story by Grace “G” Sorensen and Rebecca Shields, photos by Rachyl Hietpas
The 20th annual Workshop in General Linguistics (WiGL) took place over this past weekend, running from Thursday afternoon to Saturday evening March 12-14.
At this annual student conference, organized and run by the UW-Madison Linguistics Student Organization, both undergraduate and graduate students meet to share and discuss their research, and to connect with peers from institutions across the country and world.
The event kicked off online at 2 pm on Thursday, with virtual talk and poster sessions, followed by in-person events in Helen C. White Hall starting on Friday. The Friday morning session was opened by Dr. Rajiv Rao, Director of Language Sciences at UW-Madison, who welcomed participants and thanked everyone for their hard work to make the workshop possible this year.
The event featured two keynote speakers: Dr. Jacqueline Brixey, “Technology for Indigenous Languages,” and Dr. L.J. Randolph Jr., “Resisting, Reflecting, and Reimagining: A Journey Toward Liberatory Linguistics in World Language Education.”
Saturday began and ended with talks, with a session of poster presentations occurring midday. In addition to UW-Madison, presenters at this year’s WiGL included students from Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan, The Cherokee Nation, Coastal Carolina University, Dartmouth College, Georgetown, Hendrix College, Ohio University, University of Kansas, University of New Mexico, and UW-Milwaukee.
Overall there were 42 presentations and posters featured at the workshop, in addition to the two keynote speakers. The following are the winners of this year’s “Best Abstract” award:
- Noun Type and Quantitative Influences on the Sentence Production of the Mandarin Optional Plural Marker “men”
Pu Meng, George Mason University - The effect of accent on children and adults’ word learning
Emily Bagan & Margarita Kaushanskaya, UW-Madison - SVCs What they tell us about exceed comparative constructions
Abena Agyeiwaa Amoh-Yankyera, University of Kansas - Creating a root-based dictionary for the Cherokee Language
Charlie ᏣᎵ McVicker, ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ (Cherokee Nation)
We are so grateful and proud of our student organization for all the hard work they put into organizing such a successful annual event!
