The Culture Vultures reading group and the Department of Studies in Culture invite everyone to a meeting moderated by dr Katarzyna Burzyńska devoted to the presentation of pregnant characters in selected English early modern dramas. Join us Teams on Thursday, June 10, 6:30 pm.
The presentation is part of a research project entitled “Sir, she came in great with child, and longing”: phenomenology of pregnancy in English early modern drama (Measure for Measure 2.1.96)” financed by The National Science Centre, Poland within the OPUS scheme (Contract no. UMO-2017/27/B/HS2/00089).
When? Thursday, June 10, 6:30 pm
Where? MS Teams
How? Join the Culture Vultures MS Team with the code: g9h9jtl
On Friday, May 28, 2021 there was the first, but hopefully not the last, Zoom meeting between faculty members and students from Kobe Women’s University and the Faculty of English of Adam Mickiewicz University.
Professor Joanna Pawelczyk, Dean of the Faculty of English, AMU, talked about the Faculty of English and various areas of research carried by its members. She also stressed the importance of international relations in our work. Professor Radosław Dylewski showed the audience various programs currently run by the Faculty of English. Professor Liliana Sikorska took the audience on a virtual tour from the Ławica Poznań airport to Collegium Minus and the Imperial District talking about four seminal figures in the history of the city and the University: Henryk Wieniawski, Adam Mickiewicz, Frederick Chopin and Jan Ignacy Paderewski, while dr. Tomasz Skirecki demonstrated how the University and the Faculty of English are linked with city’s present and future endeavors.
The students from Japan shared with us their thoughts on Japanese animation, traditional Japanese food, traditional Japanese house and students’ life at Kobe Women’s university. The representatives of AMU presented a survey on how Japan is perceived in Poland and imparted their fascination with Japanese manga culture. The students then continued their discussions in breakout rooms.
The spirit of congeniality pervaded the meeting and we all hope that after the introductions of our respective institutions we will continue the exchange of ideas and encourage the students to learn more about Japan and Poland, respectively.
Liliana Sikorska
music video by Grzegorz Krynicki
You are cordially invited to participate in an on-line exchange between AMU and Kobe Women's University. The meeting can be entered by registration only.
The Department of Studies in Culture has the pleasure to introduce Dr Imke Lichterfeld from the University of Bonn who will give two talks in Prof. Jacek Fabiszak’s MA and BA courses. Dr Lichterfeld specialises in Early Modern Drama and Contemporary English Drama. She is also an actress at Bonn University Shakespeare Company.
31st May, Monday, 11.30-13.00 (MS Teams)
“Gender-conscious casting on the contemporary stage”
WA Friday Lunch Talks are monthly meetings with presentations of current research results or research in progress by WA faculty, staff, or PhD students. Each talk is of 45 minutes (+15 minutes for discussion). We welcome all to a LECTURE ONLINE (MS Teams) "Buffy's legacy. The revival of the -age suffix" by dr hab. Marcin Krygier (Friday, May 21, 13:15-14:15).
Dr hab. Marcin Krygier specialises in the history of the English language.
Tying in with the 60th anniversary of Alan Shepard’s flight, the Culture Vultures reading club invites everyone to a presentation on US manned space flight programmes Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. A photographic story of how “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth” became reality and what happened later. With dozens of photos from NASA and commentary by dr Grzegorz Michalski.
When? Thursday, May 13, 6:30 pm
Where? MS Teams
How? Use the LINK to the meeting
or
join the Culture Vultures MS Team with the code: g9h9jtl
WA Friday Lunch Talks are monthly meetings with presentations of current research results or research in progress by WA faculty, staff, or PhD students. Each talk is of 45 minutes (+15 minutes for discussion). We welcome all to a LECTURE ONLINE (MS Teams) "Spatio-temporal patterns of street renaming in Poland and East Germany" by prof. Małgorzata Fabiszak (Friday, April 30, 13:15-14:15).
The Culture Vultures reading club invite everyone to the screening of some of the most controversial independent and experimental films (and film scenes), which have broken the taboos and censorship of the mainstream (film) culture, (re)addressing the questions of race, gender and the body. With an introduction and commentary by Kornelia Boczkowska. All welcome!
When? Thursday, April 15, 6:30 pm
Where? MS Teams
How? Use the code: g9h9jtl
WA Distinguished Professors’ Lectures Series features internationally renowned scholars visiting the Faculty of English to share their research and professional expertise with the faculty and students. This time we have the honour to host Prof. John Harris (University College London), who will deliver a lecture “Where does phonological knowledge stop? – Simplicity versus naturalness in the learnability of phonotactic patterns” that will take place on 26 March 2021 (Friday) at 1:15 p.m. via Zoom.
26 March 2021 (Friday) at 1:15 p.m. via Zoom
You may download and open this ICS file to add the event to your Outlook or Google calendar.
Abstract
Naturalness in phonological patterns is often observed to correlate with regularity and structural simplicity. What are the relative contributions of these different factors to speakers’ ability to internalise phonological patterns? To answer this question, we need to investigate patterns where the factors can be decoupled. We present the results of a non-word acceptability study that takes a step in this direction by investigating a phonotactic pattern that is regular and simple but not natural.
The pattern is one that restricts consonants following /aw/ in English to coronals (hence mouth, about, sound, powder, but nothing along the lines of */awb/, */awk/). The pattern (‘awT’) is phonologically regular, structurally simple, and lexically general. All of these factors are known to promote the ability of speakers to learn phonotactic patterns (see the literature review in Moreton & Pater 2012a). It has been claimed elsewhere that awT is also phonetically natural (Kubozono 2001, Nevins 2012), another factor known to enhance learnability (Moreton & Pater 2012b). We present comparative and historical evidence showing that the pattern is in fact not natural but is rather the synchronically accidental outcome of a series of largely unrelated sound changes.
The awT pattern might be known to phonologists, but is it internalised by native speakers? To investigate this question, we asked English-speaking listeners to judge the acceptability of non-words containing /aw/ followed by a range of different consonants. The results of the study indicate that, if speakers have any tacit awareness of awT at all, it is not encapsulated in anything like a phonologist’s rule or constraint. Where a coronal preference can be detected with /aw/, it is no different than what can be observed with other long vowels investigated in the study. Moreover, the preference is influenced by lexical neighbourhood factors, which suggests that participants were making on-the-fly judgements of how much the non-words resemble real words.
We conclude that awT is a case where phonologists know more about a phonotactic pattern than speakers know.
WA Friday Lunch Talks are monthly meetings with presentations of current research results or research in progress by WA faculty, staff, or PhD students. Each talk is of 45 minutes (+15 minutes for discussion). We welcome all to a POST-DOCTORAL LECTURE ONLINE (MS Teams) "Complexity in Polish phonotactics" by dr hab. Paula Orzechowska (Friday, March 19, 13:15-14:15).
