separately, and in certain circumstances be preferred to addressing a group of females by a specifically females title. Saying “Girls! Girls! Wait for me!” just does not sound right unless the speaker is chasing after a couple of six-year old girls.

In the politically correct world we live in, language is definitely being targeted by the idea that everyone should be treated equally. This is reflected in the data where a speaker refers to a woman as “a guy” and declares that she ignores gender when using the word (22). This is clearly an active effort on the part of the speaker to neutralize gender in the word. Though she may attempt to remove the gender boundaries surrounding the word, it is apparent that the effort is not widespread, as her listener does not merely question her wording, but corrects her memory, insisting it was a woman. Because of these presuppositions we currently ascribe to guy, I am sure that it cannot be used to refer to just anything, and to the best of my understanding of its use, I see it conforming to wide but firm rules of everyday speech.

Labels: college, linguistics, writing