#linguistic fieldwork

[crustaceansingles]

(This is a pretty exciting answer to get when you're documenting a language.) (Also, I'm with the native speaker on this one.)

[lingthusiasm]

95: Lo! An undetached collection of meaning-parts!

Imagine you're in a field with someone whose language you don't speak. A rabbit scurries by. The other person says "Gavagai!" You probably assumed they meant "rabbit" but they could have meant something else, like "scurrying" or even "lo! an undetatched rabbit-part!"

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about how we manage to understand each other when we're learning new words, inspired by the famous "Gavagai" thought experiment from the philosopher of language WVO Quine. We talk about how children have a whole object assumption when learning language, and how linguists go about learning languages that are new to them through either translating standardized cross-linguistic wordlists known as Swadesh lists or staying monolingual and acting out concepts. We also talk about when our baseline assumptions are challenged, such as in categorizing kangaroos and wallabies by their hopping rather than their shape, and when useful folk categories, like "trees" and "fish" don't line up with evolutionary taxonomies.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements: We have new Lingthusiasm merch!

Imagine you're in a field with someone whose language you don't speak. A rabbit scurries by. The other person says "Gavagai!" You probably assumed they meant "rabbit" but they could have meant something else, like "scurrying" or even "lo! an undetached rabbit-part!" Inspired by the famous Gavagai thought experiment, these items feature a running rabbit and the caption "lo, an undetached rabbit-part!" in a woodblock engraving crossed with vaporwave style in magenta, indigo, teal, cream, and black/white on shirts, scarves, and more!

"More people have been to Russia than I have" is a sentence that at first seems fine, but then gets weirder and weirder the more you read it. Inspired by these Escher sentences, we've made self-referential shirts saying "More people have read the text on this shirt than I have" (also available on tote bags, mugs, and hats), so you can wear them in old-time typewriter font and see who does a double take.

Finally, we've made a design that simply says "Ask me about linguistics" in a style that looks like a classic "Hello, my name is..." sticker, and you can put it on stickers and buttons and shirts and assorted other portable items for when you want to skip the small talk and go right to a topic you're excited about.

Also, there are lots of other designs of Lingthusiasm merch, and we love to see your photos of it! Feel free to tag us @lingthusiasm on social media so we can see it out in the world.

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the word "do"! We talk about the various functions of "do" as illustrated by lyrics from ABBA and other pop songs, what makes the word "do" so unique in English compared to other languages, and the drama of how "do" caught on and then almost got driven out again

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 80+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Wikipedia entry for 'Indeterminacy of translation'

Wikipedia entry for 'Inscrutability of reference'

Wikipedia entry for 'Word learning biases'

Wikipedia entry for 'Swadesh list'

Wikipedia entry for 'Morris Swadesh'

The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus

Tumblr thread on how there's no such thing as a fish

Lingthusiasm bonus episode 'Is X a sandwich? Solving the word-meaning argument once and for all'

Monolingual fieldwork demonstration by Mark Sicoli on YouTube

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, and our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

[chronicillnesscaneffoffplease]

I’ve had a few “whoops this thing I stopped doing is actually helping me” moments recently.

I’ve felt wretched and like I was coming down with the flu recently. It felt more than my normal PEM symptoms, and I was really concerned. And then I realise it’s spring, a bunch of stuff is blooming, and it’s been sooooo windy. And I stopped taking antihistamines and my nasonex sometime last year (antihistamines bc we thought it might have been causing some side effects, nasonex bc I hate the sensation of nasal sprays and need motivation to use it). Pesky hayfever. Needless to say I’m feeling much better having restarted my regimen. I felt a bit silly that I could have avoided feeing miserable though.

I went out for an appointment yesterday in my “knock about the house” shoes that are podiatrist loathed (nil ankle support, nil arch support, worn down), rather than my lace up shoes with my orthotics. After that appointment, I thought I’d check out a new store that’s opened at the shops nearby. I ended up doing a LOT of walking at the shops and today my ankles are sooooo painful and my hips been acting up. I guess it’s good to know that my shoes and orthotics are doing good things in terms of symptom prevention (as well as better longer-term outcomes) but damn do I feel ouchie.

I’m framing it as “yay negative data also tells us important things” because I gotta remember it’s not my fault when these things happen but it is good to try learn from them. And frankly, when there’s so many things going on with your health and condition management as a disabled person, it’s okay when things fall through the cracks. It’s gonna happen. Especially when there’s lots of non-disability stuff going on too. It’s okay.

[ladydoesfieldwork]

At this point, I honestly don’t understand linguists anymore who work with a single informant in town, completely cut off from the speech community. I understand that it can be hard without transport, electricity, etc., but apart from the ethical importance of involving more than a small number of (young) speakers, an artificially created working environment can seriously distort the result.

For example, there is a fine line between borrowing and code switching/bilingualism, and unless you really immerse yourself into community life, you cannot distinguish one from the other.

[max1461]

Fun thing about being in a linguistics grad program is being able to say things like "my acquaintance who does fieldwork in the Amazon"

[chaotic-archaeologist]

Hi Reid! I have a question about the american college/uni system that I've been wondering about for a long time and you seem knowledgeable and friendly enough to maybe help: How big/long are your courses? Like, how many do you take every term? Is every course the same size? How many subjects do you generally study at the same time?

