Hosted by the 91��ɫ Libraries, interPLAY will take place Monday, March 26, from 9am to 7pm, in��the Senate Chamber, 940 South Ross Building, and the Scott Library on the Keele campus.��

The symposium is informed by the ongoing publication of the , an experimental online catalogue raisonné (or complete list) currently being developed at the 91��ɫ Libraries by Adam Lauder��(left), the University's inaugural��W.P. Scott Chair for Research in e-Librarianship.

Lauder is working to develop the catalogue raisonné with��Canadian Conceptual artist (the artist recently added the ampersand to his name),��and an international team of collaborators.��The development of the catalogue offers an ideal��opportunity to respond to the visionary information art of IAIN BAXTER& with fresh approaches to information, information technology, and library and information science from across the disciplinary spectrum.

Inspired by Canadian scholar and philosopher Marshall McLuhan’s transformation of information theory, from a “matching” model of communication to one of active “making”, IAIN BAXTER& began in 1966 to explore the creative possibilities of “information” as a medium.��The 45-year process of exploration that followed has led��the��conceptual artist��to engage with, and creatively reinterpret, information concepts across a range of disciplines, including business, computing, and linguistics.

Marshall McLuhan

University��of British Columbia English Professor��Richard Cavell, author of McLuhan in Space: A Cultural Geography (University of Toronto Press, 2003) will present the symposium's keynote address. Cavell's book was the first to��propose that Marshall McLuhan be read as a spatial theorist.

To learn more about other presenters and symposium proceedings and to register, visit the website.����

More about Adam Lauder

Lauder has joined the Libraries for a two-year term as the first W.P. Scott Chair for Research in e-Librarianship. He holds a master in information studies��from the University of Toronto and a masters in��art history��from Concordia University.

His research project encompasses many areas of e-librarianship including critical information studies, digital archives, scholarly communication and metadata standards. Lauder is applying��the catalogue raisonné publication model in an online environment, with a focus��on IAIN BAXTER&.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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These benefits come from having a brain that’s constantly juggling two – or even more – languages, said Ellen Bialystok, [Distinguished Research Professor in Psychology, ] at 91��ɫ in Toronto, who spoke at the AAAS annual meeting. For instance, a person who speaks both Hindi and Tamil can’t turn Tamil off even if he’s speaking to only Hindi users, because the brain is constantly deciding which language is most appropriate for a given situation.

This constant back-and-forth between two linguistic systems means frequent exercise for the brain’s so-called executive control functions, located mainly in the prefrontal cortex. This is the part of the brain tasked with focusing one’s attention, ignoring distractions, holding multiple pieces of information in mind when trying to solve a problem, and then flipping back and forth between them.

“If you walk into a room, there are a million things that could attract your attention,” Bialystok said. “How is it we manage to focus at all? How does our mind pay attention to what we need to pay attention to without getting distracted?”

To test one’s ability to identify pertinent nuggets while being bombarded with extraneous information, scientists use something called the Stroop test. Subjects are presented with a word for a particular colour and asked to identify the colour of ink it’s printed in. So if the word is “blue” and it’s printed in blue, no problem. If, on the other hand, the word “blue” is printed in red, they have to sort out which piece of information – the colour of the ink, or the colour being spelled out – is the one they need.

“This is extremely hard to do, because it’s terribly difficult to block out the information from the word,” Bialystok said.

In monolingual speakers, this kind of mental curveball will add 240 milliseconds to their reaction time – a significant delay, in brain reaction terms. Bilingual people, on the other hand, take just 160 extra milliseconds to sort this out. Bialystok theorizes that it’s because they’re used to prioritizing information in potentially confusing situations all day.alz

Those advantages aren’t just useful for schoolchildren – they last over the course of a lifetime. A study published last year in the journal Neurology surveyed 211 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and found that those who spoke only one language saw the onset of their first symptoms four to five years earlier than their bilingual peers. While knowing two languages doesn’t fight the disease, it does strengthen those parts of the brain that are susceptible to dementia’s early attacks, allowing them to withstand the assault much longer.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Members of the media, linguists and grammar gurus are on both sides, pushing and pulling over the implications associated with texting, blogging and e-mailing. Many who think language is being flushed down the toilet put the blame squarely on younger generations. Is this criticism accurate or even relevant?

