Log 14: Presenting our work!

On June 29^th, we made our way back to Universidad del Valle (UVG), altiplano campus in Sololá, to present the results of our research in Tecpán and Patzún. This part of our trip was particularly important, since we wanted to showcase what we’d accomplished in a short period of time and also encourage/invite UVG students and scholars to work with us in future trips. One of the main drives of the research station is to create opportunities for researchers like us and local students to collaborate across disciplines, so it was crucial that we piqued the attendees’ interests.

Rehearsing the talks at Pedro's in Patzún

Following opening remarks by Pedro and Omer, we each gave the following talks—Gesoel and I’s was a joint endeavor, so we got to give a more detailed account of our data:

RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS

a.         Gesoel and I: Extracción de Adjuntos en Kaqchikel y Tz’utujiil (Adjunct Extraction in Kaqchikel and Tz’utujiil)

b.         Paulina: Consonantes Adyacentes (Consonant Clusters)

c.         Chris: Tiempo y Aspecto (Tense and Aspect)

d.         Carola: Reflexivos y Recíprocos (Reflexives and Reciprocals)

e.         Emma: Cambio de Código (Code Switching)

Syntax talk with Gesoel

Question time! 

It was a big plus that we had different sub-disciplines of linguistics represented, so the audience could be exposed to a variety of linguistic research. We all strived to make the content understandable for a non-specialist audience and the reactions were very positive. For instance, there were Kaqchikel (Tecpán dialect) and Tz’utujiil (Santiago dialect) speakers in the audience who remarked on the generalizations Gesoel and I found regarding Aˈ-extraction of adjuncts, wishing to know more and proposing that we bring in UVG students who speak different dialects of the languages into the project. Paulina and Chris impressed the audience with their handling (in excellent Spanish!) of complex material in the phonology and semantics of Kaqchikel, while Carola provided a broad typological perspective on the phenomenon of reflexivity in Mayan.

Chris on the prospective "aspect" in Kaqchikel

Carola on the typological perspective

Finally, Emma gave a talk that resonated strongly with the audience on the phenomenon of code-switching in bilingual Spanish-Kaqchikel communities; of particular interest were Emma's methodology and her plan to create a corpus of natural Kaqchikel-Spanish speech. Attendees remarked on their own experience with code-switching into Spanish and their negative attitudes towards the phenomenon, since it might signal an eventual shift into Spanish. Emma finished her talk with an invitation for cross-disciplinary collaboration in coming years, highlighting ways in which linguistic research can be useful for the local communities, especially with regards to language maintenance, bilingual education, and healthcare access (through initiatives like those of Wuqu’ Kawoq, our partner throughout the project).

Discussing code-switching

More questions!

All in all, we were very pleased with the outcome of the symposium, given the interest that was elicited by our projects and the field station collaboration between UMD and UVG. We’re already thinking of many more research trips and projects! 

Gazing at Lake Atitlán and thinking about returning

Omer looking happy about the talks (and the view)

Gesoel, Paulina, and the volcano