Shana Poplack
Distinguished University Professor and Canada Research Chair (I) in Linguistics University of Ottawa
- Ottawa ON
Sociolinguist specializing in vernacular speech, with a focus on bilingual and minority contexts
Media
Biography
Industry Expertise
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
Member, Order of Canada
2014-06-30
Governor General of Canada
Canada Research Chair in Linguistics (Tier 1)
2015-07-01
Government of Canada
Canada Research Chair in Linguistics (Tier 1)
2008-07-01
Government of Canada
Canada Research Chair in Linguistics (Tier 1)
2001-07-01
Government of Canada
Gold Medal for Achievement in Research
2012-11-01
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
National Achievement Award
2011-05-01
Canadian Linguistics Association
Premier's Discovery Award
2008-04-30
Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
Trudeau Fellowship Award
2007-05-07
Trudeau Foundation
Killam Prize
2007-03-27
Canada Council for the Arts
Pierre Chauveau Medal
2005-05-16
Royal Society of Canada
Award for Excellence in Research
2003-02-01
University of Ottawa
Ontario Distinguished Researcher Award
2002-01-01
Ontario Innovation Trust
Distinguished University Professor
2002-01-01
University of Ottawa
Killam Research Fellowship
2001-05-01
Canada Council for the Arts
Professor of the Year
1999-04-01
Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa
Fellow
1998-09-01
Royal Society of Canada
Fulbright Visiting Scholar Award
Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Sao Paulo (1990)
Education
University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D.
Linguistics
1979
New York University
M.A
Linguistics and French Literature
1971
Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY)
B.A
Romance Languages
1968
Affiliations
- Member - Order of Canada (2014)
- Fellow - Royal Society of Canada (1998)
- Fellow - Linguistic Society of America (2009)
- Distinguished University Professor - University of Ottawa (2002)
- Canada Research Chair in Linguistics (2001-present)
- Director, Sociolinguistics Laboratory, University of Ottawa (1982-present)
Links
Languages
- English
- French
- Spanish
- Portuguese
Media Appearances
Analysis: We’ve read all President Trump’s tweets, so you don’t have to.
CTVNews.ca online
2017-04-28
Since Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States, he has continued his prolific and bold use of Twitter that has long been his signature style. His tweets garner worldwide headlines, rock stock markets and send diplomats scrambling. CTVNews.ca asked five experts: a political strategist, a social media consultant, a developmental scientist, a media studies professor, and a linguist to weigh in on Trump’s extraordinary use of the 140-character message service during his first 100 days.
Peu de différences grammaticales entre l’Outaouais et le reste du Québec
Info07.com online
2016-03-22
Au-delà de ce qui est visible et contrairement à la croyance populaire, le squelette de la langue française ne connaît que très peu de variations d’un territoire à l’autre.
«Je ne pense pas que c’est l’anglais qui est responsable des malheurs» - Natalia Dankova
Info07.com online
2016-03-22
La présence de l’anglais à proximité ne suffit pas à l’ignorance. C’est du moins ce qu’affirme la docteure en sciences du langage et professeure à l’Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO), Natalia Dankova.
Is Multilingual Rap Eroding Canada’s French Language?
Nautilus online
2016-05-03
Recently a Quebec arts foundation required the Francophone rap group Dead Obies to give back an $18,000 grant they’d been awarded to record their newest album. The problem? A word count determined that the group had stirred too much English into their distinctive multilingual lyrics, falling short of the rule that 70 percent of the content be in French.
What Francophones hear when the party leaders speak French
National Post online
2015-10-03
The Moment. In this daily feature until Election Day, the National Post captures a telling moment in time from the 2015 campaign trail.
Mistakes or variations? Exploring spoken language at Royal Society Conference
Chronicle-Telegraph print
2014-12-10
N/A
Montreal English has a true je ne sais quoi
Montreal Gazette online
2013-02-15
Entangled with the language of Molière and Mordecai, of Michel Tremblay and the McGarrigles, avec passion and verve, ours is a singular mélange of ancient French and modern geek, of contemporary Québécois and the pervasive English of globalization.
Juggling languages as a challenge for Canadian families keen on preserving heritage
The Canadian Press online
2012-10-24
The first few decades of Naomi Sutorius-Lavoie's life played out in a jumble of French, English and Dutch, her three languages a daily soundtrack in the Ottawa home where she grew up.
