Summer 2024 Newsletter
Greetings from the Institute of Linguistics!
As institute director, I’m delighted to share some goings-on from IoL in our inaugural alumni newsletter. I joined IoL in 2012—specializing in syntax and fieldwork—and became director in 2022.
Colleagues, students, and I have been busy with projects that take us around the globe and cover a wide swath of topics. Our long tradition in linguistic fieldwork, stewarded by Professor Emerita Nancy Stenson, has grown in recent years, with numerous major projects focusing on describing and analyzing understudied languages, such as Professor Diti Bhadra’s National Science Foundation project.
Much of this work is close to home, in partnership with local speech communities, including Professor Hooi Ling Soh’s UMN HMong Corpus Project and our many research initiatives centered around Ojibwe and Dakota. True to the legacy of Professor Jeanette Gundel (1942 - 2019), our work continues to emphasize linguistics’ interdisciplinary connections and place within the cognitive sciences, from new courses like The Human Mind & Human Languages and Language & Computers to Professor Amanda Dalola’s research on social media and linguistics.
As always, we are especially happy to open our doors to others. In January 2024, local middle and high school students came to campus for the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad—a new annual tradition! In May 2025, we will host the 56th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, our largest event in over a decade.
We Would Love to Hear from You
Our alumni continue to take a variety of paths after graduating and we are often lucky to learn from them in colloquium talks, Grad Coffee Hour events, and undergraduate forums. Among other alumni, we’ve heard from Colette Feehan (BA ‘14) on her path from linguistics to audiobook directing, from Michael Sullivan (PhD ‘16) on his work on linguistics and language reclamation, and from Kyle Marek-Spartz (BA ‘13), who helped us create a video for prospective students reflecting on his linguistics major.
If you are interested in connecting with current students to share your experiences and insights, or simply giving us an update, we would love to hear from you!
If you have some time to share about your experience as a UMN linguistics student, we’d be happy to work with you on a profile that we could share on our website. Or, if you just want to drop us a line to say hello, send us an email at ling@umn.edu
Claire Halpert
Director, Institute of Linguistics
Alum Aandeg Jedi Muldrew (MA '22) and graduate student Dustin Gerald Morrow Aagimewikamig (BA '21, MA '23) are voice talents in this language revitalization project, playing Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi respectively.
A student of the world, recent alum Sophia Hawk (BA ‘24) finds that understanding language creates greater understanding of people.
A group of linguistics students developed a guide for prospective, current, and incoming Indigenous graduate students, including Mskwaankwad Rice, who discusses the importance of the project, which aims to make this stage of education more accessible.
Read “Linguistic Indigenous Language Revitalization and Resources"
The new Dakota language major connects both heritage and non-heritage students with the Dakota language and traditions. Linguistics PhD student C̣aƞte Máza, a Dakota instructor, is featured.
Associate Professor Amanda Dalola discusses the potential TikTok has as a teaching tool for spoken vernacular. Dalola has helped create a database of more than 300 TikToks that instructors can use in their French courses.
Amanda Dalola and Claire Halpert were interviewed about the evolution of slang terms over time for the Minnesota Daily’s podcast.
Remembering Jeanette Gundel (1942 - 2019)
We remember our colleague, mentor, and friend Professor Jeanette Gundel, a pillar of linguistics and cognitive science at the University for nearly four decades, whose vision and voice left an indelible mark on our programs and the members of our community.
