The students authoring these blogs were each awarded a 2022 Linguistics Undergraduate Research Award (LURA 2022) for innovative work in a linguistics course at Å·ÃÀ¿Ú±¬ÊÓƵ Boulder. Students in introductory as well as advanced courses were considered for the award. Nominated by faculty, GPTIs, and TAs, award winners were asked to create a short blog about their research. This project was supported by the ASSETT Faculty Fellows Program.

The Balto-Finnic Languages

Finnish & Estonian: A "Case" Study

Fewer people speak Finnish and Estonian combined than the population of New York City by a margin of some 2.5 million, a fact which would be easy to blame on the complexities of the two languages in comparison to… well, most other languages, especially in regard to their case marking systems. Read more
Picture of a brain with blog title text

Honorific Language in Japanese and its Effects on Translator Systems

Online translators, such as Google Translate, are a convenient and fast tool to facilitate communication and understanding between speakers of different languages, especially when both parties are not mutually fluent in either language. However, the provided translations are not always accurate, and we can often find strange and unnatural uses of language provided from such translation software. Read more
Photo of two boys reading a book

Just a Dash of Farsi: Language and Identity

What's really the point of those random Farsi words and phrases in Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner"? Read more
Paraisopolis, a favela in Sao Paulo, next to its wealthy neighbor Morumbi

The Wealth Gap Through Content-Based ESL Instruction

The wealth gap is a problematic trend that needs to be addressed through education in all parts of the world. Read more
Lion King's Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed

Lion King’s Hierarchy of Accents and Dialects

Animated films often show sugarcoated tales of heroism and romance, however, they are laced with underlying meanings that can influence and exploit our understanding of race and ethnicity. Read more
Photo of the US flag with 51 stars and the Ryuku Islands

Japanese, Ryukyuan, and the 51st State

Let’s suppose that one day we all wake up in the same alternate reality – a rather boring one where everything is the same, aside from an island not so far east of Washington. Read more
Photo of Robert Frost

The Essentials of Figurative Language through the Whimsical Perspective of Robert Frost

For most, poetry is considered to be an unattainable pleasure, in that it’s either governed by the strictly enforced canons of the elite or by rhythmic anarchy itself and its youthful desire to shock or unsettle, but how exactly does Robert Frost utilize the same literary tools to refute these generalizations throughout his work? Read more
Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman

Interviewing Female Superheroes

Instead of asking about the roles of the female superheroes or what they thought of the movie, the actresses who play these roles were asked about their skintight suits. Read more
Screenshot of a text exchange, the sender says: bone, fuck, no bone

Linguistics and Familiar Conversation Over Text

How obscure can an inside joke become (no bone intended)? Read more
An axolotl in an airplane

From Axolotls to Airplanes: How Ancient Aztec Word Construction Translates to the Modern World

What do chocolate, an endangered salamander, and a popular restaurant chain have in common? They all have etymological roots in Nahuatl! Read more
Green and white text reading "All I'm saying is"

All, Everything, and Only: Defining The Taxonomy of Copular Clauses

How everything can help us describe copular clauses. Read more
Artistic representation of a diverse group of people

Language and Gender Around the World

When the modern language we use to describe gender and identity can elude even native English speakers, how do we teach appropriate terminology to those who come from different language backgrounds? Read more
Kanto and Kansai represented on a map of Japan

A Comparison of Syllable Length Between Kansai and Kanto Dialects of Japanese

Japanese is a language only spoken widely in Japan, however there are approximately 47 dialects spoken within the language, which makes for some interesting variations in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Read more
Music notes move from one person's mouth to another's ear

Your Words Are Music to My Ears

How does having an ear for music impact a person’s ability to recognize English vowel sounds? Read more
Black and white landscape photo

Polylithic Patterns of Newfoundlander English

How do other American dialects differ from the most linguistically diverse community in North America? Read more
Indian School in Cantonment Oklahoma

Empowering Native Language in the English Classroom

Expanding access to English does not need to come with a loss of native languages. Read more