Another member of our faculty, Salikoko Mufwene, has also been keeping a brisk pace with his scholarly activity of late. His recent publications range from several chapter contributions to new books on the evolution of language, language change and global Englishes to a co-authored peer-reviewed article on “Building social cognitive models of language change” (Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13: 464-469).

Sali has also given several public lectures (in Montreal and the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association) and radio interviews on both Radio Canada International (on African contributions to creole language varieties and cultures) and BBC “Word of Mouth” (on creoles and media representation of nonstandard dialects).

Victor Friedman has kept himself busy after returning to Chicago last fall after a year in Eastern Europe. His recent activities include a paper on Macedonian dialectology and Balkan dialectology, as well as an article entitled “Turkish Infinitives in Balkan Romani” in the Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics of the World’s Languages (ed. Martin Ball, Routledge), coming out this year. In November and December, he traveled widely, from Salt Lake City to Boston to the University of Cyprus, speaking variously about Balkan dialects, language policy, and even the topic of violence in Balkan literature.

Victor also received the distinction of the 2009 Annual Award for Outstanding Contributions to Scholarship from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages.

Between January and April 2010, he is scheduled to give papers at the LSA, UC Berkeley (Slavic linguistics), Melbourne (Macedonian and Balkan linguistics), Izmir (Balkan Music), and OSU (Seventeenth Biennial Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Linguistics, Literature and Folklore), so watch for those.

Victor Friedman, on foreign leave from the Slavic department, continues his tour of Europe and the Balkans. In addition to several recent papers, presentations, and invited public lectures through Macedonia, Victor also had the honor of receiving the Krste P. Misirkov Liftetime Achievement Award for contributions to Macedonian Scholarship from the Ramkovski Foundation in Skopje. Amazing!

Meanwhile, Salikoko Mufwene has a good deal of new work to report. Publications include “Some offspring of colonial English are creole” in Vernacular universals vs. contact-induced language change; and “Kituba, Kileta, or Kikongo: What’s in a name?” in Naming Languages in Sub-Saharan Africa: Practices, Names, Categorisations, as well as a number of appearances both as an invited and accepted speaker at a number of conferences and the University of Sao Paolo.

For more complete recent bibliographies of each of these linguists, click here: Continue reading →