We are happy to announce our upcoming fall colloquium series!
There are three talks scheduled for this quarter. All of our meetings will be held in Mary Gates Hall Room 231. All talks are scheduled at 3:30 pm and refreshments will be provided after the talk.
See below for more information including speakers and dates:
- November 1st: Rachel Bristol (UW Information School): "Negotiating Knowledge Through Conversation"
- Talk abstract:
Conversational interaction occurs against a layered backdrop of what speakers know in common and what they do not. Speakers must say enough so that their listeners understand them but must simultaneously avoid telling their listeners things that they already know. Language embedded within interaction affords a variety of tools that enable users to express and negotiate their relative access to and authority over knowledge in various domains. In this talk, I will share findings which describe patterns of epistemic expression in conversation as well as social norms that govern those patterns. These findings draw on qualitative and quantitative analysis of naturalistic conversation and data from speaker judgment studies. - Speaker Biography
Dr. Rachel Bristol is a lecturer in the iSchool who specializes in interdisciplinary education. She is dedicated to discovering and promoting pedagogical practices that create inclusive learning spaces. Her research centers on the ways that authority over knowledge is communicated and negotiated in human interaction. She is fascinated by language and the way it interlaces with brains, minds, and societies, and has studied language from the perspective of many different academic disciplines. Dr. Bristol holds a PhD in Cognitive Science from the University of California San Diego, an MA in Linguistics from the University of Delaware, and a BA in English from the University of Oregon.
- Talk abstract:
NOTE: *** To accommodate our speaker's dietary restrictions, please refrain from bringing any snacks/food which contain NUTS into the room.***
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- November 22nd: Ernesto Cuba (UW Information School) "Enregisterment of a Peruvian queer argot: What transgender women think about Lóxoro, their supposed 'secret language'"
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- December 6th: Kristi Winter (UW) and Caitlin Golden (LinkedIn): "Cross-Cultural Learnings From Our Virtual Sign Language Exchange Series"
Dec 6th Talk abstract:
The average sign language student rarely gets the opportunity to explore sign languages and Deaf culture on a global scale. In our presentation, representatives from the sign language departments at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and Universität Hamburg in Germany will discuss how our virtual sign language exchange program is changing that by creating a more accessible connection between L2-learers of different sign languages, in our case American Sign Language (ASL) and German Sign Language (DGS). During these sessions, Deaf native sign language teachers of both languages have the opportunity to lead lessons on the vocabulary of their language and participate in learning a new sign language along with the students. Communication is always direct, without interpreters present. The purpose of this exchange series, currently on its third round, is to foster cross-cultural understanding between sign language students (Battison & Jordan, 1976; Mindess, 2014). We thereby hope to encourage students’ burgeoning pursuits at a graduate, doctorate, or career-level.
As the world becomes more interconnected, there is an ever-growing need to make cross-cultural understanding a foundational component of academic curricula in our field. As such, the ultimate goal of our program is to help train current students, who are or will become the next generation of sign language interpreters, researchers, and academics, to ask new questions and tackle new challenges facing Deaf communities from a global perspective. Our exchange series also addresses questions with regards to linguistic similarities and differences between ASL and DGS, and why it’s important to understand the rich diversity of the sign language ecosphere (Chen Pichler & Koulidobrova, 2016; Noodin et al., 2019).
Our presentation will provide more detail on the background for the exchange, the pros and cons of the design of our sessions and what will be next for our program. We are especially excited to discuss future directions, as we have recently opened up this program to additional universities, and expect our following exchange round to include schools, e.g. in the UK, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Colombia.
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You can also check our departmental Trumba calendar for the most up to date information.
All members of the UW and the public are welcome to attend these events. We look forward to seeing you there!