Past conferences

The second Annual Creole Language Work-shop was held at Florida International Univer-sity in March 1996. The theme was “Creole Language Use in an Urban Setting: New Directions in Education and Society”. The workshop addressed relevant issues such as:

• What are creole languages?
• How are creoles different from traditional languages spoken in south Florida?
• How can the public school system linguistically and educationally better ac-commodate children who speak creole languages?
• What are the implications of creoles for the public schools’ traditional bilingual programs?
• How can public school teachers become knowledgeable about and learn creole languages?
• How can individuals in the public sector address and better accommodate the needs of speakers of creole languages?
• How can creole languages become part of the university curriculum?

The keynote address, “The language edu-cation of Creole speakers in international urban society”, was given by Dr Dennis Craig, former Vice-Chancellor of the Univer-sity of Guyana. Other papers included:

• “No one’slanguage in no one’s land: pidgin and the politics of development in Papua, New Guinea” by Suzanne Romaine
• “Educating the creole-speaking child in North American schools” by Ian Robertson
• “S’up with African American English? Continuities, characteristics, controversies, and curricular implications” by Faye McNair-Knox
• “Da wey wi tak de wey wi lib: Education and evolution of Gullah/Geeche culture through language” by Marquetta Goodwine
• “Creole languages and bilingual education: Problems, rights or resources? by Flor Zephir
• “Creole in education: The case of Guadeloupe” by Juliette Sainton
• “The role of Haitian Creole in the Haitian school system” by Yves DeJean
• “Couleuvre qui cache, vini gros: The construction of identity and its effect on learning among creole-speaking children” by Peter Roberts.

Upcoming conferences:

The Pacific Area Contact Linguistics Association (PACLA) will be meeting in conjunction with the Third Conference on Oceanic Linguistics (TRICOL) at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand 16-19 January 1996 (not 8-12 January as announced in the last newsletter). For further information, contact Terry Crowley, Linguistics, University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand; e-mail: tcrowley@waikato.ac.nz.

As part of the 1997 conference of the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) there will be a colloquium “Creole Linguistics and Social Responsibil-ity”. The conference will be from Sat. 8 March - Tues. 11 March 1997 at the Holiday Inn International Drive Resort, 6515 Inter-national Drive, Orlando, Florida.

Here is some information, provided by the organizer, Lise Winer:

This colloquium is dedicated to Charlene Sato, whose pioneering and persistent work on and on behalf of creole languages and speakers provide us with an example of the quintessential applied linguist.
Presenters and abstracts:

Lise Winer, Southern Illinois University-Cabondale (Chair):

Creole languages provide special windows into both the most fundamental and the most changeable aspects of language. Traditionally marginalized and stigmatized as inferior, creoles attract special attention in regard to their social matrix and interactions of their speakers. These presentations describe some roles and tasks of creole linguists, including educator, health-care worker, novelist, historian.

Robin Sabino, Auburn University, “The linguist and the last speaker”:

The linguist/consultant relationship with a last speaker of an underdocumented creole language poses singular responsibilities. In addition to protecting the consultant’s privacy, the researcher must meet the challenge of interpreting the consultant’s linguistic competence to both the local community and the broader academic audience. This paper considers several aspects of this challenge.

Ian Robertson, University of the West Indies, “Language, linguistics and social respon-sibility in the Caribbean”:

Initial motivation for study of Caribbean sociolinguistic complexes was redressing the failure of education systems. Realization that information from such study has considerable implications for linguistic theory has lured many creole linguists away from addressing social concerns. This paper examines practical contributions linguists can make to developing necessary levels of social “linguistic literacy”.

Jean D’Costa, Hamilton College, “The linguist as author: Authorizing new voices”

Outside the academy, the fiction writer faces hostile confusions and brilliant possibilities, fought over by prescriptivists of every kind – from publishers to parents. Defining a fictional world forces the author into proscribed territory where the linguist clarifies such strategies as orthography and code-switching – choices involved in representing complex language cultures.

Peter Patrick, Georgetown University, “Linguistics and health: Discourse in an urban creole setting”

This paper reports ongoing research on ethnocultural and sociolinguistic dimensions of diabetes care in Jamaica. Drawing on perspectives from sociolinguistics and medical anthropology, doctor/patient talk in a Jamaican NGO diabetes clinic is described, focusing on miscommunication, (lack of) shared knowledge, and strategies of resistance to institutional authority.

For more details about the colloquium contact

Lise Winer
Department of Linguistics
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901-4517 USA
FAX: (618) 453-6527
Phone: (618) 453-3428 (W)
e-mail: winerl@siu.edu.

The Linguistics Program at Florida Inter-national University in Miami is running the Third Annual Creole Language Work-shop to be held 19-23 March 1997. The Annual workshops provide an opportunity for public school educators and adminis-trators, university staff and students, creol-ists, and members of the community to come together to exchange views and address issues and concerns of creole language use in an urban setting, with particular emphasis on the educational system. This year’s theme is “Empowering creoles: Developing pedagogi-cal materials in and on creoles”. The keynote speaker will be Dr Loreto Todd. There will also be lectures by invited speakers, panel discussions and several workshops on a variety of creole languages.

Additional individual papers and panel proposals on the theme are still being solicited. Please send a 1-page abstract to the following address or get in contact for further information:

Dr Tometro Hopkins
Linguistics Program, Dept of English
Florida International University
Miami, FL 33199
Phone: (305) 348-3096
Fax: (305) 348-3878
e-mail: hopkinst@servax.fiu.edu

**NOTE: The deadline for submission of abstracts is 20 December 1996. Submissions by e-mail will be accepted! Notification will be sent in early January.