For context, I'm from Sweden and our course sizes are based on a point system, where 30 points is supposed to represent 20 weeks (a term) of full time studying (40 hours a week). It's common to take 30 point courses (usually divided into subcourses, say 4×7,5 points, two for the first half and two for the second half of a term (or 6×5 with three at a time)), but you can also pick smaller courses (usually 7,5 or 15 points taken at 50%) until you get 30 points.

I think my real question is how this translates. If people speak about a, say, linguistics 101 course, is that a 30 point or 7,5 point course? And do all your courses stretch over an entire term? Please help, I just want to know how to interpret people talking about their courseload

Hi there, sorry it's taken me a while to get to this—I've been very busy prepping for the class I'm teaching.

Every university here is different, and credits (how many points you get per class, and how many total points you need to graduate) also vary based on whether your school does quarters, trimesters, or semesters. My only experience has been with semesters, so that's what I'll focus on here.

Here, most classes are either 3 or 4 credits. A usual 3 credit class might meet twice a week for 1:15 minutes each time. A class might be four credits if it's a higher level seminar or discussion based class with a higher number of more difficult readings.

Classes that have both a lab and lecture component can be more (around 6, I think? I never took one), and then there are less difficult classes that usually only run for half the semester that might be 2 credits. For example, I took a half-semester costume design class my freshman year. Below is the official jargon that talks about how credits are determined.

The current nationally recognized standard, the Federal Credit Hour Standard, defines a three-credit course as three fifty-minute classes per week over a fifteen-week semester (including final exam week), or the equivalent (for courses using a non-traditional format such as blended or online learning). This standard assumes that each credit hour generates two hours of assigned work for every hour of in-class contact. Thus, the guiding rule is 45 hours of work per semester for each unit of credit. For laboratory courses or their equivalent, one credit hour is assigned for three hours of laboratory, workshop, studio, fieldwork, independent study, etc.

You can also (sometimes) take a class pass/fail, although usually that reduces the number of credits it is worth. Finally, you can audit a class, which means that you get access to the syllabus, do the readings, and show up, but you don't have to do any of the assignments. Audited classes are worth no credits, but they do show up on your transcript.

Our undergraduate classes are often numbered 100-400, with 100 level classes being introductory, and 400 level classes being highly specialized with prerequisite requirements. Graduate level classes are 500 or higher.

Credits are different than the grades you get. Grades are on a 4 point scale, where 4.0 would be 100%, with 70% being a 2.0 and the lowest passing grade. I'm attaching a picture of the grade breakdown from my own syllabus to show you how my current institution assigns grades to percentage points.

Most colleges/institution require you to earn a C in order to pass a class. If you get that C, you get the full amount of credits for the course, same as anyone who got an A. However, your Grade Point Average (GPA), which is calculated by taking the average of every grade you've gotten, will be lower than someone who got all As.

At most institutions, you have to take 12 credits a semester (so 4 classes for 3 credits each) in order to qualify as a full time student, which comes with certain privileges. Usually you can take up to 18 credits, although this may cost more if the school doesn't have a flat rate tuition.

Finally, with a grading system like this one, undergraduate students are expected to earn a total of 120 credits to complete their bachelor's degree.

As for course sizes, they can range from 200+ person lectures at the really big universities, to 5-12 person seminar/discussions for the higher level classes. Lab classes or more hands on options will be in the 20-30 person range. But it highly depends.

I know that's confusing. Hopefully that helps? -Reid

[official-linguistics-post]

requesting computational energy and fieldwork energy for the last linguistics projects i need to finish before i can just start thinking really hard about my thesis

GOOD LUCK, I BELIEVE IN YOU

don't think too hard about your thesis or your brain will explode tho. personal experience. brain explosion bad.

[yuurei20]

Rook Info Compilation part 2: Scents, Languages and "Fieldwork"

Rook usually avoids strong-smelling colognes and scents, making an exception for a perfume that was crafted specifically for him by Vil, that he wears only with his ceremonial robes for important school functions.

According to Trey and Vil he also seems to have an unusually exceptional memory. This may explain his implied proficiency with languages.

While translations do vary in quality, in the masquerade event it is implied that Rook interacts in French with people in another town, and like a native speaker. He also speaks mole language, which Ace insists is so obscure that only university animal linguists majors know it.

Rook is also flexible and unusually strong—moreso than he appears. To quote the guide book: “He is secretly very well-muscled. He almost never takes off his gloves for everyday tasks (in order to not leave any fingerprints behind)."

"His neck and arms are thicker than Vil’s. When weighing himself it was discovered that he is actually heavier than Trey, and he feigned surprise.” The guidebook also tells us, “All of his motions are over the top to the point that they seem insincere”.

Rook has a habit of grabbing onto students, dragging Epel bodily inside of Pomefiore despite his protests in a vignette, pulling Sebek close to feel the beating of his heart during Halloween and seizing Ruggie by the tail in order to pressure him for information.

Rook claims he can control his own heart rate, which would explain how he was able to once dupe Ortho’s lie detection test. He says, “A true enemy will never loom over you, a menacing glower in his eye. It is he who hovers in your periphery with a smile that you must be wary of.”