“In some ways, it’s a reaction to change and a reluctance to accept change, but to some extent it’s also a fictitious topic that doesn’t have any merit,” says Philipp Angermeyer, a linguistics professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. Many experts feel the same way.

. . .

So, considering how little research there is to back up the claim that technology is destroying language, why does this hell-in-a-handbasket opinion persist? Prof. Zwicky talks about the “adolescent illusion,” where adults pay selective attention to the language and writing of adolescents, and see the mistakes they make as the source of this “trend.” In fact, adults are responsible for as much as 80 to 90 per cent of text messaging, so if it’s hurting the language, why should young people be held responsible?

“To some extent, it has to do with attitudes toward people,” says Prof. Angermeyer. “The columnist wouldn’t write this if they didn’t also think there was something else wrong with the people they speak about.” These types of criticisms, he explains, are considered politically acceptable complaints meant to be aimed at certain groups of people, motivated by some other dislike.

This intergenerational tension goes both ways. A 2009 Conference Board of Canada survey of more than 900 Gen X, Gen Y and baby boomer respondents revealed that each generation marked the other two with unfair stereotypes. Boomers were considered less accepting of diversity and change and uncomfortable with technology. Gen Xers were cynical and independent. Gen Yers were lazy and difficult to manage. While each generation viewed the other two negatively, most participants were alike in many ways, with similar personality types, workplace motivations and social behaviours. While we all may come from different social groups, our language dialects and writing styles are very similar, and are not about to change any time soon.

It all boils down to what is appropriate in what context. “If I write a text message, my text might be inappropriately long and full of punctuation,” says Prof. Angermeyer.

“Ultimately, from a theoretical perspective, the only distinction you can really make is between native speakers [of a dialect] and non-native speakers. Every native speaker is a competent language speaker, and depending on what you are exposed to and what environments you use the language in, you acquire different skills.”

The complete article is available on .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The book is a compilation of essays based upon papers delivered at a centenary retrospective at 91��ɫ in 2008 organized by the book’s editors, 91��ɫ history Professor , and Kalman Weiser, Silber Family Professor of Modern Jewish Studies in the Departments of History and Humanities in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

Weiser says there were two major nationalist movements on the rise in the late-19th century among Jews. One, later known as Zionism, supported the creation of a Jewish nation-state in the area of Palestine; the other advocated the idea of diaspora nationalism, which argued that Jews constituted a nation and deserved recognition as such wherever they lived. This second one proposed that a geographical homeland wasn’t necessary and Jews – and other nationalities – could live as a nationality in multinational or multi-ethnic states. “The Austro-Hungarian Empire was relatively liberal in comparison with the Russian Empire. It extended language rights to groups such as the Italians, the Poles etc. – so why couldn’t this apply to the Jews?” he says.

The next question, continues Weiser, was if such rights were to be extended, what would be the official language of the Jews? There were two options��– Hebrew and Yiddish.

Left: Joshua Fogel

Weiser says that, at this time, the vast majority of Jews used Yiddish as their primary language, the language of commerce and everyday life. By contrast, he says, the speaking of Hebrew was far less common; it was the literary prestige language and the language of liturgy, but the spoken language of extremely few. He likens the relationship between the two to that between Latin and vernacular languages in Western Europe prior to the modern era.

