CUNY Linguistics Colloquium Series-Sinfree Makoni


Date Submitted:	10-Apr-2009
From:	Nazik Dinctopal
Subject:	CUNY Linguistics Colloquium Series-Sinfree Makoni
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Notice:	The third CUNY LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM of the Spring semester will be held on: Thursday, April 23, 2009 at: 4:15 p.m. at: The CUNY Graduate Center - 365 Fifth Avenue - New York (room 6417) by: Sinfree Makoni (Pennsylvania State University) on: Is a sociolinguistics of a linguistic individual across a life span feasible? Abstract: This presentation reports on a life span study that analyzed language by a highly respected professional engineer named (DB). DB had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) for three years before our study. The data is made up of private correspondence, letters by her before the onset of AD, and memoirs to herself and her caregiver and fictional memoirs to herself which she portrays as having been written to her by her caregiver. Data from an interview conducted to measure her cognitive status is also used as part of the analysis. From the early writings to the time DB was confined to a nursing home, the data spans a period of over fifty years. The methodology used for data analysis is one of a discourse-analytic case study of an individual’s talk and writing across genres, biographical and historical research ‘about the sociolinguistic and language-ideological contexts’ (Johnstone 2009) to show how ‘repeated patterns of stance-taking can come together as a style associated with a particular individual’ (Johnstone 2009). The findings suggest that language consistency is maintained because old texts are always reshaped in new contexts. A high degree of consistency can also be maintained between the early stages of AD and the period prior to the onset of disease because even though DB is in a state of cognitive decline she still has some access to her lingual memories. The conclusion drawn is that if language is made up of ‘prior texts’, then distinctions between languages is not necessary. ALL WELCOME!