Faculty in the Department of Linguistics recently worked with the Department of Second Language Studies and the Hamilton-Luger School to host MidPhon30, the 30th anniversary meeting of this workshop, which started in the 1990s as a joint meeting between Indiana University and Ohio State University, and then the University of Illinois. The workshop has, since its early beginning, consistently brought together some of the most prominent scholars in phonology and phonetics from around the country, and it’s called ‘mid’, because these scholars happen to be working at neighboring universities. Though local, it’s been one of the world’s most high-powered annual venues in the discipline, showcasing early-concept research in linguistic theory, language documentation, social variation, multilingualism, and language acquisition, and psycholinguistics. It’s been a model launching point for our graduate students and an important place for our junior faculty to become connected to the research network.
The program was compacted into a two-day period on October 10 - 11, involving almost 50 presentations from people within relatively easy driving distance, bringing together about 100 attendees, including the faculty from these institutions. This workshop was particularly noteworthy as a return to I.U., organized by Stuart Davis and his colleagues, since Prof. Davis organized the original series. The workshop stands as a testament to the power of the American academy to bring scholars together to solve intellectual and scientific problems and to draw in and nurture the next generation.
The workshop was supported by the Departments of Linguistics, Second Language Studies, Speech Language and Hearing Sciences, French and Italian, and Central Eurasian Studies, as well as the Hamilton-Luger School of Global and International Studies and the Chin Languages Research Project, another testament to the richness of language research and teaching at Indiana University.
From Our Students:
“MidPhon is always a great place to meet other graduate students and to reconnect with ones that I've met previously. This was my fourth MidPhon, so I really enjoyed seeing how the friends I had made at previous ones have continued to grow their research. Because it's a tight-knit community, it was a supportive environment to share our research.”
– Kai Owens, Ph.D. French Linguistics, Minor in General Linguistics
“I look forward to MidPhon every year! It's a very friendly group, and you always get very helpful feedback on things you present there. This year, especially, was a neat experience because IU hosted, so we (grad students) got to learn a bit more about the behind-the-scenes of how a conference like this operates, which I found very insightful.”
– Grayson Ziegler, Ph.D. General Linguistics, Minor in Second Language Studies
The College of Arts