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the UVic sociolinguistics research lab

Established January 2010.

The SocioLinguistics Research Lab (SLRL) is located in Clearihue D228c. It currently hosts 3 iMac workstations, networked via a dedicated server. It also has free workspace for students with portable laptops. The SLRL hosts LaBB-CAT, a browser-based, digitally interactive database and search engine that enables researchers to search across (and interact with) sound files. The SLRL is also home to iSLR Field Recorder™, a custom iPod/iPad App for sociolinguistic fieldwork that was designed for us by the department’s resident programmer/consultant.

The Sociolinguistics Research Lab currently houses (and holds site licenses for) the following corpora, all of which are available for use by students and faculty in the Department:

Private corpora:

Canterbury Regional Corpus, New Zealand (compiled 2006)

St. John’s Youth English Corpus (compiled 2000)

Survey of Vancouver English (compiled 1978–1981)

Spoken English in Victoria Corpus (compiled 2010– )

Diachronic Corpus of Victoria English, DCVE (under construction)

Synchronic Corpus of Victoria English, SCVE (under construction)

Public corpora:

Buckeye Speech Corpus

Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, 2nd edition

Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English

Penn Parsed Corpus of Modern British English

International Corpus of English: Canada

International Corpus of English: Hong Kong

International Corpus of English: India

International Corpus of English: Jamaica

International Corpus of English: Philippines

International Corpus of English: Singapore

International Corpus of English: South Africa

Ongoing research and current RAs in SLRL:

Although just established in January 2010, the lab has a number of projects already underway:

1. Intensification in longitudinal perspective

RAs: Michael Wynne, spring 2010; Stefan Virtue, spring and summer 2010; Taylor Marie Young, fall 2010–spring 2011; Jennifer Lancaster, fall 2011–spring 2012

DATA: the ONZE Archive

So far this work has been presented at CVC IV, June 2010, and NWAV 39, November 2010.

2. A variationist perspective on grammaticalization and its consequences for linguistic theory

RA: Luke Maynard, fall 2010–

DATA: the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English

Some of the preliminary points from this project were presented at LSA 85 in January 2011.

3. Between the stall walls*

RAs: Alesia Malec and Nick Picard, fall 2010–spring 2011

DATA: Victoria graffiti

* This was the title of one of my student’s papers in LING395 (spring 2010), the inspiration for this project

4. Variable, more variable, variablest? 100 years of adjective comparison

RA: Alesia Malec, fall 2010–spring 2011

DATA: the ONZE Archive

This work was presented at Methods XIV in August 2011.

5. Explorations in local Indigenous Englishes

RA: Sheena Gering

DATA: in development

6. Internet language: part 1, Chatspeak; part 2, Emoticons

RAs: Rachelle Funk, Pamela Lehmann, Melissa Yue (fall 2011–spring 2012)

DATA: two online surveys [watch this space for the tiny url links to Lime Surveys]

7. The Victoria English Project (SSHRC-funded)

RAs, Diachronic: Taylor Marie Young, spring 2011; Pamela Lehmann, summer 2011–

RAs, Synchronic: Erin Hannah, summer 2011– ; Stefan Higgins, fall 2011– ; Wyatt Galloway, fall 2011– ; Alesia Malec, summer 2011– ; Carley Wachtin, summer 2011

DATA: DCVE (UVic Archives, BC Archives (spoken; written)); SCVE (spoken)

Some preliminary points from this project will be presented at NWAV 40 in October 2011; read the Times Colonist story here.

Visitors to SLRL:

1. Prof. Dr. Brigitte Halford, Associate Professor: Englisches Seminar, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, August 2010

2. David Lorenz, PhD student: Frequenzeffekte in der Sprache, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, September–November 2011

NEWS: Sociolinguistics in the news

Alex D’Arcy appeared on Shaw TV news (The Daily) in March 2011 to discuss chatspeak. Watch the story.

In November 2011, The Times Columnist ran a piece by Peigi McGillivray about the Victoria English Project. Access it here. Access the rest of the press on the Project (a UVic Top Story of 2011) via Alex’s research page.

NEWS: Students conferencing

Congratulations to Taylor Marie Young, who presented papers at NWAV 39 in San Antonio, Texas (November 2010), the 10^th Annual East-West Center International Graduate Student Conference on the Asia Pacific Region in Honolulu (February 2011), and NWAV 40 at Georgetown University (October 2011).

Congratulations also to Bridget Henley, who presented at CVC V (May 2011), and to Jennifer Lancaster, who presented a poster at BWTL 15 (December 2011) and who has just had a paper accepted for presentation at DiPVaC, to be held at the University of Salford this coming April.

NEWS: Change and Variation in Canada V / Changement et variation au Canada V

In May 2011, the UVic Sociolinguistics Lab hosted CVC V, a student-led conference that brings together researchers working within a variationist framework (1) on Canadian language varieties or (2) at Canadian institutions. CVC V marked the first time this event was held west of Ontario.

Curious about CVC VI? It’s going to be held in Montreal, jointly hosted by McGill and UQAM. Information can be found here.

Funding:

Standard Research Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: “Victoria English: Its development and current state” (2011–2014)

The lab has received funding from the following sources at the University of Victoria:

· a SSHRC Internal Research Grant, Faculty of Humanities (2010–2011)

· a SSHRC Internal Research Grant Top-Up Award, Office of Research Services (2011–2012)

· a 4A Internal Research Grant, Office of Research Services (2010–2011)

· the Work Study Program, Students Awards and Financial Aid (2010, 2010–2011, 2011–2012)

The lab has also received generous start-up support from the Faculty of Humanities at UVic and from the UVic Scholars’ Fund.