He states that a leading Yiddish activist of the era, Nathan Birnbaum (who also coined the term Zionism), convened a group of Jewish artists, writers and intellectuals to debate the issues in Czernowitz, a multi-ethnic, urban centre, now in the Ukraine, with a politically and culturally active Jewish population. “The 1908 Czernowitz conference was held to discuss the political status of Yiddish, to raise its prestige and legal status and consider the methods needed to standardize it and promote it,” Weiser says. He claims the conference didn’t reach a clear resolution as the debate became bogged down in arguments over whether Yiddish was a national language or the national language of the Jews. He says it ended with a compromise, asserting that Yiddish is a national language.

Czernowitz at 100, the conference organized by Fogel and Weiser at 91��ɫ, assembled academics from across North America, Europe and Israel with the goal of assessing intellectually the original conference and considering the ramifications of it over the course of the subsequent century. It differed from the 1908 conference in several ways. Foremost, the agenda was different. While there were some debates, the goal was not to resurrect the fundamental argument. Participants primarily looked back at the 1908 conference with the critical eyes of scholarship and considered what had been achieved. They also spoke the lingua franca of English rather than Yiddish and, rather than artists and writers, the 2008 conference involved scholars. Weiser does note that the host cities have a lot in common –��Toronto, like Czernowitz of 1908, is cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic and multilingual.

Right: Kalman Weiser

, which evolved from the conference, considers the successes and failures of the 1908 conference and reflects on what can be learned from Czernowitz to promote the harmonious coexistence of ethnocultural groups in multi-ethnic environments.

What did the attendees discuss and conclude? Weiser says they noted a complete reversal in language practice. Yiddish is used today for everyday life chiefly among Hasidic Jews while Hebrew, the holy language, has also become an everyday language for millions regardless of their religious beliefs or ethnic background. He says conference participants also considered what other nationalities could learn about their languages and national identities. Finally, they looked at what lessons could be learned from campaigns for national minority rights in multi-ethnic settings.

Though specializing in East Asian history,��Fogel admits to a longstanding interest in Yiddish and Jewish history. “Issues of language and identity in multi-ethnic contexts remain as relevant today as they were a century ago,"��he says. "With the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, to say nothing of many other regional hot spots around the world, linguistic nationalism is still a vital force in the forging of identities.”

Weiser’s forthcoming book, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation: Noah Prylucki and the Folkists in Poland (University of Toronto Press, 2010), deals with one of the participants in the 1908 Czernowitz conference, Prylucki. It focuses on the rise and fall of Yiddish culture and Jewish nationalism in Eastern Europe, including the 1908 Czernowitz conference.

Submitted by David Wallace, communications coordinator, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The team is engaged in��the multi-location, multi-year (BHD) research project, ongoing since the summer of 2009 in Glendon’s (CRLC) and funded by (RAY). Greaves and Benson are the principal investigators for the��project, which is��striving to produce a searchable database of video clips of -human conversations to document the language capacities of the bonobos, a type of ape, and to extend scientific understanding of how language has��evolved.

For the 2009-2010 academic year, the team included five student participants, some paid and some volunteers��– second-year undergraduates Charlotte Petrie, Maria Wong, Laura Guecha and Meng Yang, as well as fourth-year undergraduate Lidia Giosa, who has been accepted into a PhD program for speech pathology at the University of Louisiana partly as a result of her participation in��the BHD��project. Two additional participants are recent Glendon graduate Daniel Byrnes (BA Hons. '09), who has continued to work on the project since graduating, and mature student Bruce Anderson.

Left: Senior scholars Jim Benson and Bill Greaves with the Bonobo Human Discourse research team members

The current project has emerged from past cooperation among a number of scholars from different countries, including , a scientist with special standing at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa,��linguistics and media communication Professor Paul Thibault of University of Agder in Norway and Meena Debashish, phonetics & spoken English professor at the English & Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad,��India, along with Benson and Greaves.��This international team had worked together in 2005 on a project based at Glendon and funded by the and has been actively collaborating ever since.

For this project, Savage-Rumbaugh has made available 400 hours of video footage filmed by��the�� (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) representing a corpus of spontaneous interaction between researchers at Geogia State University and the bonobos. In the videos, the humans use spoken language to communicate and the bonobos use a lexigram keyboard of 450 symbols that produces spoken English words.

