SURF Mentoring

Potential projects/topics: My research projects focus on the study of words in English. I constructed a database of new words or neologisms, available to the public at neologisms.rice.edu . This database is used for research on new words coming into the language. Students can work on the structure of the database, on searching and sorting the various types of neologisms, or on helping annotate and update the database. With experience, the student can take part in linguistic analysis of the neologisms and can support the production of research papers on neologisms. One notable type of neologism is lexical blends such as digerati ‘digital elites' and Roobilation ‘celebration of Duncan College‘. Students can help in the collection of these blended words which are now extremely widespread and also show the range of creativity in language use.

Potential skills gained: Database skills; research skills including experience with constructing and editing abstracts for conferences; development of skills for supporting publication of research; reading and understanding linguistic articles

Required qualifications: Different types of backgrounds will be useful. Students who have database skills or skills in data science can use these in the project and so would be welcome. Also welcome are students with a very basic level of knowledge in Linguistics such as those who have taken LING 200 Introduction to Language, or my course LING 216 Words in English, as this knowledge relates to my projects. One of the latter courses can be taken concurrently with work on the project. Students with no relevant background but a strong interest in the topics and in gaining research skills will also be considered.

Direct mentor: Faculty/P.I.