Last Three Minute Thesis Competition

I apologize for not posting earlier, but it's been rather hectic around here lately as school is starting to wrap up.  Last Wednesday and Thursday were research day at UNA.  And Wednesday night was the final competition at the University level for the Three Minute Thesis Competition.  There were 11 contestants I believe.  There were 12 but someone didn't show up for whatever reason.  I am very excited to announce that I won People's Choice as well as First Place!  There were some really great presentations and I am very excited and honored that they chose mine.  I wish I had a video to post but honestly my voice sounds super weird on recordings, well at least I think it does so I will spare you from that.  I also had to take the OPIC which is the oral proficiency test that the Foreign Language department at UNA makes graduating seniors take to graduate.  We have to score a Intermediate-High,  which thankfully I did.  I am also super excited that as of tomorrow afternoon I will not have any more presentations to give before I graduate!  I feel like I have spent most of this semester presenting either on my Capstone research or other research that I'm doing for my classes.  It's rather nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel so to speak.  But there are still 3 more research papers to be written and edited.  I'm also ready to be done with that.  Although in all honesty, as much as I complain about school and the work load I have, which trust me I am not exaggerating, I really do enjoy it.  I love learning new things and increasing my understanding of my research topics.  I really am a nerd.  I love doing the research part.  Its just disseminating that research into papers and tests that drives me crazy.  So there is a brief update on how things are going here.  Best of luck and wishes to you all.

Three Minute Thesis Competition

I may have mentioned in a previous post that the department competition for the the 3MT was about two weeks ago now.  Well I and another guy represented the Foreign Languages department at the college level.  There are four colleges at my university, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business, the College of Education, and the College of Nursing.  So today was the Three Minute Thesis competition at the college level to see who would be the representative for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University level of the competition.  There were 18 people presenting, and there were some really awesome presentations.  My goal was to do the best that I could.  I had been working on this for awhile and I had been practicing in front of my professor, boyfriend, and basically anyone who would listen.  I even practiced while I was doing my hair and make-up some mornings.  But I knew that if I got up there and gave it my best shot I at least would be proud of myself for making it this far.  And I did, I got up there and presented in front of faculty and students.  I was pretty nervous, I started shaking when I put on my eyeliner, its a miracle I got it on straight, and I didn't stop shaking until the last presentation was over.  After it was over I figured I had a pretty good shot of being in the top three, I felt pretty confident.  I knew I was loud enough, I was under the time limit and I didn't have any major mess ups during my presentation.  I had done exactly what I set out to do.  And then they announced the results...I won!!!  I was so excited, still am actually!  I don't win a lot of things, even though I can be horribly competitive sometimes, and it was just really nice that all my hard work had paid off.  And when I say there were some good presentations, I'm not being just being nice, there really were some interesting presentations and I can say that I learned some cool stuff today.  Its fun to see how diverse the College of Arts and Sciences is and there were presentations on everything from music to chemistry.  I'm really excited to be representing the College of Arts and Sciences in the final level of the competition.  But trust me I'm not going to stop working on my presentation.  I think I changed around the sentence order  right before I got up to present today, that's how OCD I'm being about this presentation.  So Research Day here I come! Gonna make my department proud, because trust me my advisor has been working just as hard on this as I have.  I personally wouldn't want to proof read my first draft of this research paper.  But then again I'm beginning to think she might be a little bit of a saint.  So good luck and best wishes, and if your spring break is this next week, have fun!

Update on the Crazy

So my first draft has been turned it.  I have been so stressed about this paper that I had a dream (after I turned it in, mind you) that my advisor for this project thought I plagiarized and she threw me in jail.  That's how stressed I have been.  And no I did not plagiarize, this paper is all mine, it may be ugly and there may be comma splices but its my little monster, all mine.  I don't know if I should say it like that, I sound like Gollum and his precious, but I can tell you that's a pretty good analogy of my relationship with this paper.  I hate it and love it at the same time and its driving me crazy.  Oh well, now all I have to do is present at Research Day which is April 9th and compete in the college heat for 3MT next Thursday March 20th.  I'm almost done and I can't wait to be finished!  I am tired and exhausted and I didn't know I could drink that much coffee.  I hope all is going well for you and I'll be posting more about my research later, when I can actually stand to think about it again.  Best wishes and good luck.

