M.A. and Honors Students' Presentations

Sophia Hawk

Exploring Language Attitudes in Senegal through Presidential Elections

Senegal is a country with a complex linguistic landscape, featuring over 30 languages and dialects. While processes of colonization and the spread of Islam have altered the linguistic geography, national languages persist. Indigenous languages are spoken by a wide percentage of the population, with over 85% of people speaking the most common national language, Wolof, compared to only 20% speaking colonial French. Previous presidencies of Senegal have supported the preservation of cultural heritage through the protection of national languages, even as colonial French remains cemented in certain sectors. The most recent presidential election paints an interesting linguistic picture. On March 24th, 2024 Bassirou Diomaye Faye succeeded Macky Sall, who had been President of the Republic of Senegal since 2012. Faye is a member of the PASTEF (Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour le travail, l'éthique et la fraternité or African patriots of Senegal for work, ethics and fraternity) party, a party founded by Ousmane Sonko, one of Sall’s primary opposers. Through my research, I aim to uncover both the current linguistic landscape of Senegal and whether attitudes towards language can play a role in shifting political tides in this newly democratic country. My research draws on the social media presence of two powerful political figures: Macky Sall and Ousmane Sonko. The study is ongoing, but a preliminary analysis reveals contrasting linguistic strategies between the two political figures, with the former predominantly using colonial French and the latter embracing national language use. The success of the PASTEF party in the 2024 election suggests the decreased status of colonial French in postcolonial Senegal. The question now is whether one national language will envelop the rest. 

Sophia Hawk is a fourth year undergraduate student double majoring in Global Studies and Linguistics with a minor in Teaching English as a Second Language. She studied abroad in Dakar last spring, which sparked her interest in the linguistic geography of Senegal. This research was conducted to fulfill her undergraduate Honors thesis requirements.

Dustin Laufenberg

When Organizing Becomes Tetris-ing: Examining the semantic meaning of brand-denominal verbs in English

A brand name is technically a "proper adjective" used to modify a generic product/service name (e.g. 'Kleenex tissues' instead of just 'Kleenex'), but outside of corporate and legal scenarios, they are rarely thought of as such. In everyday English speech, we tend to hear trademarks come up in the form of nouns and verbs. As the part of speech shifts, the semantic meaning can broaden from exclusively indicating the trademark in question to covering an entire class of products (Clankie 2000). One can understand that Velcroing something to the wall involves the use of hook-and-loop fasteners, whether the fasteners are actually Velcro or some other generic version - but what about when someone says their cat was Velcroed to them all day, where a literal interpretation is not generally acceptable? Brand-denominal verbs in cases like this are different; their semantic scope goes outside of the original product/service class. I conducted a survey of 30 English speakers about brand-denominal verbs in literal and non-literal contexts. The data indicate that certain features of a given product/service are consistently lexicalized more often than others, and product names are accepted in non-literal constructions at a higher rate than service names. 

Dustin Laufenberg is a senior undergraduate student majoring in linguistics. His primary areas of interest are historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and semantics in innovative use of language.

Emily Posson

Differences Across Dialects: Consonant and vowel length distinctions in Northern Sámi

Western dialects of Northern Sámi are known to possess the rare phenomenon of a three-way length distinction in consonants. Meanwhile, the Eastern dialects have previously been described as lacking this phenomenon. While consonants have generally held center stage in discussions on Northern Sámi, there appears to be interactions with the vowels surrounding the consonants that add to the contrast. These interactions are the focus of the analysis. Additionally, this project has revealed that at least some Eastern speakers do have the three-way contrast, despite previous reports. 

Emily is in the second year of the Linguistics MA program of the University of Minnesota. Her academic interests lie primarily in fieldwork, endangered languages, phonetics, and phonology.
 

Karina Resler

Calming Sounds Versus Harsh Realities: An analysis of verbal and nonverbal components in a children’s picture book

The growing climate crisis demands the need to reframe how society views and treats the environment. Stibbe (2020) informs us that one of the most important roles of an Ecolinguist is to reframe harmful societal stories. Stibbe (2020) does a preliminary discussion on how to reframe these views in general. I ask: how can we reframe these views for young people? I claim that climate-centered children’s picture books help children to become more Climate Literate. This is due to a mixture of the verbal and non-verbal components (language and pictures) within these books. Understanding these components will help us to understand how stories impact children. Through analyzing WE ARE Water PROTECTORS by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade, I discovered how these components reframe the readers' beliefs. Linguistically, I focus on sound symbolism of repeated sounds, word choice, and syntactic resonance (parallelism). Tannen (1982) indicates repetition in discourse helps listeners to connect ideas. As for the pictures, I follow Bang’s (2016) rules about how varying colors and shapes in pictures create certain emotions for the viewer. For WE ARE Water PROTECTORS I argue which components relate to which of three generated feelings: calmness, fear, or courage, and how this impacts the reader/listener to reframe harmful beliefs. 

Karina Resler is an Undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. They have worked for the Center for Climate Literacy during their undergraduate career which led them to their research in Ecolinguistics.

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