Please join us for a lecture by Yulia Hathaway
Date: Thursday, March 28 @ 4:15pm
Location: White Hall 103
Title: "Affixal negation and lexical creativity in Ta-Nehisi Coates’s discourse on race"

Yulia Hathaway
PhD Research Fellow in English Linguistics
Department of Foreign Languages
University of Bergen and Volda University College (Norway)

This talk presents a corpus-based study of affixal negation in the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates. The use of negative affixes is discussed from the perspective of lexical creativity. Affixal negation, one of the expressions of semantic opposition, has been an understudied subtype of linguistic negation. Affixal negation is frequently utilized by speakers to produce novel or low-frequency formations in appropriate contexts. Such lexical creativity contributes to the construction of multi-layered meaning in discourse.

The three productive prefixes (un-, anti- and non-) and their often nonce-word formations were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative approaches identifying the frequency distribution and main functions of the instances of lexical innovation produced through affixal negation in Coates’s writings. The results of the study show that Coates creatively uses negative affixes to convey various dimensions of semantic opposition, which highlights the interaction between the prefix, the base and the context.

"She, They, He, Ze: A Discussion of Pronouns, Language and Respect"

Tuesday, October 17, 2023 | 5:30-6:30+pm
 in-person: Math & Science Center E208
 online: Zoom Webinar Link

• key terms/concepts
• history of English pronouns
• pronouns across languages
• pronouns in relation to thought/behavior
• negotiating pronouns in personal relations
• developing norms of use at Emory.

Dr. Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Autism Center & the Department of Pediatrics,
Emory University School of Medicine
Date: Thursday, September 21, 2023 @ 4:00pm EST
Title: Early Vocal Development in Autism: Biomarkers of Infant Risk and Resilience

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder of early onset defined by core deficits in social communication and restrictive interests/repetitive behaviors. Although ASD is no longer defined by deficits in spoken language, children with autism are universally delayed in speech and language acquisition, 25% of children diagnosed with ASD will never learn to talk, and early language ability continues to be the best prognostic indicator of long-term outcome in adulthood, underscoring the importance of early detection and intervention. This talk presents the results of a large-scale prospective longitudinal study of early vocal development conducted over 10 years as part of an NIH Autism Center of Excellence, aiming to develop vocal biomarkers for autism and related developmental disorders. Using new techniques for automated voice analysis, applied to all-day home audio recordings collected monthly from 500 infants from birth to 3 years, differences in developmental trajectories of infant vocal behavior, caregiver response, and infant-caregiver contingency were found within the first year of life that predict later autism diagnosis and language outcome at 24 months and identify new pathways for early intervention.

This lecture is cosponsored by: The Department of Psychology.