UIUC Students and Faculty Shine at 2024 LSA

Date
01/19/24


The 2024 (Centennial) Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America took place January 4- January 7 in New York City.

The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) was founded in 1924 to advance the scientific study of language and its applications. LSA plays a critical role in supporting and disseminating linguistic scholarship both to professional linguists and to the general public. The LSA Annual Meeting is the premier gathering of linguistics professionals and students from throughout the profession and around the world. It is an unparalleled opportunity to share research, network, and socialize with your colleagues from academia, industry, and government. The Annual Meeting includes a number of activities geared to professional development for linguists at all stages of their careers and contains many programs and events of interest to students, who make up one-third of attendees

 

Cake with centennial LSA logo in blue icing
This year's LSA featured a centennial celebration

 

The UIUC Linguistics Department was represented at the centennial LSA in a large number of exciting ways: 
 

Awards

Three members of the UIUC community were recognized during the LSA Awards Ceremony on January 6th.

Professor Silvina Montrul ‘s "Native Speakers, Interrupted" (Cambridge University Press, 2023) was selected as the winner of this year’s Leonard Bloomfield Book Award. 

Linguistics PhD Student Allison T. Casar received the Committee on Gender Equity in Linguistics Travel Award.

From the UIUC Spanish and Portuguese Department, Luis David Gaytán-Soto received the Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics Committee (CEDL) Travel Grant.

Left to right: Allison Casar, Dr. Silvina Montrul, Luis David Gaytán-Soto
Left to right: Allison Casar, Dr. Silvina Montrul, Luis David Gaytán-Soto

 

Talks

Several PhD Students in the UIUC Linguistics Department gave talks about their work during the LSA conference.

 

Joseph F. Beckwith, whose research interests include historical linguistics and morphology,  presented his work Spanish Strong Verbs and Morphomic Theory: A corpus-based linguistic analysis.

Allison T. Casar, a researcher in sociolinguistics, presented their work Slur reclamation and metalinguistic discourse among LGBTQ speakers.

Joshua Dees, along with SpanPort PhD Student Katie VanDyne, presented their work with Linguistics PhD Student Anna Romaniuk: The CΔG and Polish causative/anticausative deadjectival verbs. (January 6). These three researchers have varying research interests, including syntax and morphology. 

Joshua Dees and Katie VanDyne at 2024 LSA
Joshua Dees and Katie VanDyne

 

Allison Casar at 2024 LSA
Allison Casar

 

Joe Beckwith presenting at 2024 LSA
Joseph Beckwith

UIUC was represented in other ways at LSA talks this year, including Katie VanDyne, from the Spanish and Portugues Department presenting Relating the size and the specifier: Contrasts in intermediate wh-movement. 

Katie VanDyne LSA 2024
Katie Van Dyne

 

Additionally, UIUC Ling PhD Alumna Tatiana Luchkina presented her work completed with UIUC Professor Tania Ionin and UIUC Ling PhD Alumna Maria Goldshtein:  Focus identification in a pitch accenting language with flexible constituent order: The case of Russian.

UIUC Ling BA Alumnus M Angel presented his work, The phonology of Emoji: An analysis of the B Button Emoji. 

 

Posters and Organized Sessions

Professor Aida Talić presented her poster You don’t need a definite article to have a DP: A view from Telugu domain of N and A. 

Aida with her LSA Poster
Aida Talić

Luis David Gaytán-Soto (From UIUC’s Spanish and Portuguese Department), Joshua Dees (UIUC Linguistics PhD Student) presented in an organized session with Miranda McCarvel, Iara Mantenuto,  David Bowie, and Tran Truong. This session discussed  Identifying, understanding, and supporting diverse first-generation scholars in linguistics.

Josh Organized Session
Joshua Dees
Luis Organized Session
Luis David Gaytán-Soto

Additionally, UIUC MATESL alumna, Dr. Alexandra Johnston (with. Dr. Nancy Frishberg, Fishbird Consulting), held an organized session on “Professional careers for linguists outside of academia: The new role of faculty in advising linguistics students”

 

 

Overall, the students and faculty of UIUC’s Linguistics Department were very well represented at the Linguistics Society of America this year! Great work to all of our hard-working professors and students!

 

A photo of UIUC Participants in 2024 LSA
From left to right:   Amelia Tighe (attendee), Josh Dees (presenter), Joe Beckwith (presenter), Aylin Coşkun Kunduz (session chair), Silvina Montrul (award recipient), Aida Talić (presenter) Allison Casar (presenter/recipient), Luis David Gaytán-Soto (presenter/recipient)