Dr. Patricia Shaw

Patricia A. Shaw is the Founding Chair (1996-2014) of the First Nations Languages Program at University of British Columbia, and Professor Emerita of Anthropological Linguistics with particular interests in sound systems; the interface of phonology with phonetics and morphology; literacy and oral traditions; language contact and change. For several decades she has worked in close collaboration with members of critically endangered language communities (Salish, Wakashan, Siouan, Athapaskan, Algonquian) to record and analyze extant grammatical and cultural knowledge, to teach research skills and archiving methodologies, to develop pedagogical materials for language revitalization, and to teach First Nations languages at UBC and in various BC communities.

Dr. Shaw served as the President of the Society for the Study of the Languages of the Americas (SSILA) from 2011-2013; has served for many years on the Endangered Languages Steering Committee of the Canadian Linguistic Association, as well as on the LSA Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation (CELP); and has co-chaired several SSHRC Aboriginal Strategic Research Grant adjudication committees. She founded and serves as Editor of the First Nations Languages Series at UBC Press; was Director of the Aboriginal Languages and Literacy Institute at UBC (2006); has taught at InField 2008 (UCSB), InField 2010 (U Oregon, Eugene), CoLang 2012 (U Kansas), CoLang 2014 (U Texas, Arlington); and has served as a Faculty Mentor at the Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages in 2011, 2013 (Washington, DC), as well as the Breath of Life California Indian Language Restoration Workshop in 2012, 2014 (UC Berkeley).

Research Interests

Endangered language documentation, conservation, and revitalization (Salish, Wakashan, Siouan, Athapaskan, Algonquian); sound systems; literacy and orality; language contact and change; Indigenous language rights.