The Swedish chef: from Norway?!

In Språktidningen (”The language magazine”) there is an article about the Swedish chef in The Muppet Show. Tomas Riad, a professor at Stockholm University, has taken a closer look at the tonal accents in the chef’s “Swedish”. The intonation reveals that the Swedish chef is neither from southern Sweden nor from Dalecarlia, but that he might be from Stockholm or Gothenburg. What may come as a surpise, is that the intonation contour in his speech suggests that he might as well be from Norway. See for example Tomas Riad’s “Remarks on the Swedish tone accent typology”(pdf) for more about tone accents in Swedish.

For more fake Swedish, check out the Bergman parody De Düva. The language consists of English words, -en verb endings (as in German) and some Russian influences. But Swedish - I’m not sure…

A lot going on

The central part of my life right now seems to be train rides… Since the university where I study is 2,5-3 hours by train from here, and I go there at least twice a week, I spend 10 hours or more per week on the train. The key to successful studying on-board the train is quite simple: block out as much as possible of the environment by listening to music in earplugs.

SJ InterCity train, photo by Kasper Dudzik

I’ve got some new software on my computer: Papers, Skim and LyX. I’m using LyX to write my course paper and so far I quite like it. I haven’t used LaTeX before so I’ve got a lot to learn. I don’t know if LyX is the best text editor to use, but I’m trying it out.

Redecorating…

…or spring cleaning, call it what you like. I was in the mood for a new theme

Um

I’m once again amazed by the fact that other people are interested in the same linguistic details I’m interested in. Sometimes they’re so interested they write a book about it! Michael Erard has written the book “Um. . .: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean” which I bought and started reading yesterday.

So far I’ve only read the first chapter and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book.

Feeling stupid

I really really tried to go to the seminar today. I did! But - listen to this - I got lost! The seminar was in another building, about 1km away, and I didn’t find it… I had looked at the map, but when I was on my way I saw some stairs going up to another street and thought it was a shortcut. Well, it wasn’t. It was a wrongcut.

When the clock was 5 minutes past the seminar’s starting time, and I still had no idea where to go, I wen’t back to my room. Feeling, on a scale from 1 to 10, 11 stupid.

Lucky for me that the lecture this afternoon is in my building - I might stumble upon it if I try not to look for it, haha

Two new courses…

…starting tomorrow. “Pragmatics” and “The History of Linguistics”. Unfortunately they overlap tomorrow: pragmatics from 1PM to 4PM and history of linguistics from 2PM to 4PM.

Before that I’m going to a seminar on  “rehabilitating communicative ability in children and adolescents with acquired brain injury”. It’s a presentation of a PhD project by an SLP. It’ll be very interesting to hear some more about it.

Essay topic

On Thursday my first essay synopsis is due. The course is “Phonology and Morphology”, and right now I’m trying to figure out how to connect my research interest (production and perception of pauses) to the course.

One idea is to look at realizations of filled pauses in speech, i.e. allophones of filled pauses. I’m not sure yet, I will have to keep thinking. By the way: when I googled “filled pause” I got 6360 hits - I guess I’m not the only language nerd on the net…

Wired article on autism

Wired magazine published this article on autism. I read it and I think it was interesting. Amanda Baggs, one of the women featured in the article, wrote some comments on her blog after the article was published.

The article discussed measuring intelligence in persons diagnosed with autism, specifically with two different intelligence tests: the Wechsler Intelligence Scale and Raven’s progressive matrices. Dawson et al. have showed that children with autism scored on average 30 percentile points higher on the Wechsler Scale than on Raven’s matrices (The level and nature of autistic intelligence). What seems to be lacking (I could be wrong though) is a discussion on what intelligence is - what is being measured? It seems very logical to me that someone who has problems with language and communication (and that is one of the diagnostic criteria of autism) will perform better on a non-verbal test such as Raven’s, than on a, at least partially, verbal test such as Wechsler. It also seems logical to assume that a test designed to measure intelligence in neurotypical persons will not correctly measure intelligence in persons with different intelligence profiles.

But what is intelligence? Is intelligence to be able to tell someone what “killing to birds with one stone” means, or to identify which segment completes a pattern? Is it possible to disregard language ability, cultural influences, life experience etc and pin down some sort of abstract entity that is intelligence?

I haven’t got any answers. Anyone else?

European day of Speech and Language Therapy

Yesterday, March 6th, was the European day of Speech and Language Therapy. This day is supposed to bring more attention to the work of speech and language therapists, and the people who need their care. I was talking to some SLP colleagues the other day, and we agreed that still many people don’t know what we do. Common misconceptions:

• A “logoped” (SLP in Swedish) works with for example feet and knees. - Hmm, no, you’re thinking of an “ortoped” (orthopedic surgeon)
• SLP:s are “speech ladies” who teach children to pronounce /s/ or /r/. - Well, we’re not all female. And treating pronunciation difficulties is a very small part of what we do.
• An SLP is a teacher who specialises in speech and language. - No, teacher and SLP are two different professions.
  

CPLOL has a very good definition of an SLP on their web page:

The speech and language therapist / logopedist is concerned with communication and with language, and treats all disorders of speech, voice and spoken and written language, regardless of aetiology, in children, adolescents, adults and the elderly.
The speech and language therapist is the professional responsible for the prevention, assessment, treatment and scientific study of human communication and associated disorders. In this context, communication encompasses all those processes associated with the comprehension and production of spoken and written language, as well as appropriate forms of non-verbal communication.

CPLOL is short for Comité Permanent de Liason des Orthophonistes/Logopèdes de l’Union Européenne, or, in English, the Standing Liasion Committee of E.U. Speech and Language Therapists and Logopedists.

Unfortunately, I don’t think yesterday brought much attention to SLP:s in Sweden: when I googled “logopeddagen” (SLP day) I got 12 hits…

In MacBook heaven

Today I got my work computer - a MacBook. I’ve only had it for about 8 hours, but I think I’m in love… So this is a great start to my new life as a full time PhD student! I finished my old job on Thursday, and now all I have to worry about is submitting a thesis in four years - ha!

Oh, and about computers: my LG laptop takes about 5-10 minutes to start up. My MacBook is up and running in about a minute.