Language Variation & Change workshop

April 19, 2024 | 3:30PM
Rosenwald 301

he Workshop on Language Variation & Change will be having a meeting this Friday, April 19, in Rosenwald 301 from 3:30 to 5:00 PM to hear our very own Gabriel Gilbert present a talk titled “The Hawaiian Directional System: Corpus Analysis and Implications for L2 Acquisition and Revitalization Pedagogy” (abstract attached and abbreviated below) about the results of a corpus study on the distribution of a class of morphemes known as directionals and its implications for L2 acquisition. 

For those who can’t attend in person, you can join us via Zoom (Meeting ID: 374 739 2371, Passcode: 384837).

As always, please visit the LVC website for more information about the workshop and our schedule this quarter. 

This study represents the first quantitative study of the Hawaiian (Austronesian, Oceanic, Polynesian) directional system, presenting a corpus analysis of the directionals based on a collection of oral interviews of Hawaiian L1s conducted during the 1970s. A complex part of Hawaiian grammar, these directionals represent a hallmark of L1 speech and an index of "authenticity" among the Hawaiian community (Hawkins 1982; Wong 1999; NeSmith 2002). The results of this study demonstrate clear distributions and corresponding meanings between the directionals and their related predicates, with semantic extensions and nuances illuminated by both diachronic and comparative analyses. Finally, this study addresses how the insights of this work can empower L2 acquisition of more complex paradigms and aspects of L1 grammar, exploring how further linguistic analysis can enrich pedagogy and address community concerns on L2 variety divergence from L1 speech.