Unlike most other characters Rook is vocally disliked by many of the other students. Jade, Ruggie, Floyd and Malleus all express their distrust of him in their own ways. Malleus physically threatens him with a shotput across the nose when he senses that Rook is threatening Lilia.

Rook’s interests are not, however, limited to the non-human students. In his PE uniform vignette he solicits random human students whose names he does not seem to know and for a game of tag so that he might chase them around the grounds.

In the Phantom Bride event he hunts ghosts as well, assuring them that “nothing in the world can hide from me”. In a Phantom Bride voice line he says, “The more one’s quarry seeks to flee, the stronger the impulse to give chase. Dating and hunting aren’t so different at times.”

Rook often “hunts” his fellow students, appearing out of no where, joining conversations uninvited and once inviting Deuce, Ace, Grim and the player character to Pomefiore via an arrow shot into a hallway (archery is a hobby of his).

This is a habit that Rook refers to as “fieldwork”, but Vil clarifies as “meddling in the affairs of people from other dorms”.

While Epel insists that Rook is a “potionology expert” his expertise seems to pale in comparison to Leona’s abilities:

Leona instantly crafts a potion that Rook had told Epel “was so hard that is showed up on graduation tests, that even upperclassmen had trouble with it…there is no absolute, surefire recipe”.

Leona makes the potion specifically so that he would not have to deal with Rook.

[whales-are-gay]

thinking about the time i was doing linguistics fieldwork and met a bunch of ppl who were there to do geology fieldwork. we were all deranged about our specific fields of interest and we got to teach each other silly hyperspecific fun facts it was awesome

[gothhabiba]

Though it is common for Moroccans and linguist[s] alike to speak in homogenizing terms of a “Darija” or “Moroccan Arabic” that serves as the lingua franca in Morocco, it is important to emphasize that there is significant variation within Moroccan Arabic. Similarly, the way speakers imagine this difference and draw boundaries between different varieties of Moroccan Arabic has significant social and political implications, all of which is worthy of analytic attention. Ennaji claims that a dominant point of variation within Moroccan Arabic is that between urban varieties, colloquially referred to as mdini, and rural varieties known as ʻrubi (2005:59). He notes however that the broad categories of urban and rural varieties of Moroccan Arabic are becoming less representative of the physical locations in which people use the languages as massive urban migration over the past 50 years has resulted in rural varieties of Moroccan Arabic being spoken in urban centers such as Casablanca. Indeed, “casawi” ‘Casablancan Arabic’ is strongly associated with phonological and lexical features associated with ʻrubi varieties. In general, varieties of Moroccan Arabic considered ʻrubi are viewed as providing less social and economic capital to their speakers than mdini varieties.

[...] During my fieldwork, I often heard Moroccans reproduce stereotypes associating different regional varieties of Moroccan Arabic to specific qualities (imagined to be) represented by their speakers. For example, the variety associated with the town of Tangiers, is described by many as ‘sweet’ and ‘feminine’ whereas the variety associated with Casablanca is considered ‘rough’ and ‘coarse.’ Furthermore, the variety associated with Fes is often described as ‘sophisticated’ and ‘uptight,’ whereas the variety associated with Marrakech is described as ‘fun’ and ‘funny.’

— Jennifer Lee Hall, Debating Darija: Language Ideology and the Written Representation of Moroccan Arabic in Morocco (PhD dissertation), 2015, pp. 15-17.

Ennaji, Moha 2005 Multilingualism, Cultural Identity, and Education in Morocco. New York: Springer.

[badbatchposts]

Quiet Corners of the Galaxy, Chapter 8

While on a routine mission for Cid, the Bad Batch encounter a woman fleeing from the Empire. Crosshair suspects her seemingly free-spirited, nomadic existence is actually a cover for something else, but struggles to keep his attraction toward her in check as their personalities and ideals clash.

Relevant tags: Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut (it finally starts getting spicy in a couple more chapters!), Canon-Typical Violence, Alcohol Use

Chapters posted 1-2x weekly!

Read the full fic so far on AO3

Read previous chapters on Tumblr: Ch. 1 l Ch. 2 l Ch. 3 l Ch. 4 l Ch. 5 l Ch. 6 l Ch. 7

Chapter 8 summary: The Batch learns a little bit more about Dara, but Crosshair is still suspicious, and he really doesn't like the way things are going between her and Hunter.

Chapter Notes: WE GET A LITTLE BIT OF LOW KEY SMUT, FINALLY. But it's a slow-burn so we have a ways to go before we really GET THERE. Content: 18+, masturbation, sexual fantasy

“So, you were formerly a linguist?” Several hours later, standing at the bar in Cid’s parlor, Tech picked up the earlier thread of their conversation. When they had arrived at Cid’s, a particularly bloated-looking Twi’lek had emerged from her office, giving them all a cursory glance before depositing a case of credits with their employer and gesturing magisterially to the Rodian, who followed him out the door. Hunter had met with Cid to hammer out the details of their next job, and they were now winding down the night in the empty dive, the Trandoshan having long since retreated to her back rooms.

“A long time ago now,” Dara replied, taking a generous sip of her drink. “That’s how I first got traveling. Doing fieldwork, studying lesser-known languages.”