Montreal English: Borrowings, but not a dialect
Montreal Gazette online
2012-06-27
Maybe Quebec anglos just think we’re distinct.
A funny thing happened when Shana Poplack decided to count the number of French words native English-speakers in Montreal and Quebec City used in ordinary conversations about their lives in la belle province.
Activists want world to stop using the "R" word: Campaign deems term offensive and derogatory
The Ottawa Citizen print
2011-05-26
N/A
Mark their words, eh?
Globe & Mail print
2005-01-29
Our yods are toast. Our "eh?" is disappearing from adolescent speech. Young women are showing signs of abandoning our prized raised diphthongs. But gotchies -- or gonchies, west of the Alberta-Saskatchewan border -- is a vibrant all-Canadian word for underpants.
The power and beauty of Franglais
The Ottawa Citizen print
2003-09-01
N/A
Canadian French really hasn’t changed over the past century
The Ottawa Sun print
2002-05-01
N/A
La langue de chez nous a perduré
Au fil des événements 35.7 (Université Laval) print
2002-10-01
N/A
Symposium explores N.M. language patterns
The Sante Fe New Mexican print
2001-05-02
N/A
El inglés samanense en el vórtice del debate criollista
El Siglo, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic print
2001-12-16
N/A
Shana Poplack
El Siglo, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic print
2000-09-30
N/A
Talking that talk
The Halifax Daily News print
2000-01-30
N/A
A dialect all our own
The Montreal Gazette print
1999-06-03
N/A
Cracking the Code
The Ottawa Citizen print
1999-05-23
N/A
À propos du français “normal et enrichissant”
Le Droit, Hull print
1999-02-05
N/A
La langue, reflet de ce que nous sommes,
Le Droit, Hull print
1999-01-27
N/A
Le “franglais” serait un enrichissement
Le Droit, Hull print
1999-01-20
N/A
Prix Coco à Mme Poplack et au calendrier des Communes
Le Droit, Hull print
1999-01-01
N/A
Speaking in tongues – three at a time
The Montreal Gazette print
1998-09-12
N/A
Le franglais ne menace pas la langue française, soutient une linguiste
L’Express, Toronto print
1998-06-30
N/A
Researchers, academics honoured by peers
The Globe & Mail print
1998-07-02
N/A
Four U of O academics honoured for contributions
The Ottawa Citizen print
1998-06-22
N/A
“Franglais” no threat to French, study says
The Ottawa Citizen print
1998-06-18
N/A
Franglais: Huge stack of synonyms
The Ottawa Citizen print
1998-06-18
N/A
Quebec hip-hops to multilingual lyrics
The Toronto Star print
1998-04-13
N/A
Triumphantly Trilingual
The Montreal Gazette print
1997-09-22
N/A
Event Appearances
Telling tales out of school: prescriptive dictates meet community norms in vernacular entrenchment and spread.
Schultink lecture in honour of Henk Schultink (June, 2017) Universiteit Leiden (Netherlands)
Contact-induced change in the wild: Using linguistic variation to detect, analyze and distinguish it from internal evolution.
Wellsprings Forum Dialogue (February, 2017) Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Big languages in small communities: a variationist sociolinguistic approach to language contact and change.
Wellsprings Forum Dialogue (February, 2017) Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
A variationist approach to language contact phenomena.
Invited Master class (February, 2017) University of Queensland, Australia
Form-function (a)symmetry and the pursuit of categoricity.
Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL) Fest. (February, 2017) University of Queensland, Australia
L'anglicisme à domicile: Un portrait (socio)linguistique.
Colloque du réseau des organismes francophones de politique et d’aménagement linguistiques (OPALE). Les anglicismes : des emprunts à intérêt variable? (October, 2016) Office Québécois de la langue française, Quebec City
Reporting on reported speech: Transmission and diffusion in the Quebec English quotative system.
Discourse Pragmatic Variation and Change (DiPVaC) 3. (May, 2016) University of Ottawa
Prescription, description and praxis.
Workshop on the effects of prescriptivism in language history (January, 2016) Centre for Linguistics, Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands
The sharp divide between single- and multi-word code-mixing: Evidence from the ground.
(November, 2015) Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism (PRIM), University of Potsdam, Germany
Confronting theory with fact: Language mixing on the ground.
