34.1114, Rising Star: Jago Williams

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-34-1114. Tue Apr 04 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.1114, Rising Star: Jago Williams

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Editor for this issue: Lauren Perkins <lauren at linguistlist.org>
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Date: 
From: Lauren Perkins [lauren at linguistlist.org]
Subject: Rising Star: Jago Williams


During our annual Fund Drive, we like to feature undergraduate and MA
students who have gone above and beyond the classroom to participate
in the wider field of linguistics. Selected nominees exemplify a
commitment to not only academic performance, but also to the field of
linguistics and principles of scientific inquiry. Since this year’s
Fund Drive theme is Future tense, we are especially thankful to be
able to highlight undergraduate and MA students who are emerging as
the future leaders in our field.

Today’s Rising Star is Jago Williams, an MA student at Bangor
University. Jago was nominated by her adviser, Alan Wallington.

Jago is completing an MA in Bilingualism at Bangor University,
following a BA in Linguistics in 2021. Her contributions to the field
so far have been centred around the environment, specifically the
language used to describe a) people’s feelings toward the environment
and b) platial language (Place is the emotional correlate of Space).

As an undergraduate, she showed an interest in Cognitive Discourse
Analysis, and did some analysis work for Bangor’s Prof. Thora Tenbrink
and Northumbria’s Prof. Ruth Dalton on Tenbrink, Dalton and Williams
(2019), a peer-reviewed conference paper that examined the language
used by experts and non-experts to describe architectural diagrams.
Following this initial early interest in spatial language, she
embraced environmental concerns in Qiao and Williams (2022), a
peer-reviewed journal paper examining English-medium reactions to
natural disasters on Twitter. She combined these two interests in
Tenbrink and Williams (2022), the first peer-reviewed journal paper on
Place to use linguistic methods.
By the time of the third paper, Jago was not only analysing data and
contributing to the design of the data coding method, but also
contributing to the writing of the literature review and conclusions.
She raised awareness of this work through presentations at Spatial
Cognition (2021) and UKCLC (2020).
As a result of her continuing interest, she was also one of the
earliest members of Bangor University’s Places of Climate Change
research group.

Jago has also been a Research Assistant on three research projects and
an intern on a language technology project. Through these projects,
she has worked in sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics,
psycholinguistics and text-to-speech technology. All the projects have
supported Welsh – a minority language of which Jago is an L1 speaker.
She has now started a PhD looking at the syntax-semantics interface in
Welsh/English bilinguals with co-occurring Down syndrome and Autism
Spectrum Conditions.
_________________________

When asked which topics she sees emerging as important or especially
interesting in the field of linguistics, and how she hopes to
contribute in the future, Jago writes:

The days of polymath philosophers researching and teaching every field
of human endeavour may be over, but co-operation and interdisciplinary
work are still key to the most vital work that lies ahead of all of us
in terms of climate change and quality of life. Linguistics has an
inherently interdisciplinary nature and consequently an excellent
position from which to contribute. I hope to make my contribution in
the three P’s – Place, Pathology, and Policy.

Climate change is an existential threat the like of which humans have
never faced. At first glance it may seem strange to assert that the
students who today are learning the difference between inflectional
and derivational morphology or best practice for writing
questionnaires might tomorrow be using their linguistic skills to
boost efforts to combat this global threat. However, there are
linguists already working on this in many languages, some of them
regional and minority languages. Everything from how we connect to the
spaces around us (place and platial relations) to the metaphors we use
to understand and plan for the future.

In my own work I have been lucky enough to contribute to projects that
have combined insights from cognitive discourse analysis,
environmental psychology, geographic information science, spatial
cognition, bilingualism and others to examine the way we talk and
think about place, climate change and natural disasters. My intention
is to both continue to examine place and platial relations using
linguistic methods of analysis, and also to promote and encourage
interdisciplinary work and networking between people who would perhaps
not otherwise be aware of the need for their skills in climate change
research. Another issue that linguistics is well placed to contribute
to is increasing quality of life. Examples that are likely to come to
the fore in the coming decades include: the promotion of bi- and
multilingualism to preserve and promote multiculturalism and improve
cognitive health; improving communication methods for minimally verbal
or nonverbal people and others with language pathologies; and
providing robust evidence bases for decision makers – be they parents
and guardians, schools, or politicians.

Several ways of increasing quality of life are relevant to the work I
will be doing in the next few years as I work on my PhD. My research
will be with bilingual autistic people with co-occurring Down syndrome
(DS-ASD). Very little research currently exists into the language
skills of this population. I intend to look at the syntax-semantics
interface, because of its connection to a wide range of linguistic
skills. I hope that contributing to researchers’ understanding of the
interface in this population will mean that a great deal can be
learned from relatively little work on the part of the participants.
In the long term I hope that improved language planning and
interventions will lead to better outcomes for people with DS-ASD,
especially in everyday communication, improved pragmatic skills and
ease of participation in social and community activities.

In all of these cases, the insights and knowledge gained from research
can only be useful if it is implemented in the real world. Individual
action can only take us so far, and I predict that researchers in many
disciplines, linguistics included, will become increasingly vocal
about implementing evidence-based policies. In my case, I intend to
promote my research findings as widely as possible, and hold policy
makers to account when their decisions run counter to the evidence.
__________________________

The LINGUIST List looks forward to continuing to serve the linguistics
community, including its up-and-coming stars, for years to come. You
can contribute to our Fund Drive here:
https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate



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