“Fascinating,” Tech said brightly. No doubt he was looking forward to interrogating Dara on the finer details of some of her research. However, before he could continue, Echo interrupted him.

“What made you stop?” the ARC trooper asked.

Wrecker, occasionally the most emotionally intelligent among them, elbowed him, probably leaving a bruise. “I don’t think she wants to talk about that,” he scolded, in what would have been a whisper, if he had ever actually learned how to speak quietly.

Dara smiled, a little sadly. “It’s okay, Wrecker. It was the war. I just couldn’t convince myself that it was worth doing anymore. You know—around all that destruction and death, it was hard to keep believing that studying words really mattered.” She shook her head, as if trying to clear it of painful thoughts. “Then the war ended, and it didn’t seem like the Empire would be much interested in preserving the languages or cultures they felt were beneath them. They’d rather just wipe them all out.”

Echo gave her shoulder a kind squeeze, although his expression was serious. “You might be right about that. But there are a lot of us out there that think those people are worth protecting, too.”

Dara nodded, looking at the clone with some warmth, then shrugged. “Anyway, I don’t mean to bring the mood down. What about you boys? You fought in the war, obviously, but you’re not like the other clones. You’re all enhanced, you said? Let me guess…” She glanced at each of them in turn. “Extra brawn,” she gestured at Wrecker. He posed, flexing his muscles, with a grin. “And Tech… extra brain.” He beamed smugly at her. “Echo…extra mechanics?” The ARC trooper flushed a little, and she winked at him.

Dara’s eyes then lit on Crosshair. She nodded assuredly, certain of her assessment. “Extra asshole.” The others chuckled knowingly as the sniper glared at her.

Finally, Dara’s gaze made its way to Hunter, and she lifted her eyebrows flirtatiously, a small smile playing across her lips. “What about you then? Where are you hiding all those enhancements?”

Hunter’s own expression settled into an easy, charming smirk. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”  

Tech adjusted his goggles and, either unaware of or choosing to ignore any subtext to their exchange, launched into an explanation. “He has significantly more perceptive senses than the average human, being able to see, hear, smell, and feel to a much keener degree, as well as being able to sense electromagnetic frequencies and combine all of this sensory input for the purposes of tracking.”

Dara gently bumped her shoulder against Hunter’s. “Sounds useful. In a lot of contexts,” she added suggestively. “How much can you sense, then?”

Hunter chuckled a little. “Let’s just say I know everything that happens on my ship.”

“Get a room,” Crosshair growled. Dara laughed and leaned over Hunter to reach behind the bar, helping herself to an unattended bottle of liquor. The sniper noticed that Sergeant gently hovered his hand across her lower back, guiding and steadying her as she popped back into her seat and began to refill all of their glasses.

One drink later—during which Crosshair eyed the pair darkly as Dara every so often let her hand rest on Hunter’s knee while she spoke to him, and the Sergeant repeatedly returned his own to linger on her back or at her elbow—the squad finally departed Cid’s, enroute to the Marauder to tuck in for the night before departing for their next mission.

But once they had exited the bar, before Dara could continue following the rest of the clones, Crosshair stopped in front of her, impeding her progress. “Wait. I need to talk to you,” he muttered.  

The others paused as well, looking at them questioningly. Dara sighed exasperatedly and gave them a shrug. “We’ll catch up.”

His brothers were barely out of sight before Crosshair pulled Dara into the nearest alley. He pinned her against the wall with one forearm across her chest. Dara hardly reacted, looking rather bored. “This isn’t talking,” she pointed out mildly.

Crosshair scowled. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but stay away from Hunter.” 

Dara rolled her eyes. He thought he must have been hurting her a little, but she continued to ignore the explicit threat behind his demand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Some people—normal people—just like to have a little harmless fun occasionally.” She quirked an eyebrow up. “Not you, I’m sure. But Hunter’s a big boy. I think he can decide for himself whether he wants to…” She paused briefly, running her tongue, ever-so-slightly, between her lips, as if savoring the words. “…play with me.”

The sniper snorted derisively and leaned closer, hardened eyes glued on hers. “Hunter couldn’t handle you.”

“Oh, and I suppose you could?” Dara murmured. Crosshair didn’t respond; he had realized that their faces were only inches away from each other, and for a moment all he could think about was the feel of her body pressed between himself and the cold, grimy wall. Unable to resist the impulse, he allowed his free hand to roam beneath the hem of her shirt, stroking with calloused fingers along the small of her back where Hunter had grazed her earlier. He gently traced upwards along her soft skin, noticing, with some surprise, as its smoothness was interrupted by the raised knot of a scar—not the subtle puckering formed by blaster fire that he had seen on her abdomen, but the welt left behind from a deep gash.

Crosshair could feel Dara’s fingers probing him similarly, tracing along the gaps between the armor plates at his waist. Neither of them looked away. Her lips ghosted along his jaw to his ear, and he felt the warm tickle of her breath as she opened her mouth to whisper to him.

“I’d rather fuck every other clone in the galaxy, starting with each one of your brothers, than be with you.”

With a determined shove and well-placed kick, Dara freed herself, stalking off toward the Marauder and leaving a momentarily stunned Crosshair alone in the alley before he finally shook himself and followed, trailing far behind.