Three Minute Thesis and Procrastination

My university hosts annual Research Day and this year they are adding a new component, a competition called Three Minute Thesis.  This competition was developed by the University of Queensland, and it challenges students to present their research in three minutes or less.  And they must present to an audience that has no idea what the presenter is talking about, so they basically have to start scratch.  Here is one of my favorite videos.  This girl is amazingly smart and her presentation  is wonderful.  I hope you all will enjoy this as much as I did.







For more information you can go to the Three Minute Thesis website: http://threeminutethesis.org/

I have to give my first presentation at the department level tomorrow.  Which is rather nerve racking but I'm also excited.



Right now the Oscars are on so I'm taking a break from my first draft of my paper which is due this Friday.  It's supposed to be 15-17 pages long.  Currently I have half a first paragraph and a three page long works cited.  Which I am really hoping my advisor will count into my total page count.  But I'm not going to bet on that, my luck isn't that good.  I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to manage to present my Three Minute Thesis, do homework, work out, eat and sleep.  I'm thinking the sleep is gonna go out the window.  I apologize this post is mostly documenting the process of getting through a week of Capstone requirements.  I wouldn't wish this on anyone.  It's funny I remember being a freshman and listening to all the seniors complaining about their capstone projects and now I understand.  I apologize for the scattered nature of this post. But that seems to the theme of my life right now.  So if you feel called to send me good thoughts, prayers, light, vibes or juju please feel free I could use as much support as I can get.  Thanks again for your patience with me this evening.  Best wishes and Good luck!

"Encomana el català"

In my previous post I mentioned that the governments of Catalonia and Galicia have taken steps to encourage more people to learn the language of the community.  This especially important in Catalonia which is a hub for immigration because of its economy.  Many of these immigrants come from the Spanish speaking areas of South America and from other parts of Spain, so they speak Spanish, the official language of the nation but not Catalan the co-official language of Catalonia.  The  Generalitat of Catalonia has produced media campaigns to encourage non-native speakers to learn the language.  This commercial is one of them.




This is a fun little video that the Government of Catalonia put out to encourage the use of Catalan by immigrants.  The title "Encomana el català"basically means to "pass the Catalan on."  This video is interesting because it is aimed specifically towards visually identifiable immigrants, the people using Catalan are visually clued to be "other" in the sense that they are not Spanish (originating from Spain) or Catalan, they are immigrants who have chosen to speak Catalan.  Their use of Catalan is obviously accepted and applauded by those around them who are originally from Catalonia, i.e. the baker.  This commercial was referenced in Steve Marshall's article "The story of the tallat:  Latin American bar workers, Catalan-speaking customers, and coffee" which was published in "Spanish in Context" in 2012.  The translation of the commercial is on page 412 and I am putting here a copy so everyone can understand the commercial.


Baker: What would you like for an afternoon snack?

Lead: I'd like a sandwich please.

Bakery staff:  Here you are, they're nice and hot.

Staff in the street: I hope you enjoy it, and have a nice day.

Blond(e) dancer: Did you speak to him in Catalan?

Lead: Of course thats how I can practice.

Arab man with propane gas canister: At work!

Three Indian women dancing Bollywood-style in saris: In the street!

Lead: At my friend Joan's cafe!

Bar staff serving in a square:  The first word, in Catalan!

Flower seller:  [You can say] hello or what would you like?

Lead and chorus: Pass Catalan on.

Closing shot of campaign logo: Generalitat de Catalunya.  For the language--let's go!



Neither the video nor the translation are mine.  The video is circulated by the Generalitat of Catalonia and is their property and like I said this translation of the dialogue is from Steve Marshall's article, it is not mine.

This is just something a little more fun and there is also a parody that of this campaign that I may post later.  I hope you enjoyed it, and goodbye for now and good luck!

