WICL-6

The 6th Workshop on Innovations in Cantonese Linguistics (WICL-6) — hosted by The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. — took place as a synchronous Zoom meeting on 27-28 May 2022 (EDT). As in the case of WICL-5, which was held virtually at OSU in April 2020 due to the pandemic, we did our best to arrange the WICL-6 program schedule to accommodate presenters in North America, East Asia, and elsewhere.

The Workshop on Innovations in Cantonese Linguistics (WICL) is a biennial conference that is hosted by different institutions in North America. It focuses on new advances in Cantonese Linguistics, including innovations in methodologies, tools, and/or computing software. New approaches and research on language variation within the Cantonese (or “Yue”) subgroup of the Chinese language family, language contact phenomena, and new subfields and their interfaces are especially welcome. The biennial WICL events, with presentations delivered in English, are free and open to the public, although online pre-registration is needed.

Dates: Friday evening & Saturday, 27-28 May 2022 (Eastern Daylight Time)
Place: Via the Zoom meeting platform from The Ohio State University campus and beyond

Program: WICL-6 Program Page &  WICL-6 Program Schedule (pdf, 05.24.2022)

Online Pre-Registration: WICL-6 Registration   (Deadline: Friday, 27 May 2022 at 12:00 noon EDT) – closed

Website: https://u.osu.edu/wicl/wicl-6/
Email: wicl6.2022wicl_emailgmail.com

Call for Papers:

  • Instructions for Abstract Submission: See the Call for Papers web page.
  • Abstract Deadline (one-week extension): Sunday, 1 May 2022, 11:59 PM — closed

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

  • Professor Alan C. L. Yu, University of Chicago
    Lecture title: “Phonological variation in child-directed speech in Hong Kong Cantonese”
  • Professor Elaine J. Francis, Purdue University
    Lecture title: “The role of accessibility in a grammatical resumption language: Cantonese relative clauses in cross-linguistic perspective”

SPECIAL PANEL: The Cantonese Language Association (CLA): Its History and Future Activities
– This 1-hour panel closed Day 1 events on Friday evening (EDT), 27 May 2022.

  • Chair: Professor Dana Scott Bourgerie, Brigham Young University
    CLA Executive Board
    . Dana S. Bourgerie (Brigham Young U), Chair
    . Marjorie K.M. Chan (Ohio State U)
    . Matthew B. Christensen (Brigham Young U)
    . Sik Lee Dennig (Cantonese Alliance of North America)
    . Raymond Pai (U of British Columbia)
    . Alan Yu (U of Chicago)- Background & History- Goals & Purposes
    – CLA website
    – Future Activities
    – Qs & Discussion

WORKSHOP 1: Analyzing Cantonese Corpus Data
– This 2-hour workshop was held on Friday evening (EDT), 27 May 2022, in conjunction with a parallel session.

  • Chair: Professor Charles T. K. Lam, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong: “Analyzing Cantopop with corpus methods”
  • Professor Chaak-ming Lau, The Education University of Hong Kong: “Extracting Cantonese data from Hong Kong Chinese corpora”
  • Dr. Jackson Lee, Author of PyCantonese: “Working with Cantonese CHILDES data”

WORKSHOP 2: Effective and Innovative Use of Popular Culture in Cantonese Language Teaching
– This 2-1/2 hour workshop was held on Saturday, 28 May 2022 at 1:00 pm EDT

  • Chair: Sik Lee Dennig, Ph.D., Cantonese Alliance of North America

Presentations (2 hours; 20 minutes of presentation + 10 minutes of Q&A for each paper)

  1. Genevieve Leung, Ph.D., University of San Francisco & Ming-Hsuan Wu, Ph.D., Adelphi University: “Cantonese HL learners and teachers as active agents in and out of classroom”
  2. Zoe Lam, Ph.D., University of British Columbia: “The role of content creation in the construction of heritage learners’ identity”
  3. Raymond Pai, University of British Columbia: “Innovations in Cantonese language curriculum design beyond the basic level”
  4. Sik Lee Dennig, Ph.D., Cantonese Alliance of North America: “Learning Cantonese in a relaxing way through pop culture”

Hands-on Activities (30 minutes)

This pedagogy workshop introduces a new framework for viewing Cantonese learners and an innovative approach to content creation. This workshop launches Cantonese Alliance of North America’s more focused series of Teacher Training Workshops this summer.

WICL-6 Organizing Committee:

Faculty co-chairs:
Professor Marjorie K.M. Chan (DEALL)
Professor Zhiguo Xie (DEALL)
Professor Mineharu (“JJ”) Nakayama (DEALL)

Graduate student co-chairs:
Jinwei Ye (DEALL)
Ka Fai Gary Law (DEALL)
Xuan Ye (DEALL)

Organizing committee members:
Paul Cockrum (DEALL)
Skylor Gomes (OSU alumnus)
Junyu Ruan (Dept. of Linguistics)
Seo-Jin Yang (DEALL)
Wei William Zhou (DEALL)
Yuhong Zhu (Dept. of Linguistics)

Staff Assistance:
David Liu (DEALL)

WICL logo designer: Honglin Du (都虹霖)
– The current WICL logo was first used for WICL-3 (in 2016 @ OSU), with prototype designed by Litong Chen.

WICL-6 is supported by the following OSU sponsors:
Graduate Association of Chinese Linguistics (GACL)
Graduate Students of East Asian Languages and Literatures (GREALL)
Department of Linguistics
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures (DEALL)
Council on Student Affairs
East Asian Studies Center
James H–Y. Tai Buckeye East Asian Linguistics Fund

Donations: Please consider supporting one, or both, funds. Thanks!

  • Cantonese Gamluhk (“Golden Buck”) Fund (Fund Number: 316950):
    https://www.giveto.osu.edu/makeagift/?fund=316950
    – This fund’s highest priority is to support the teaching of conversational Cantonese at OSU. (Other Cantonese programming activities on the OSU campus will be supported when there is sufficient funds to make it a permanent, endowment fund.)
  • James H-Y. Tai Buckeye East Asian Linguistics Fund (Fund Number: 647101):
    https://www.giveto.osu.edu/makeagift/?fund=647101
    – This endowment fund supports East Asian Linguistics events and activities at OSU.