Log 4 - Trip to Universidad del Valle

On Saturday the 4^th, the group headed up to the altiplano campus of the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG). The campus is located in a vast terrain of protected land in Sololá, midway from the highway to the state capital. According to my host mom Doña Nati, the area was used as a military base during the civil war, until the land was abandoned and given to UVG following the signing of the Peace Accords, in order to establish the satellite campus. The university offers classes throughout the week, focusing on education, tourism, and environmental engineering.

Sololá on a clear day

The most important task of the day involved presenting our plans for the field station to UVG faculty and students. The activity began with some much needed coffee, after which Pedro gave a talk on the basic structure and goals of the field station, emphasizing in particular the collaborative nature of the endeavor, within linguistics proper and beyond. One of the special aspects of the project is our commitment to cater to researchers from many different backgrounds, thus fostering a truly multidisciplinary environment where faculty and students, both experienced and novice, can exchange ideas and carry out research in tandem. As Pedro pointed out, the Guatemalan higher education system does not encourage students to exchange ideas with their professors; the teacher-pupil barrier is so entrenched in our mind that it is truly novel to propose that professors interact with students at the same level. However, we think that breaking this barrier is necessary in order to create a research model that can truly result in fruitful investigation.

Ted and Chris looking happy.

After Pedro’s introduction, a few of us talked briefly to the students about our interests. Emma discussed her interest in Kaqchikel-Spanish code-switching in the nominal domain; Sasha and Elisaveta their project on relativization and possession; Barbara her work on language and speech development among Kaqchikel-Spanish bilingual children; Carola her interest in reflexivity cross-linguistically; and I on word order and Case in Mayan, where there are VOS, VSO, and mixed VOS/VSO languages. Personally, I always find it challenging to translate linguistics jargon to digestible terms in order to connect with a non-specialist audience. After all, why should most people care that whether Absolutive Case is assigned by Infl⁰ or not makes different predictions regarding low adjunct extraction, depending additionally on whether a language is strict VOS or VSO?

Universidad del Valle Altiplano

This disconnect was reflected in some of the questions following our presentations, when audience members wondered how some of our projects would contribute to the communities we will collaborate with. Carola shared her experience in Bolivia, where she was met with similar skepticism, but where she was able to share her findings with the community and work on a dictionary that would benefit future generations of speakers. Barbara remarked on how little is understood about language/speech development among Mayan bilinguals, so her work could provide speakers of Mayan languages with the necessary tools to ensure their children grew up as L1 Mayan speakers, therefore maintaining their language.

Project presentations

On my side, I think that the findings of theoretical work on syntax or other aspects of language structure need to be translated into usable terms for a general audience, in order to tackle one of the reasons languages fall into disuse—as Pedro pointed out, many speakers of minority languages think that their languages have no grammar, no structure, that they are somehow less developed or useful than a language of wider communication (in the Guatemalan case, Spanish). As linguists, we know that this is not true. We therefore have to shows that these ideas are objectively unfounded and false, presenting evidence for our claims in words that are understandable to non-linguists. We can then begin to chip away at some of the negative ideas speakers of minority languages hold toward their own mother tongue (through no fault of their own), thus addressing one of many interconnected reasons that lead speakers of languages like Kaqchikel to shift to another language.

Talking about variation with Ka'i' Kawoq

After the talks, UVG students led us through campus, showing us the facilities and the forest that surrounds the classrooms. We got to breathe fresh air, see some trees endemic to Guatemala like the pinabete, which is now endangered (thanks to the good folks who like to chop them up to celebrate Christmas), and see the view of Sololá and Lake Atitlán (even though the fog covered the volcanoes). As we headed back to Tecpán for lunch following the tour, I felt satisfied with how the day went—I was particularly glad that UVG students challenged our proposals, but also showed genuine interest and enthusiasm about working with us through the field station—I’m sure that this summer’s work will only be the beginning of something really special.  

The group at the "mirador" with UVG students