Capstone Project

Let me introduce myself.  My name is Lauren and I am an undergraduate student at the University of North Alabama.  I am completing my senior project otherwise known as my capstone project.  These are the projects that all members of the Honors Program must complete to graduate with honors, and they vary from student to student.  I am Spanish major so most people would expect that my project would have something to do with Spanish grammar or literature.  However, my interests lie in sociolinguistic studies.  They make my little nerdy heart just giddy with happiness.  And one thing that really upsets me is language extinction.  The idea that a whole culture's way of expressing itself and communicating with the world around it can just disappear in one person's lifetime is heart breaking.  If I haven't mentioned already, I am a nerd.  So when I started to think about what I wanted to do for my capstone project I was very much interested in language extinction and the minority languages* spoken in Spain.  I have chosen to look at to specific languages: Catalan and Galician.  These languages are interesting to me because because of the constitution of Spain the communities that speak these languages are "autonomous communities" and have the ability to enforce language polices to preserve the language.  Where many languages today are quickly fading into obscurity because they have no means of preservation, Catalan and Galician are adding new speakers.  But there are problems.  Catalonia is a destination for immigrants from all around the world, but especially from Spanish speaking areas of Latin America and other areas of Spain, and these people speak Spanish, not Catalan.  Tensions have arisen here with the government of Catalonia enacting policies to make Catalan a more prominent part of the community, and many immigrants feel that these policies are discriminatory.  In Galicia there is not as much immigration from abroad but more of outward migration from Galicia to other parts of Spain and to other countries, and a migration to cities from more rural areas.  This has led to a decrease of Galician being taught between generations.  But due to language planning many Galicians in urban areas are taught Galician in school, but it is a standardized form and not necessarily the Galician spoken by native speakers outside of urban areas.  There are more things than this that I am looking into for my research but this gives you a idea of what my research entails.

Now I would like to say this: I realize that all the information I have comes from books, from research articles and studies.  I have never been to Catalonia or Galicia, although I have been to Spain, to Andalusia in fact.  So I don't know what the attitudes and thoughts are of the people in these regions apart from what I have read.  So what I say here is a reflection of my understanding of my sources.  I will be happy to provide a works cited from my research if anyone has any questions.  And the writers of these sources are much smarter than I and have much more education and experience in the field of sociolinguistics, while I am only avidly curious.  I say all this to say: I do not say anything to intentionally offend or upset anyone.  I understand that language, and language use can be tied to politics and social groups and personal identity.  I will try my upmost in my blog post to make no judgements, I only seek to report my understanding of things in as neutral a way as I can.  I repeat if I offend anyone in the process of this blog it is, believe me, unintentional.  I hate hurting peoples feelings.  Some would disagree, as I have a habit of being sarcastic, but in all truth I never want to intentionally hurt or offend anyone.  So if I get something wrong in my blogs or say something that bothers you, please feel free to comment in a constructive way.  If you have an article or news clip that is useful please share! I will be in your debt.  I don't know everything nor do I claim to, so if you happen to have more knowledge about something I am talking about and I mess something up, I apologize, and if you can tell me why I am wrong and back it up with articles and evidence I will listen.  I am writing this long disclaimer because I am posting this on the internet, where it is very possible that people who live in these areas and speak these languages will be able to read my posts.  They will have a much better understanding of what everyday life is like and what attitudes towards this subject are really like.  I would love to hear from them since I can not go to Spain myself.  I'm a college student and rather penniless.  Traveling back to Spain and conducting extensive research myself is rather impossible.  So please be patient with me during this process I only want to learn.  I did mention I was a nerd, right?  If you have comments and questions please feel free to post them, but please make them constructive and polite.

Alright so I'm done with my disclaimer.  Well its rather late and I need to sleep because I have another long day of research ahead of me.  So goodbye for now and good luck!

*I use the term minority languages in the strict sense of a language that is spoken by less than half of the population.  This is by no means a reflection of these language's value or contribution to culture. It is used simply for ease of communication and in a strict numerical sense.