By Garrett Geissel
Staff Writer
“A cardboard belt would be a waist of paper,” said Dr. Russel Schuh, as laughter erupted to meet his play on words illustrated on the projector.
Schuh, a faculty member of the UCLA Department of Linguistics, gave a lecture titled “Amusing and Abusing with Language” in the Business Development Center on Wednesday May 15.
Although Schuh specializes in African languages, he also uses humor to illustrate various linguistic concepts that can be difficult for students to grasp. In his lecture, Schuh examined what makes a statement humorous and how slight variations in words can drastically alter meaning and convey comedic elements.
“I’m up in front of 350 students who are looking to be entertained. One way to entertain them is to use jokes,” said Schuh when asked how he got into teaching a linguistics class with an emphasis in humor and puns.
For students, some classes on topics outside of their major can be dry and boring, but Schuh’s teaching style is a way to get students interested in linguistics.
“Mentally, we are all linguists. Tons of humor is based on linguistic analysis,” Schuh said.
Schuh briefly analyzed the arbitrary relationship that exists between how a word sounds and what a word means in relation to humorous conveyance or misunderstanding.
“It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but I think the informal approach worked in this situation,” said Robyn Thompson, a graduate student pursuing an M.A. in English. “Yeah, I guess it was,” added Thompson, when asked if the lecture was both entertaining and interesting.
The informal approach of the lecture was to accommodate students who are not familiar with linguistics and to give them the ability to learn about the study of language and also have a laugh.
“It actually goes back to the original goal of running the ‘Lectures in Language and Linguistics,’ to bring in linguists from across the state to talk about their topics of interest. The topic needs to be fairly general because most attending do not have a linguistics background,” said Dr. Sophia Adjaye, a professor of English at CSUB whose specialization is in linguistics and phonology.
Schuh’s talk was a balance between both entertainment and education. The lecture was an opportunity for students interested in language and linguistics to expand upon their knowledge with a unique and contrasting view of the discipline.
“What’s the definition of a will? It’s a dead giveaway,” Schuh exclaimed toward the end of his lecture to illustrate an idiomatic pun.
Although time constraints limited Schuh from discussing the abusing aspects of language, his lecture on the amusement of language was well-received by the audience. Schuh’s lecture was made possible by funding from donations from the Warren family, Adjaye’s work in reaching out to linguists and Sigma Tau Delta.
In the Winter quarter, Chris Wen-Chao-Li, from San Francisco State University, gave a lecture titled “Foreign Names into Native Tongues: How to Transfer Sound Between Languages.” Also, CSUB was visited in the 2012 Fall quarter by Dr. Edward Finegan, from the University of Southern California, who gave a lecture titled “Martha and Aretha Claim Defamation: Linguistics and the Cooperative Principle.”
“The Lectures in Language and Linguistics” at CSUB run three separate lectures throughout the academic year, one per quarter, so lectures will resume after the end Summer quarter.