2017 Dunton Tower was buzzing last Thursday with the sounds (and sights) of the 14th Annual Graduate Student Symposium. The theme for this year’s Symposium was “Connecting Through Language” and the event featured more than twenty academic posters by students in the ALDS (Applied Linguistics & Discourse Studies) Masters and PhD programs.
Following a welcome from School Director (Acting) Dr. Jaffer Sheyholislami, Dr. Trudy O’Brien delivered her keynote address “Effective Intercultural Communicative Competence: culture’s consequences”. Dr. O’Brien has been undertaking scholarship in the fields of intercultural communication and ESL for more than four decades.
Topics explored by student posters included: language learning motivation, Cree language revitalization, language testing in the aviation industry, sexualized representation of bartenders in discourse, corpus analysis of school shooters’ notes, and more. Abstracts from presenters can be viewed online.
The event was well-attended by faculty, students (undergraduate and graduate), and staff as well as Dean of FGPA, Dr. Matthias Neufang, and Associate Dean, FASS (Graduate Studies & Research), Dr. Michael Brklacich.
Congratulations to event organizers from SALADS (Society for Students of Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies): Gillian McLellan and Tina Beynen (Academic Coordinators), Marissa Gaudette (Finance/Communications Coordinator), and Melissa Dane (Social Coordinator).