By the time he reached the ship Dara was nowhere to be found. The others sat in the cabin, still chatting. Hunter looked at him disapprovingly as he joined them. “What did you do to upset her? She came in and went straight to the hold without even saying anything.”

Crosshair flared his nostrils angrily. “Me? She’s the one manipulating you.”

He expected the Sergeant to be irritated, or at the very least, broody. Instead, he grinned and elbowed Tech. “Looks like Echo’s not the only one a little sweet on her.” The ARC trooper turned pink, while Tech looked mildly amused.

Crosshair was infuriated, but before he could open his mouth, Wrecker weighed in, also smiling widely. It was so rare they got to torment Crosshair instead of being the ones subject to his taunting. “Well, obviously she likes me the most. I’m the most fun.”

“Oh, no,” Tech disagreed. “While our shared academic pursuits make her rather compatible with myself, the suggestiveness of her interactions with Hunter was quite substantial evidence in his favor.”

“It sure was. I’m counting on that,” Hunter contributed mischievously.

Even Echo couldn’t help teasing. “Hey now! I thought she and I had a bit of a moment back at the bar there.”

The sniper finally got a word in. “None of you are taking this seriously. We know she’s lying about something, and we don’t even know who she is! We can’t trust her!”

Hunter clapped him on the back good-naturedly, putting an end to the game. “Everything is fine, Crosshair. It’s just flirting. Nobody is letting her manipulate them. Things have been hard enough for us for a long time—it won’t hurt to relax and talk to a woman every once in a while. At least this one’s never shot at us.”

“Not yet,” he muttered darkly. His brothers ignored him, carrying on with some sort of debate on which of the women who had shot at them they would still sleep with and dealing out a deck of cards.

However, only a few minutes later, Hunter began to tense up. Crosshair eyed him suspiciously. The Sergeant had stopped participating in the conversation and was avoiding eye contact with the others, occasionally angling his head then holding still intently. The sniper had seen that gesture from him before: Hunter was listening to something. Suddenly, he became flushed and began shifting awkwardly in his seat.

“Are you alright, Hunter?” Tech queried.

The Sergeant nodded, throwing down his cards. “Just tired. Going to bed.” He disappeared into the bunkroom before any of them could reply.

Crosshair scowled and rose from the galley table where they were gathered, prowling toward the back of the ship. He stealthily crept up to the door of the cargo hold and paused, listening. While the sounds were well-muffled by the thick walls, he could make out a few stifled moans, then a gentle, drawn-out sigh: “Oh, Hunter…”

Heatedly, he punched the key to open the door and entered the dimly lit room. Dara was in her hammock, one hand moving beneath her blanket and the other wrapped in her own hair. As soon as he entered, she gripped the blanket tightly with both hands, drawing it up to her chin protectively. “Do you mind?!” she yelped, a little panicked. He liked that sound.

The sniper folded his arms. “Gotta do an inventory in here before we leave for the mission tomorrow.”

Dara looked ready to tear his throat out with her teeth. “Right now?!”

Crosshair didn’t answer, just smirked. She made a rude gesture at him and pulled the blanket the rest of the way over her head with an irritated groan. He puttered around the room quietly for a few minutes, waiting until the gentle rhythm of Dara’s breathing indicated she may have fallen asleep.

The sniper exited the hold and stripped off his armor, storing it carefully before heading to the fresher. Sighing, he turned on the shower and leaned one forearm against the wall, resting his head against it and letting the hot water temporarily melt his frustrations away as he focused on the problem at hand.

He didn’t trust Dara for one second, but he still couldn’t figure out what exactly she was holding back. It wasn’t just the Imperial shuttle, the gaps in her story. No, her confidence as she diverted the maintenance tech at the prison had been too practiced. She had said she was a linguist—a linguist with scars from blaster fire and what he suspected was either shrapnel or a stab wound, and that’s before the injuries he found her with.

Thinking of that last scar reminded him of the feel of it beneath his fingers, the knots and raised edges brushing up against soft skin and softer flesh. He felt himself grow hard as he realized he was standing in the exact position as when he’d had her pinned in the alley. Kriff, he had to admit that he wanted her. He’d wanted to take her right there against the filthy wall, make her forget the small touches and easy flirtation she and Hunter had exchanged at the bar.

Hunter. Dara had known he could hear her from anywhere on the ship. She’d been touching herself, moaning his name on purpose. She wanted Hunter to hear her, was toying with him, turning him on from an entirely different room. Whether because she truly wanted him, she wanted something from him, or simply because it was exactly what Crosshair had told her not to do. I’d rather fuck every other clone in the galaxy, starting with each one of your brothers…

Crosshair hated her.

He hated her, he distrusted her, and he wanted to watch her come undone underneath him while she screamed his name and begged for more.

That should be his name she was moaning.

Crosshair’s free hand tugged erratically at his cock, working himself while he imagined Dara whimpering, the whole of her exposed to him and at his mercy, her curves beneath his hands and his tongue in her mouth while he made her cum over and over again. His hands gripping her silvery hair by the roots, his teeth on her neck, her taste on his lips. Finally, he felt himself stiffen everywhere, letting out a strangled grunt before the sweet relief of his release flooded his senses and left him panting, still leaning on his forearm against the cool durasteel wall.

