Take a look at today’s New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle:
ANS 2016 Conference Program
The ANS 2016 Conference Program is now available.
The program includes:
- schedule of presentations
- keynote address information
- awardee information
- abstracts and biographies of presenters
Lexicom US 2016: Workshop in Lexicography, Corpus Linguistics, and Lexical Computing, Boulder, Colorado, June 6-10, 2016
The University of Colorado at Boulder will be holding a workshop on Lexicography, Corpus Linguistics, and Lexical Computing from the 6th to the 10th of June, 2016, in Boulder, Colorado. This event will give attendees an opportunity to learn how to create and analyze corpus data for the purpose of writing dictionary entries.… Read More
Names Society of Southern Africa International Conference, Bloemfontein, South Africa, September 20-22, 2016
The Names Society of Southern Africa (NSSA) and the Unit for Language Facilitation and Empowerment at the University of the Free State have announced their first call for papers for the 19th NSSA International Conference. Scheduled from the 20th to the 22nd of September 2016 at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, the theme of this conference is “Symbolism and Instrumentality in Naming”.
The deadline for abstract submission is the 30 of June 2016. The language of the conference is English.
Toponymic Session at the International Geographical Union Congress, Beijing, China, August 21-25,2016
The joint commission of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and the International Geographical Union (IGU) is organizing a typonymic session entitled “Place Names as Social Constructs” as a part of the 33rd IGU Congress in Beijing, China from the 21st to the 25th of August 2016.
The session is to focus on the ways in which place names reflect existing power relationships within societies.… Read More
Teens pick ‘Smombie’ as hippest German word
Each year in Germany, a team of linguists, journalists, celebrities, and teenagers assemble to select the word of the year from a long list of candidates nominated by the general public. After intense deliberation, the expert German Jury finally announced the winner of the 2015 word of the year among German youth “das Jugendwort des Jahres”: Smombie
The word is the special name which German children and teens have given to a person who walks mindlessly through the world while typing on his/her mobile phone. The name “smombie” is a word-blend formed from “zombie” and “smartphone”.
The contest for the coolest, grooviest, hippest, most totally awesome and rad, youth word of year is held each year by the world famous German dictionary maker, Langenscheidt.
Cast your vote for the ANS Name of the Year!
Tajikistan Mulls Banning Islamic-Sounding Names
The Tajik parliament recently began discussing implementing restrictions on what parents can name their children, particularly focusing on banning Islamic names. Since the 1980s, the Tajik people have shifted away from Russian names towards more traditional Tajik names. In the last decade, this 90% Muslim country has shifted towards more Islamic names, which weren’t previously popular.… Read More
Award for Best Article in Names: A Journal of Onomastics 2015
The 2015 Award Winner is:
Michael Adams, “The Course of a Particular’: Names and Narrative in the Works of Joseph Mitchell” Names: A Journal of Onomastics 63(1): 3-15.
Awardee Biography
Michael Adams is a Professor in the Department of English at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has also served as Editor of American Speech, the publication of the American Dialect Society for ten years. His term ended in November 2015. Most recently, he is co-editor of Studies in the History of the English Language VI: Evidence and Method in Histories of English (De Gruyter Mouton). In addition to being a highly valued, long-time member of the ANS, Professor Adams is also an editorial board member of the Journal of Literary Onomastics, the only scholarly periodical devoted to the study of names in literary texts.
Committee: Michael McGoff, Dr. John Algeo, Kemp Williams.
About Names: Kim once popular for boys and girls
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. This recent column explores Kim.
2016 Emerging Scholar Award Winner
Maryann Parada (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Ethnolinguistic emblems in Latino Chicago: Attitudes of the second generation toward names and naming
The 2015 Emerging Scholar Award Committee is pleased to announce this year’s winner: Maryann Parada from the University of Illinois at Chicago. The title of her submission is “Ethnolinguistic emblems in Latino Chicago: Attitudes of the second generation toward names and naming.”
Abstract:
This study explores the name-language interface in the identity stances and attitudes of Latinos raised in the U.S. It follows Thompson’s (2006) approach in considering the name-identity-language connections for bilinguals, and also responds to Joseph’s (2004) call for work on how individuals perceive and negotiate ethnolinguistic identity through their names. Complementing previous research into the naming decisions of Hispanic immigrant parents, I examine the name-based perspectives of the named themselves. Survey data provided by 54 Latino young adults from the Chicago area are analyzed to investigate the relationship between the ethnic character of the participants’ personal names and their responses on topics such as name suitability and satisfaction, name pronunciation preferences, name changes, and the importance of names as ethnolinguistic identity markers. While clear patterns emerged, the data also highlight the complex, and often contradictive, relationships between self, language, and name.
Biography:
Maryann Parada is a doctoral candidate in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her interests lie in the sociolinguistics of minority Spanish, including issues in the areas of names and identity, language attitudes, family language policy, and heritage language pedagogy. Her recent publication in the Journal of Language, Identity and Education examines the role of birth order in the names of second generation Latinos in Chicago.
Attendees of the upcoming ANS annual conference in January will have a chance to hear her present her research in person.
As the ESA award-winner, Maryann will receive a cash award as well as a mentor who will assist her in preparing her research manuscript for possible publication in a future issue of NAMES. Click here for more information about the award.
This year’s ESA Committee was made up of Dr. Mirko Casagranda, Dr. Jan Tent, and Ms. Lisa Radding.