News

Language Sciences members win prestigious awards in 2018

Language Sciences members won a number of awards this year, including a University of British Columbia (UBC) Killam Research Fellowship, election to the Royal Society of Canada, and a Global Public Scholar award.   Language Sciences member and doctoral student Khia Johnson won a…

Camels and compliments: how language, culture and nature are interconnected

Have you ever been compared to a camel as a compliment? In Somalia, dromedaries are a favourable comparison for a woman’s beauty, something University of British Columbia Language Sciences Initiative invited speaker Luisa Maffi learned during her fieldwork for a Somali language dictionary…

Dr. Peter Trudgill, The Uniformitarian Hypothesis and prehistoric sociolinguistics: what were stone-age languages like?

Please join us for The Uniformitarian Hypothesis and prehistoric sociolinguistics: what were stone-age languages like?, a talk by Dr. Peter Trudgill, Emeritus Professor of English Linguistics at Fribourg University and Honorary Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of East…

Dr. Luisa Maffi, Language, Culture, and the Environment: Thinking Out of the Silos

Please join us as we welcome Dr. Luisa Maffi, co-founder and Director of Terralingua for her talk Language, Culture, and the Environment: Thinking Out of the Silos. For over two decades, Maffi has spearheaded the efforts of Terralingua, an international NGO that…

Storybooks Canada Launch! Friday Nov 2nd, 3:00pm

Join the Storybooks Canada team and UBC Language Sciences for the public launch of Storybooks Canada on Friday, November 2nd, co-organized by Dr. Bonny Norton (LLED) and Dr. Janet Jamieson (ECPS). The launch will include opening and welcoming remarks from Dr. Gail Murphy, VP Research &…

Conlanging: The Art of Crafting Tongues - Screenings Oct. 29th and 30th, 2018

Conlanging: The Art of Crafting Tongues, Oct. 29th and 30th

Marietta Hurst makes second 3-year gift to Language Sciences

Marietta Hurst (BA’57, MA’82), the visionary lead donor whose support in 2015 helped make UBC Language Sciences and the Living Language: Science and Society course a reality, has generously provided additional seed funding that will allow us to continue and…

Welcome (Back) to Language Sciences!

Language Sciences welcomes new and returning members back to UBC this fall! Friday, September 14, 2018 Dodson Room (302), Irving K. Barber Learning Centre 1961 E Mall At the Welcome event, we will provide a summary of what the LangSci Initiative at UBC has been up to, and then host…

Dr. Christine Schreyer creates language for Hollywood film Alpha

Like the crisp, white vista of frozen tundra, Christine Schreyer was given a blank canvas when it came to creating the dialogue for Alpha, a Hollywood historical drama released just last week. Set in the last ice age some 20,000 years ago, Alpha is the story of a young hunter who…