Right: A bonobo

Benson explained that this project provides many types of learning opportunities for participating students. “The international dimension of the students’ training has been present from the beginning.��Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh is based in Des Moines, Iowa, and the data she has made available to us was assembled in Georgia.��At the same time that we were initiating these undergraduates into the linguistic analysis of bonobo-human discourse, Dr. Rumbaugh was engaging students from Buena Vista University, Simpson College and Missouri State University in work that was based on the bonobos.��The US students were looking at the bonobos in terms of psychology and anthropology, rather than linguistics, and it became very clear that much was to be gained by bringing these young people together.”

For this international collaboration, Benson and Greaves have incorporated US professors involved at different institutions (Savage-Rumbaugh, psychology Professors Carl Halgren and Don Evans��of Simpson College in Iowa, anthropology Professor Margie Buckner of Missouri State University, and psychology and computer science Professor Kenneth Schweller of Buena Vista University in Iowa) as “teachers” in the Glendon Moodle Bonobo Human Discourse Web��site. Their students will also be included shortly on the Web site.

“But interaction on a Web site has its limitations,” said Greaves. “The best possible way to launch this joint venture is through a face-to-face collaboration. Bringing the 91��ɫ team to meet with the others at Simpson College in Des Moines over the weekend of April 29 will provide an excellent opportunity for personal interaction.”

Greaves said this research experience provides students with a multi-dimensional experience, including practical career training and international networking opportunities. “Our long-term strategy is to give a group of undergraduates an exceptional apprenticeship in research extending over three years and, at the same time, to build for them��– and for us��– a base of scholarly interaction that binds student researchers in the US with our student researchers in Canada.”

Submitted by Marika Kemeny, Glendon communications officer

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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Bialystok, a Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, is known internationally for her research on language, bilingualism and cognitive development. She received the award this morning from the , which administers the .

One of the most important research prizes in the world, the $100,000 Killam Prize is annually awarded to five eminent Canadian scholars for their distinction in health sciences, engineering, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Bialystok was recognized for her work in the social sciences category.

Right: Ellen Biaylstok

The first in her field to research claims of cognitive deficits in bilingual children, Bialystok discovered that bilingual children and adults have distinct advantages over unilingual people when completing both linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks. Her research is now revealing that this advantage continues for bilingual people as they age.

She has also been recognized by the international linguistics community for her body of work on theories of language processing and on practical issues related to foreign and second language education.

“The Killam Prize recognizes Professor Bialystok’s groundbreaking contributions to psychology and confirms the international excellence of her achievements,” said 91��ɫ President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “Her success contributes to the growing national and international leadership of 91��ɫ’s faculty in health related-research as they respond to medical, social, and environmental challenges facing Canadians and people around the world.”

Bialystok was awarded a in 2001. She is a . In November, she received the 91��ɫ in recognition of her research contributions.

"Ellen is a remarkable researcher who is so deserving of the Killam Prize," said Stan Shapson, vice-president, research & innovation. "Her work is cited all over the world. She has also received funding from all three of Canada's national funding bodies − the , the and the − at various points in her career, along with funding from the ."

Bialystok has developed new methodologies for studying the role of cognitive processes on second language learning as well as the impact that knowing a second language has on cognitive aging.

“By studying people of all ages, and using both behavioural and neuroimaging approaches, Professor Bialystok is changing our understanding of language acquisition and literacy, as well as cognition and aging," said Faculty of Health Dean Harvey Skinnner. "Her research, and the collaborative research of many other faculty researching developmental and cognitive processes, reflects the Faculty's goals of innovative research that helps keep more people healthier, longer."

Bialystok has recently published research on how bilingualism boosts children’s focus. She has also researched how bilingualism can delay the onset of dementia.

By Janice Walls, media relations coordinator.

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