Bilingual Workshop in Theoretical Linguistics (BWTL) 18 / Linguistics Talks at Western speaker series. (November, 2015) University of Western Ontario
Normes en conflit: L’école, la communauté et l’idéologie normative.
Colloque international VocUM 2. (November 2015) Université de Montréal.
Pursuing symmetry by eradicating variability.
New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 44. (October 2015) University of Toronto
Le trajet sociolinguistique des emprunts.
Colloque étudiantin annuel de la Société des études supérieures de français. (April 2015) University of Toronto
Shana Poplack traces the evolution of speech.
Joint NSERC and SSHRC Lunch-and-Learn lecture. (January 2015) Ottawa
Research Grants
The evolving grammar of French in Canada: The competing roles of school, community and ideology.
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
2017-2022
Canada Research Chair in Linguistics
Government of Canada
2015-2022
Language contact and change in Canada's official languages
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
2012-2017
Gold Medal for Achievement in Research
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
2012
Canada Research Chair in Linguistics
Government of Canada
2008-2015
Premier’s Discovery Award
Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
2008
Official languages research and dissemination program: Assessing the linguistic outcomes of language contact in Quebec English
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
2007-2008
Norms and variation in French: the competing roles of school, community and ideology. (with Johanne Bourdages)
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
2005-2008
An English “Like No Other”?: Language Contact and Change in Quebec
2002-2005 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
2002-2005
Canada Research Chair in Linguistics
Government of Canada
2001-2008
Database Creation and Preservation for the Sociolinguistics Laboratory at the University of Ottawa
Ontario Innovation Trust
2001
Database Creation and Preservation for the Sociolinguistics Laboratory at the University of Ottawa
Canadian Foundation for Innovation
2001
Prescription and Praxis in the Evolution of French Grammar
Killam Foundation, Canada Council
2001-2002
Variation, Prescription and Praxis: Contact and Evolution of Grammatical Systems
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
1999-2002
From Synchrony to Diachrony in the Evolution of African American Vernacular English. (with Sali Tagliamonte)
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
1995-1998
Contextualizing Language Contact: A Cross-linguistic Study of Variation and Change
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
1993-1995
Sociolinguistic Analysis of Black English in Canada: A Historical and Comparative Study
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
1990-1993
Black English in Canada: Reconstructing Diachrony from Synchronic Evidence
Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland
1990
Sociolinguistic Aspects of Language Contact in the Ottawa-Hull Region
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
1988-1991
Sociolinguistic Aspects of Language Contact in the Ottawa-Hull Region
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
1986-1988
Sociolinguistic Aspects of Language Contact in the Ottawa-Hull Region
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
1984-1986
Monolingual and Bilingual Speech Modes Among Francophones in the Ottawa-Hull Region
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
1983-1984
Articles
Borrowing: Loanwords in the speech community and in the grammar
Oxford University PressShana Poplack
2017-07-18
Studies of bilingual behavior have been proliferating for decades, yet short shrift has been given to its major manifestation, the incorporation of words from one language into the discourse of another.
This volume redresses that imbalance by going straight to the source: bilingual speakers in their social context. Building on more than three decades of original research based on vast quantities of spontaneous performance data and a highly ramified analytical apparatus, Shana Poplack characterizes the phenomenon of lexical borrowing in the speech community and in the grammar, both synchronically and diachronically.
In contrast to most other treatments, which deal with the product of borrowing (if they consider it at all), this book examines the process: how speakers go about incorporating foreign items into their bilingual discourse; how they adapt them to recipient-language grammatical structure; how these forms diffuse across speakers and communities; how long they persist in real time; and whether they change over the duration. Attacking some of the most contentious issue in language mixing research empirically, it tests hypotheses about established loanwords, nonce borrowings and code-switches on a wealth of unique datasets on typologically similar and distinct language pairs. A major focus is the detailed analysis of integration: the principal mechanism underlying the borrowing process. Though the shape the borrowed form assumes may be colored by community convention, Poplack shows that the act of transforming donor-language elements into native material is universal.
Emphasis on actual speaker behavior coupled with strong standards of proof, including data-driven reports of rates of occurrence, conditioning of variant choice and measures of statistical significance, make Borrowing an indispensable reference on language contact and bilingual behavior.
