Today was the first day of my very non-traditional work experience. Rather than going into an office today, I had a relatively unstructured day of reading that I imagine would not be unheard of for an academic, especially a professor of linguistics. Today, I focused on Language in Immigrant America by Dominika Baran, a sociolinguistics professor at Duke. After picking my copy up from the CA library (thank you, Dr.Mc), I spent most of the day at home reading it.
In her book, Dr. Baran analyzes the ever-adapting connection between language and the immigrant experience in America. When she was 15, Dr. Baran immigrated from Poland, and her interest in language, rhetoric, and culture surrounding immigrants from all countries stems from her personal experience. At the time of her immigration in 1987, Eastern European immigrants faced a lot of discrimination and slurs in America, a trend that has since shifted away from this group towards Latin Americans and Middle Easterners in recent years. This book’s content is very interesting, but it is certainly not Linguistics 101, as the language and terminology used is very advanced. Definitely a rewarding challenge for me, as I intend to read as much of this book as I can during the days of the program that will be similar to today for me structure-wise. I also will be attempting to contact Dr. Baran in coming days to ask detailed questions about her work so I can better understand her research.