***

The moment Crosshair had finally left the cargo hold, lured away by her purposeful steady breathing, Dara had slipped her fingers back beneath the waistband of her pants, positioning her index and middle finger on either side of her clit and resuming the rhythmic, reliable back-and-forth that always got her there.

It was hard to believe the balls on that karking asshole. Inventory, she thought with a skeptical snort. More like listening at her doorway. Sure, she’d been saying Hunter’s name on purpose, half enjoying the fantasy, half interested in testing whether he could really hear everything happening on his ship. Of course, if that asshole hadn’t put her in such a foul mood outside the bar, then she probably would’ve just slept with Hunter to begin with, but once she’d gotten alone and the rage had subsided, she had thought, hey, why not toy with him a little, a bit of a tease never hurt with the build-up, she was stuck tagging along with the squad for a while longer, there would be plenty more opportunities to get the Sergeant alone. And kriff, she’d meant what she’d said to that asshole, there was nothing wrong with a bit of harmless fun, she had needs just like anyone else, and kriff knows she could use the stress relief and it had been a long while for her, not like she’d had much time or inclination or the options to try sleeping with anyone lately.

Dara felt any hint of pleasure slipping away as her mind raced back toward her anger, her worries, the reasons for her recent celibacy. Focus, focus. She tried thinking about Hunter again. Kriff he was good-looking. The tattoo, the golden-brown skin, the broad shoulders narrowing down to that fine waist, the strength of him. Even the broodiness, she liked a little darkness, that gravelly voice. There was something about his hands, too. The way she’d seen him playing with his knives earlier, spinning them expertly between his fingers. She started feeling the pleasure build up inside her again, her stomach fluttering a little. Yes, that was good, his hands, hovering at her back, pulling the knife out of his vambrace, adjusting the scope on his rifle, his fingers were so slender, precise, expert, inserting that stupid toothpick into his mouth—

NO. Wrong clone. Start over. Go back to the touches. She’d liked leaning over him at the bar, feeling his hand just barely grazing against her. How would his fingers feel against her skin? Rough callouses roaming up her hips to her waist, gently stroking her back, rubbing her scar, the way he held her down with his arm across her chest hurt so good and kriff the way he looked into her eyes stirred something in her, he was always looking at her so intently, glaring or with sneering amusement, just looking dangerous other times, he’d looked dangerous tonight, she’d wanted to reach up and trace that stupid tattoo circling his eye—

Kriff. He’d ruined this for her, that asshole. With a final, low grunt of frustration, Dara gave up any hope at finding satisfaction that night, choosing instead to stare at the ceiling of the cargo hold and think about her choices and where they had led her until she finally fell into an uneasy sleep.

Next chapter

Tag List: @stardusthuntress @skellymom

Dara used to be a linguistic anthropologist, but for aliens. A linguistic alienologist? I like to think she would be super into the Poletecs from the Bad Batch Clone Wars arc.

We also finally get some Dara POV! Her internal monologue is a lot.

[lingthusiasm]

Bonus 79: Field Notes on linguistic fieldwork - Interview with Martha Tsutsui Billins

Linguists often do research by interviewing people from a particular linguistic community. Sometimes these communities are nearby, sometimes very far away. Sometimes it's a community that the researcher is themselves a member of, sometimes this involves first building relationships with a community where the researcher is an outsider.

In this bonus episode, Lauren gets enthusiastic about the process of doing linguistic fieldwork with Dr. Martha Tsutsui Billins, an Adjunct Teaching Fellow at California State University Fresno, whose name you may recognize from the credits at the end of the show! We talk about Martha's research on politeness in Amami, building relationships on the Ryukyu Islands in Japan, and the role of outsider scholars in language documentation. We also talk about her relationship with the academic job market as an adjunct, her podcast Field Notes interviewing many linguists about their experiences doing linguistic fieldwork, and her role on the Lingthusiasm team helping us research examples for episodes. Listen to this interview about linguistic fieldworks with Dr. Martha Tsutsui Billins, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

[superlinguo]

Superlinguo 2023 in review

I spent 2023 on leave to hang out with a new tiny human. I still found time for some linguistics, including regular Lingthusiasm episodes and even some intermittent blogging. I also got to reuse all my linguist pregnancy announcement jokes.

Lingthusiasm

Lingthusiasm turned 7 this year! We celebrated with a dozen main episodes as well as our monthly bonus episodes for patrons. We had some help to get through the year while I was on leave with interviews with linguists from around the world, including Lingthusiasm team members Martha Tsutsi-Billins and Sara Dopierela.

We released our new Etymology isn't Destiny merch, which is available alongside merch for all kinds of linguists and language fans.

