The event is being organised by the School of Irish Learning, UCC, with the support of the Irish Network in Formal Linguistics.
The guest-speaker is Professor James McCloskey of the University of Santa Cruz, California. A native of Derry, he graduated in Irish and Linguistics from UCD, and undertook post-graduate work at the University of Austin, Texas. McCloskey is the author of over 40 articles published in such prestigious journals as Linguistic Inquiry, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, and Linguistic Analysis, as well as contributing chapters to Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey, The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Noam Chomsky: Critical Assessments, and The Blackwell Companion to Syntax. He has been a visiting lecturer in such institutions as MIT, the University of San Diego, and Harvard, and has been invited to give the keynote address at countless international conferences both in Europe and in North America.
What makes his work of special interest to an Irish audience is the fact that the data on which he bases his research is that of Irish. Despite his long years in the United States, James McCloskey has maintained strong links with Ireland, and has always encouraged younger scholars from this country. He also has increased public awareness of the threat posed to lesser-used languages in his 2001 publication, Voices Silenced: has Irish a future?
The lecture on October 7th will deal with the Chomskyan revolution in linguistic studies and the intellectual landscape we inhabit as a consequence, with a special emphasis on the way that the study of Irish has shaped that landscape.
Members of the public are invited to attend and admission is free.
MMcS
