Posts tagged lolcats

In between reading the internet and letting you know about cool linguistics things I’m somewhere in the midst of writing my PhD. My project involves recording the previously undocumented dialect of Lamjung Yolmo, which is spoken in Nepal. While I try not to subject you to the finer details too often, I have a couple of exciting things on the horizon that I thought I would share.

First, I’ve had a couple of papers accepted for the Australian Linguistics Society annual conference in December. The first it a paper about gesture, and how people understand it. This is based on work I did back in honours - but I never gave it a proper airing back then so I’m looking forward to finally getting it out there. The second paper is with my friend Jill Vaughan, looking at LOLcats and LOLspeak. It’s a rather new area for both of us, but quite fertile. I’ll post more about it in upcoming months. Looks like a great line-up for the conference this year, I’ll be sure to report back on highlights.

Second, I’m participating in my University’s round of the Three Minute Thesis. Basic premise: explain your thesis in under three minutes. Last year I came third at the University of Melbourne final. I’m already through to the semi-final this year, so here’s hoping I can do better this year. The talk mainly focuses on the dictionary I’m helping speakers of Lamjung Yolmo write.

Third, I’m locking in my final fieldtrip to Nepal for Jan/Feb next year. The country is a rich source of tales about linguistics and me making a fool of myself and I’m really excited to be getting back there!

Finally, The Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity (RNLD) are holding a two day symposium this week entitled “strengthening language maintenance though cooperative training strategies.” It is a chance for people working to promote/revive/document endangered languages to get together and talk about ways to make that happen. I’m really looking forward to it!