Bucknell linguist Hiram Smith to give public lecture at Lycoming College
Williamsport, Pa. — Lycoming College will welcome Hiram Smith, the Ruth Everett Sierzega Chair in Linguistics and associate professor of Spanish and linguistics at Bucknell University, for a public lecture titled “What We Need to Know About Our Own — and Each Other’s — Language.” The free lecture is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17 in the Trogner Presentation Room in the Krapf Gateway Center, followed by a book signing and reception at 8 p.m. The event, hosted by Lycoming College’s Humanities Research Center, is open to the public. Smith’s research examines language variation and change within marginalized speech communities across the Americas, including African American English, Palenquero, and Pennsylvania Dutch. His work involves community members in every stage of the research process, from data collection to co-authorship. The lecture draws on Smith’s research into Creole languages and the stigmatization they face. His work on Palenquero, an Afro-Hispanic Creole language spoken in northern Colombia, examines how languages can be dismissed, devalued, and yet still survive. That thread also runs through his study of African American English and his book, “Wassup, My Nigga: The Hidden History of a Controversial Word” (Georgetown University Press), which traces how stigma shapes the way