Categories of grammar and categories of speech: When the quest for symmetry meets inherent variability
In Shin, Naomi & Erker, Danny (eds.), First names – How theoretical primitives shape the search for linguistic structure (Papers in honor of Ricardo Otheguy). John Benjamins.Shana Poplack
To appear
L’anglicisme chez nous : une perspective sociolinguistique.
In Actes du colloque du réseau des organismes francophones de politique et d’aménagement linguistiques (OPALE). Les anglicismes : des emprunts à intérêt variable?, Québec, octobre 2016. Publications de l’Office québécois de la langue française.Shana Poplack
To appear
Variation and grammaticalization in Romance: A cross-linguistic study of the subjunctive.
In Ayres-Bennett, Wendy & Carruthers, Janice (eds.), Manuals in Linguistics: Romance Sociolinguistics. de Gruyter.Poplack, Shana, Torres Cacoullos, Rena, Dion, Nathalie, Berlinck, Rosane de Andrade, Digesto, Salvatore, Lacasse, Dora & Steuck, Jonathan.
In press
Code-switching (Linguistic).
International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2nd edition. Elsevier Science Ltd. 918-925.Shana Poplack
2015
Norme prescriptive, norme communautaire et variation diaphasique.
In Kragh, Kirsten & Lindschouw, Jan (eds.), Variations diasystématiques et leurs interdépendances. Série TraLiLo, Strasbourg: Société de linguistique romane. 293-319.Shana Poplack
2015
A variationist paradigm for linguistic emergence.
In MacWhinney, Brian & O’Grady, William (eds.), The Handbook of Language Emergence. Wiley-Blackwell. 267-291.Poplack, Shana & Torres Cacoullos, Rena.
2015
Variabilité et changement dans les grammaires en contact.
In Martineau, France & Nadasdi, Terry (eds.), Le français en contact: hommages à Raymond Mougeon, collection « Les Voies du français ». Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. 247-280.Poplack, Shana & Levey, Stephen.
2011
Grammaticalization and linguistic variation.
In Heine, Bernd & Narrog, Heiko (eds.), Handbook of Grammaticalization. Oxford. 209-224.Shana Poplack
2011
African American English in Nova Scotia.
In Gold, Elaine & McAlpine, Janice (eds.), Canadian English: A Linguistic Reader. Kingston: Strathy Language Unit, Queen’s University. 146-154.Poplack, Shana & Tagliamonte, Sali
2010
Contact-induced grammatical change.
In Auer, Peter & Schmidt, Jürgen Erich (eds.), Language and Space – An international handbook of linguistic variation: Volume 1 – Theories and methods. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 391-419.Poplack, Shana & Levey, Stephen.
2010
Quelle langue parlons-nous?
? Les Cahiers de la Fondation Trudeau. Montréal: Fondation Trudeau: 125-147.Shana Poplack
2009
Searching for “Standard French”: The construction and mining of the Recueil historique des grammaires du français.
Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 1, 1. 13-56.Poplack, Shana, Jarmasz, Lidia-Gabriela, Dion, Nathalie & Rosen, Nicole.
2015
Foreword to Poplack, Shana “Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español”: toward a typology of code-switching (1980).
Linguistics 51 (Special Jubilee anniversary issue). 11-14.Shana Poplack
2013
The evolving grammar of the French subjunctive.
Probus 25, 1 (Special 25th anniversary issue). 139-195.Poplack, Shana, Lealess, Allison & Dion, Nathalie.
2013
Myths and facts about loanword development.
Language Variation and Change 24, 3. 279-315.Poplack, Shana & Dion, Nathalie
2012
What counts as (contact-induced) change.
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15, 2. 247-254.Poplack, Shana, Zentz, Lauren & Dion, Nathalie.
2012
Phrase-final prepositions in Quebec French: An empirical study of contact, code-switching and resistance to convergence.
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15, 2. 203-225.Poplack, Shana, Zentz, Lauren & Dion, Nathalie.
2012
What does the Nonce Borrowing Hypothesis hypothesize?
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15, 3. 644-648.Shana Poplack
2012
Les Récits du français québécois d’autrefois: reflet du parler vernaculaire du XIXe siècle.
Revue canadienne de linguistique/Canadian Journal of Linguistics 54, 3. 511-546.Poplack, Shana & St-Amand, Anne
2009
Prescription vs praxis: The evolution of future temporal reference in French.
Language 85, 3. 557-587.Poplack, Shana & Dion, Nathalie
2009