Main episodes

Where language names come from and why they change (transcript)

How kids learn language in Singapore - Interview with Woon Fei Ting (transcript)

Bringing stories to life in Auslan - Interview with Gabrielle Hodge (transcript)

Tone and Intonation? Tone and Intonation! (transcript)

Word Magic (transcript)

The verbs had been being helped by auxiliaries (transcript)

Frogs, pears, and more staples from linguistics example sentences (transcript)

How kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages - Interview with Pedro Mateo Pedro (transcript)

Look, it’s deixis, a word for linguistic pointing! (transcript)

Ergativity delights us (transcript)

Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez (transcript)

If I were an irrealis episode (transcript)

Bonus episodes

Parrots, art and what even is a word - deleted scenes from Kat Gupta, Lucy Maddox and Randall Munroe interviews

Singapore, New Zealand, and a favourite linguistics paper - 2023 Year Ahead Chat

When books speculate on the future of English

Neopronouns, gender-neutral vocab, and why linguistic gender even exists - Liveshow Q&A with Kirby Conrod

2022 Survey Results - kiki/bouba, synesthesia fomo, and pluralizing emoji

Linguistic jobs beyond academia

LingthusiASMR - The Harvard Sentences

How we make Lingthusiasm transcripts - Interview with Sarah Dopierala

Field Notes on linguistic fieldwork - Interview with Martha Tsutsui Billins

Postcards from linguistics summer camp

Linguistic Advice - Challenging grammar snobs, finding linguistic community, accents in singing, and more

Frak, smeg, and more swearing in fiction - Ex Urbe Ad Astra interview with Jo Walton and Ada Palmer

LingComm: 2023 conference

The 2023 LingComm conference happened in February, and was once again in the LingComm conference space in Gather Town. I enjoyed being on the planning committee that put together an amazing event that built on the inaugural conference in 2021. Stay tuned for 2024 lingcomm updates!

Top Superlinguo posts in 2022

This year was a chance to reflect on the decade since I graduated, and to articulate the important role my main supervisor had in shaping my career.

After wrapping up the linguistics jobs interview series last year, this year was a chance to share some aggregated resources from 8 years and 80 interviews.

I also got to read a couple of great linguistics books for kids, keep up to date with linguistics podcasts, share some of my favourite linguistics books and check in on some things happening online.

General posts and reviews

10 years of a PhD

Barb Kelly

Gender Variations for Person in Suit Levitating Emoji - Emoji Proposal

Linguistics and Language Podcasts (2023 update)

Language Books for Kids: Highly Irregular, Arika Okrent & Sean O'Neill

Linguistics books for kids: Once Upon a Word - a Word-origin Dictionary, Jess Zafarris

Linguistics Jobs resources

Linguistics Jobs Interviews - directory of posts and resources

Linguistics Jobs resource set

Superlinguo Linguist Job Interviews full list

Linguistics education and its application in the workplace: An analysis of interviews with linguistics graduates (new publication in Language)

Information and advice

hapax legomenon and automated email replies

Lingthusiasm guide to pop linguistics books

Hello Grambank! A new typological database of 2,467 language varieties

What we can accomplish in 30 years of lingcomm: Opening keynote of #LingComm23

Australian Linguistic Society’s Accredited Linguist program

Academic articles in 2023

Although I was on leave, things that I was working on earlier made it through to publication. I like that there was one paper on lingcomm, one on gesture (including emoji!) and one on the linguistics job interviews, it feels like a nice mix of some of my current interests. Just a pity there wasn't a Tibeto-Burman paper in there!

Gawne, L. & A. Cabraal. 2023. Linguistics education and its application in the workplace: an analysis of interviews with linguistics graduates. Language, 99(1), e35-e57. [doi][Superlinguo post]

Freestone, P., J. Kruk & L. Gawne. forthcoming. From Star Trek to The Hunger Games: emblem gestures in science fiction and their uptake in popular culture. Linguistic Vanguard, 9(3), 257-266. [doi][Superlinguo post]

Gawne, L., & McCulloch, G. (2023). ‘Communicating about linguistics using lingcomm-driven evidence: Lingthusiasm podcast as a case study’, Language and Linguistics Compass, 17/5: e12499. DOI: 10.1111/lnc3.12499 [doi][Superlinguo post]

The year ahead

I'll be back to work full time. I've found the low-key level of blogging I managed this year to be sustainable, so expect it to be business-as-usual here. Lingthusiasm will also continue with monthly main and bonus episodes, thanks to the patrons who support the show and ensure we have a team that can keep everything rolling while begin to take on more administrative responsibilities in my job.

I'm looking forward to sharing some things that are in the final stages of peer-review and copy editing, and I'm excited to be spinning up some new projects.

Browsing old Superlinguo content?

I have a welcome page on the blog that points you to aggregate posts, and series of posts I've done over the years, as well as themed collections of posts that have appeared on the blog in the last twelve years.

Previous years

Superlinguo 2022 in review

Superlinguo 2021 in review

Superlinguo 2020 in review

Superlinguo 2020 (2019 in review)

Superlinguo 2019 (2018 in review)

Superlinguo 2018 (2017 in review)

Superlinguo 2017 (2016 in review)

Superlinguo 2015 highlights

[specgram]

The October 2024 Issue of Speculative Grammarian

The editors and publishers of Speculative Grammarian are pleased to announce that another issue of our esteemed journal is now available. This issue offers many excellent articles, including our unprecedented endorsement for president, an informative enumeration of widely-held but unsubstantiated claims, and the revelation of a fairly screwed-up potential new linguistic (non-)universal—along with the usual collection of letters from our readers, breaking news, a Linguimerick Centenary, serendipitous fieldwork, linguistickish puzzles, and more…

[max1461]

Right. Linguistic theory (as opposed to other areas of linguistics, e.g. fieldwork) is like... it's a subdiscipline of computer science with the writing conventions of social psychology. This is very possibly the worst combination anyone has ever possibly conceived of.

