This Forum Lecture is supported through a generous grant awarded to the 8th Biennial Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology by the National Science Foundation.

The Ken Hale Chair is supported through a generous matching grant awarded to the Linguistic Society of America by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Maximum likelihood fitted logistic regression provide a statistical framework for theory-driven investigation of multiple effects on a binary outcome (such as whether a subject answers a question correctly; whether a speaker chooses a passive or an active realization of a transitive event; or whether a theoretically possible phonological word exists in the actual lexicon of a given language). If handled appropriately, logistic regression can simultaneously assess the partial effects of multiple input variable (a.k.a. independent variables, predictors) onto this outcome. Model comparison between different logistic regression models provides a systematic way to compare hypotheses (theories) given their data coverage and given the theories' complexity (cf. Occam's razor). Logistic regression also provides ways to compare effect sizes to assess the relative contributions of multiple effects on the overall data pattern. For more information on the case studies and prerequisites, and to register, see the website above.

This weekly tutorial will complement, but not depend upon, George Lakoff's course on "Semantics, grammar, and political linguistics in NTL" (LSA 127). The Neural Theory of Language (NTL) is concerned with the question of how the brain, a biological structure that evolved to run a body, can give rise to meaningful thought and language. The tutorial will explore Embodied Construction Grammar (ECG), a form of computational linguistics whose notational system links directly to models of neural computation and cognitive linguistics. This will include practical exercises with the ECG workbench and analyzer (http://ecgweb.pbworks.com). Background text: Jerome Feldman, From Molecule to Metaphor (2006).

Multilevel (or mixed) linear models provide efficient ways to model or analyze continuous data (durations, reaction times, gradient acceptability, looking times, formant ratios, etc.) while controlling for random effects (e.g. subject, speakers, items). If appropriately applied, they can even be used to analyze highly unbalanced data such as from corpora, which is typical in linguistic analyses. These models (along with multilevel logit models for categorical outcomes) are also of interest to sociolinguists (failure to account for random subject effects when investigating between-speaker [e.g. social] differences is problematic; see also Johnson 2009). I will use a large database of word duration measures from spontaneous speech to show how linear mixed models can be used to assess the partial effect of of multiple variables on a continuous outcome (word duration) while dealing with common challenges to regression models (collinearity, outliers, overfitting), and while accounting for individual speaker differences via random effect modeling (different speakers speak differently fast). The primary goal is to show what can be done with mixed models and how to do it (e.g. residualization, effect comparison, modeling of non-linearities) and what it means to make certain decisions during the modeling. For more information on the case studies and prerequisites, and to register, see the website above.

Provide feedback on your experiences with the Linguistic Institute; share your thoughts about the LSA; and find out more about the LSA and its activities. Students at the Linguistic Institute are invited to join David Robinson, the LSA's Director of Membership and Meetings, for pizza, salad, and beverages.

7:00 — 8:00 pm
Franz Boas (1858-1942) (PBS, 1980, 59 min.): A portrait of "the father of American anthropology," this film intercuts archival photographs and motion pictures, including work by photographer Edward Curtis and film footage shot by Boas himself, with recent film from the Pacific Northwest. It was in the Pacific Northwest that Boas made repeated field trips at the turn of the century, to work among the Kwakiut'l. Reflections and anecdotes by scholars, former students of Boas, and the Kwakiut'l themselves are interwoven with Boas' own words, taken from journals, letters, and other writings, to tell the story of this remarkable man.

8:15 — 9:15 pm
Q'átuw'as: People Gathering Together (NFB, 1997, 58 min.): For thousands of years the great ocean-going canoe sustained the cultural and spiritual traditions of coastal First Nations. Yet the 20th century saw the virtual disappearance of these sacred vessels. In the 1980's, Native people of the Northwest Coast embarked on an emotional voyage of rediscovery. Reclaiming their ancient maritime heritage, they carved majestic canoes from cedars that were living hundreds of years before Europeans arrived in the Pacific Northwest. Crews from 30 First Nations then set out in 1993 on a remarkable journey, paddling hundreds of kilometers along ancient waterways to an historic gathering of more than 3000 people at Bella Bella, British Columbia. This film powerfully documents this rebirth of the ocean-going canoe and celebrates the healing power of tradition and the resurgence of Northwest Coast indigenous culture.

Bay Area Industrial Linguists (BAIL) is an informal organization of Industrial Linguists — professional linguists who work on language-related issues and technologies outside of academia. Some of us work in the field of Computational Linguistics or Speech Technology in companies or research organizations. Others work in text-oriented fields as Information Technology specialists or legal or medical discourse analysts. Still others work as translators, legal analysts, applied psycholinguists and so on. While we share with our colleagues in universities a common love of language and passion for linguistic investigation, our daily work lives are very different. While Industrial Linguists may do theoretical research, publish in scholarly journals and present papers at scientific conferences, we also derive deep satisfaction as well as career advancement from the impact we make on problems in the world.

At this meeting, after a brief introduction of the organization, several young linguists recently graduated with degrees in Linguistics will talk about their experiences as Industrial Linguistics, how they came to choose to work outside of academia, what they do on the job and how they envision their careers developing in the future. After the formal meeting, we will have the opportunity to socialize and network with each other. We look forward to meeting you.

A 23-minute documentary produced in Russia, showing a return trip by Moscow linguists Alexander Kibrik and Sandro Kodzasov to Xinalugh (Azerbaijan), where a one-village, isolate-branch East Caucasian language is spoken. A team description of the Xinalugh language published in 1972 was the first in a series of linguistically sophisticated multi-author field grammars of East Caucasian languages that have come to define the Moscow linguistic school and have made the East Caucasian languages accessible to linguists. Recently Kibrik and Kodzasov have returned to some of their early field sites to expand and update grammar, dictionary, and text coverage. This film depicts one such trip and gives a good feel for what field linguists actually do to produce a description. (You may have seen the film "The Linguists" produced by the National Geographic Society. This Moscow documentary is less sumptuous but probably more revealing about the process of fieldwork.)