[Ads-l] The Folk Phonetics of Graduation

[Geoffrey Nathan]

As many of you remember, Margaret Winters, my late wife (and active participant
in this list) was Provost of Wayne State University. In this role she presided
over many Graduation ceremonies. I often acted as 'reader', reading out the
names of the graduates as they crossed the stage.

In order to assist the reader, graduates filled out a 3 X 5 card with their name,
college and a request to help the reader pronounce their name, along with a
suggestion: 'Nan-C' for 'Nancy'

After a while we realized there might be some linguistic interest in what folks wrote,
so for a year we collected these cars, transcribed them, categorized the strategies and
made some general observations on how folks conveyed pronunciation when they
had no phonetics training.

We wrote a first draft before Margaret died, and I've finally got
myself to resurrect it, incorporate a few readers' comments and submitted it
to the LabPhon conference. But I'd like to send it to a journal.
The question is, 'Which journal?'

So I am coming to this august list for suggestions.

Also, I'd be glad to send it to anyone who'd like to take a look at it.

Geoff



Geoffrey S. Nathan
WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/

geoffnathan at wayne.edu

Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks.

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