The Department of Linguistics is proud to announce the 2023 Outstanding Teaching Award winners:

• Jean Costa-Silva
• Ryan McDonald
• Artin Nasirpour

The Outstanding Teaching Assistant (OTA) award is administered by UGA's Center for Teaching and Learning and sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Instruction. This award recognizes teaching assistants who demonstrate superior instructional skills while serving in the classroom or laboratory.

This month, the Linguistics department recognizes Jean Costa-Silva for our DEI Spotlight feature.

Jean recently completed his Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) training with UGA. The training consists of one mandatory module and four elective modules, allowing trainees to tailor their CDI experience to their interests and background.

 The Linguistics department is excited to announce that our Brainvision EEG machine is up and running! Last week, Dr. Dustin Chacón recorded the brain waves of our first brave subject, Ph.D. student Donnie Dunagan.

The machine works by using sensors on a subject’s scalp to measure their brain activity, especially in response to certain stimuli. The EEG machine can be used to examine the brain’s responses to words, sounds, and sentences.

This month, the Linguistics department recognizes Ph.D. student Seaira Lett for our DEI Spotlight feature. Seaira was awarded  the Willson Center Graduate Research Award this past month for her study of the Chuj language, a Mayan language primarily spoken in Guatemala.

The grant will be used to cover travel expenses and to compensate Chuj speakers who will be interviewed for Lett’s research. Lett hopes to address the phonology, semantics, and morphosyntax of the Chuj language in her research.

This month, the Linguistics department recognizes Ph.D. student Seaira Lett for our DEI Spotlight feature.

Seaira was awarded the Willson Center Graduate Research Award this past month for her study of the Chuj language, a Mayan language primarily spoken in Guatemala. The grant will be used to cover travel expenses and to compensate Chuj speakers who will be interviewed for Lett’s research. Lett hopes to address the phonology, semantics, and morphosyntax of the Chuj language in her research.

Using computational methods, this study quantifies context coherence in the discourse, and examines how it supports omitted pronouns in Chinese, Brazilian Portugese, and Spanish. This study discusses the effect of verb syncretism and its effect on pro-drop. 

Please join the Linguistics department in congratulating Dr. Peggy Renwick, who was named the Graduate School Outstanding Mentor for 2023. 

The Outstanding Mentor award "encourages and rewards innovation and effectiveness" in advising students throughout their academic journey at UGA. 

Congratulations to Linguistics PhD student, Meg Fletcher, winner of the Fulbright-Hays award for the Zulu Group Project Abroad!

Congratulations to our PhD students Austin Brailey-Jones, Jean Costa-Silva, Meg Fletcher, Hyunjin Lee, and Betsy Miller, and as well as Linguistics faculty Dr. Jon Forrest and Linguistics Alumni Dr. Katherine Ireland who presented the results of their research at the Southeastern Conference in Linguistics (SECOL), which was held at the University of Mississippi March 9-11, 2023.

Austin Brailey-Jones and Betsy Miller presented their paper, "Comparing Palatalization of /t d/ across Word Boundaries in UK English".

We are pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for the 2023 SPARK Undergraduate Research Awards. Thanks to a generous endowment created by Michael H. and Nancy E. Scarbrough, the Department of Linguistics is able to offer funding to support undergraduate research projects. There are two categories of awards, which are described below.

(1) Undergraduate travel awards