[accuratepicuresofanthropologists]

Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir, left, and his brother Max, via Darnell’s biography Edward Sapir.

Edwards Sapir was born in 1884 in what is now Lebork Poland, the son of a Jewish cantor whose dreams of being an opera star were never realized. The family often traveled for his work -- in essence, Sapir had no home town. He grew up speaking Yiddish and received a thorough training in Hebrew. In 1890 his father took a position in Richmond, Virginia and then another position in New York. Sapir was almost as mobile as his father, taking American citizenship, then Canadian, then American again in the course of his career. At the end of the day, he felt he was not really American, or Polish, or Jewish, but a New Yorker.

Sapir's incredibly intellectual gifts manifested themselves early. He attended Stuyvesant, the legendary elite public school in New York that has provided generations of poor, gifted students a pathway to success. When he was fourteen he won a city-wide academic competition and used the money to attend Columbia, where he received his BA in three years. Sapir was musical, and studied piano and composition with the composer Edward MacDowell. But his speciality was language: Competent in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English, he studied Latin and Greek in school, as well as French and Spanish. His undergraduate training was in German philology, where he studied the then-new approach of historical linguistics.

It was at Columbia that he encountered Franz Boas, who exposed him to American Indian languages. The experience was mind-blowing: a continent full of ways of thinking and expressing one's self radically different than Indo-European languages. The process of eliciting language and grammar from informants was also fascinating to Sapir. He was quickly converted. Boas was delighted with Sapir. He, like everyone else, would consider Sapir one of this best students. Sapir did his first fieldwork in the Pacific Northwest on Chinook -- a notoriously complex language. He earned his Ph.D. in 1909 and immediately landed a plum job: to direct ethnographic research in Canada.

Edward Sapir around 1913. Via Takelma Texts and Grammar

It was an amazing opportunity: Sapir would be able to shape the direction of research for an entire country, but it also came with drawbacks. Sapir moved to Ottawa and took Canadian citizenship. But Ottawa was not like Sapir's beloved New York. He missed the lack of cultural institutions and intellectual ferment. Ottawa was also very homogenous, and Sapir had trouble fitting in with the waspy Canadian upper-crust the way he was supposed to. He had hoped the job would let him do fieldwork as he pleased, but the government wanted him to be an administrator who sent other people out to do fieldwork.

Throughout this period Sapir not only produced linguistics and anthrpology, he also grew pensive. He wrote essays on culture and identity. He experimented with poetry. Partially his adventurousness was due to his boredom in Ottawa. But it also had deeper roots: His wife Florence was slowly dying. It was a long and excruciating process. For her treatments, Sapir often came to New York for extended periods. It was at this point, in the mid-1920s, that he met and fell in love with Ruth Benedict. They corresponded, and sent each other poetry. When he was in New York, she would take care of his children -- something that Benedict, who could not have children herself, especially valued. He also met Boas's new student Margaret Mead, and struck up a relationship with her which was not entirely platonic. Eventually he asked Benedict to marry him, but she refused: Sapir was a traditionalist who wanted her to become a stay at home mother and abandon her career.

From left: John Blackburne, Paul Martin, and professor Edward Sapir and Fay Cooper Cole at the University of Chicago in August 1926. Sapir has his hands behind his back. Via the UC Photo Archive

After Sapir's wife passed away, he decided it was time for a change. Luckily, one was available: The University of Chicago was looking for someone to hold up the anthropology section of its sociology department (anthropology was a part of sociology at that time). It was a young, wealthy university with a commitment to pure research. Sapir was promised that he could do whatever he liked there -- it was a place where stars were given room to be themselves. So he went. It was a good move: For most of the 20th century Chicago was the center of social sciences (_all_ of them) in the US and perhaps globally.  Sapir remarried in Chicago and trained several students, including Leslie White. But it was not to last.

In 1931 Sapir left Chicago. He had been poached by Yale. Chicago had offered him freedom, but Yale offered him something even bigger: A whole institution, dedicated to his work. He could have freedom to work as well as train up students and develop new curriculum: His new interest in culture and personality. It was also in Connecticut, a convenient train ride away from New York. At Yale the now-middle-aged Sapir would not have to put up with the brutal Chicago winters. So he went.

Yale did give Sapir the opportunities it promised. He developed close relationships with other scholars interested in culture and personality. But Yale also had its drawbacks. The university was wealthy and prestigious, but it was also a haven of white privilege: "Pale, male, Yale" as the saying goes. As a Jew, Sapir was discriminated against. He was initially rejected from membership in the faculty club. He founded the sociology department, but was constantly at war with George Murdock, the protegé of William Graham Sumner, the social darwinist Sapir had replaced.

Sapir's health also began failing. He had a heart condition. It was the middle of the depression, and there was no medicare or unemployment insurance -- he had to keep teaching or else he would not support his family. He withdrew more and more from his responsibilities, but the need to earn money meant he could never get the rest that he needed to recover. Finally, he died of a heart attack in 1939.