Congratulations

On November 27, HEIKAL BADRULHISHAM successfully defended his MA thesis on "Formulaicity of Affixes in Turkish". His examining committee members included Senior Supervisor Dr. John Alderete, Supervisors Dr. Maite Taboada and Dr. Paul Tupper, and External Examiner Dr. Julian Brooke of the University of British Columbia.

That same week on November 28, ARWA ALOSAIMI also successfully defended her MA thesis on "Diglossia and Codeswitching among Public Figures in the Arabian Gulf Region". Her examining committee members included Senior Supervisor Dr. Panos Pappas, Supervisors Dr. Suzanne K. Hilgendorf and Dr. Dean Mellow, and External Examiner Dr. Catherine Léger of the University of Victoria.

Events

S  November has been a busy month for the LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIA SERIES. In collaboration with UBC's Department of Linguistics, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) senior researcher Anne Christophe was invited as the first speaker of the Fall 2019 series with her presentation, "Bootstrapping the syntactic bootstrapper". 

Visiting scholar Takahito Shinya also presented a colloquium on November 14 with his talk on "Effects of intonational contour and duration on the identification of lexical stress by Japanese listeners".

S  The LINGUISTICS STUDENT UNION (LSU) CAREER NIGHT took place on November 13 and featured a panel of speakers who talked about their careers and the opportunities a linguistics degree can provide in the job market.

Speakers

• Associate professor Suzanne K. Hilgendorf
• PhD student Dasha Gluhareva, freelancer for TransPerfect Translations 
• BA linguistics alumnus Elisha Cooper, deputy executive officer at the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS) - Vancouver
• Linguistics and computing science joint major alumnus Vagrant Gautam, computational linguist at Dialpad
• Hanna Smith, audiologist at Wavefront Centre for Communication Accessibility 

Alumni

S  CLAUDIA SYLVESTER is a recent graduate of the inaugural Duncan MA cohort in Linguistics of a First Nations Language, and she is applying her degree to preserving and revitalizing Hul'q'umi'num' in her community. A cultural teaching assistant with the Cowichan Valley School District (SD79), Sylvester is leading the new Hul'q'umi'num' Word of the Week program by developing a weekly Youtube video series. You can watch the videos on SD79's Youtube channel. 

> THE MORE WE GET TOGETHER: HUL'Q'UMI'NUM' WORD OF THE WEEK PROGRAM LAUNCHED 

> You say good day, we say 'uy' skweyl

Podcast

S  PhD students DASHA GLUHAREVA and KELLI FINNEY were interviewed by SFU's Centre for Educational Excellence as part of their newly launched 'TA/TM Stories' podcast series. Both Gluhareva and Finney discussed the challenges they faced in making the transition from a teaching assistant (TA) to a sessional instructor. 

> Ta/TM Stories: THREE NEW PODCASTS EXPLORE THE TEACHING EXPERIENCES OF GRAD STUDENTS 

Publications

S  Lecturer HEATHER BLISS is one of the chapter contributors to the newly released Routledge Handbook of North American Languages. A copy of the book will soon be available at the SFU Library. Bliss is one of the authors for the book's eighth chapter, "Inverse Systems and Person Hierarchy Effects".

> THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN LANGUAGES 

S  professor MAITE TABOADA and alum VAGRANT GAUTAM published an op-ed together in The Tyee. Their article summarized their research examining more than 1.5 million news comments on The Tyee, Conversation Canada, and the Globe and Mail.

> Hey Tyee Commenters! Scholars Studied You. Here's What They Found

Presentations

S  Lecturer CLAUDIA WONG shared her teaching experience with blended learning and online pedagogies at the 5th annual DEMOFest. 

Can blended learning work in a language class? Successes and Setbacks 

Abstract:
This presentation will illustrate how a pilot project in blended learning was adopted in an English for Academic Purposes class for Science undergraduates. The procedures of running the class, the material development process, the learning outcomes and challenges faced by both material developers, language instructor and the students will be discussed. Prior training to language instructors about blended learning approach is essential to the successful implementation of it. Close monitoring of students’ learning process and giving constructive feedback in class are equally important in a blended classroom.

S  Professor JOHN ALDERETE was invited to present a colloquium at McGill University on November 15. Alderete presented on "speech errors and phonological patterns: Integrating insights from psycholinguistics and linguistic theory". 

S  Professor MAITE TABOADA presented at the Defence and Security Advisory Network (DSAN) workshop organized by the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS) Vancouver on November 20, 2019 at SFU Harbour Centre.  

The workshop is an opportunity for DSAN members to share their research on emerging threats in the public safety and security arena including the rise of violent transnational movements and normalization of extremism rhetoric. Taboada spoke on the ways to detect toxic comments and promote constructive comments or healthier online conversations. 

S In case you missed the Cormack Symposium presentations by associate professor PANOS PAPPAS and professor MARIANNE IGNACE, you can view the video recordings of the presentations on the SFU Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) Youtube channel.