Patricia Alice Shaw facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Pat Shaw
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| Born |
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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| Nationality | Canadian |
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| Fields | Linguistics |
Patricia Alice Shaw (born in 1946) is a smart Canadian scientist who studies languages. She is known as a linguist. Patricia Shaw is especially famous for her work with First Nations languages in Canada.
Contents
Her Journey in Linguistics
Patricia Shaw was born in Montreal, Canada. When she was 12, her family moved to Winnipeg. She loved learning and went to the University of Manitoba, where she earned a degree in English in 1967.
Later, she studied linguistics at the University of Toronto. She earned her master's degree in 1973 and her Ph.D. in 1976. Her Ph.D. project was about the sounds and word structures of the Dakota language.
Teaching and Helping Languages
After finishing her studies, Dr. Shaw taught at York University. In 1979, she moved to the University of British Columbia (UBC). She taught there for many years.
Since 2020, she is a Professor emerita. This means she is a retired professor who still has a special title. She worked in the Department of Anthropology at UBC.
Dr. Shaw also helped start a very important program at UBC. It was called the First Nations and Endangered Languages Program. This program helps to study and keep First Nations languages alive.
Working with Musqueam Language
A big part of Dr. Shaw's work has been with hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓. This is the Musqueam dialect of Halkomelem. It is a language spoken by the Musqueam people.
She did a lot of research on this language. She also helped create a special partnership. This partnership was between the Musqueam Indian Band and UBC. It helped to support the First Nations Languages Program.
Awards and Special Roles
Dr. Patricia Shaw has had many important roles and received honors for her work.
- She was the President of the Society for the Study of the Languages of the Americas. This group studies languages spoken by Indigenous peoples in North and South America.
- She was part of the Endangered Languages Steering Committee. This committee helps protect languages that are in danger of disappearing.
- She also helped edit a series of books called the First Nations Languages Series for UBC Press.
- Dr. Shaw has taught at special summer programs. These programs help people learn how to work with and save endangered languages.
- She also served on the Board of Directors for the Endangered Languages Fund. This fund helps support projects that save languages.
Her Books and Papers
Dr. Shaw has written many important books and articles about languages. Here are a few examples:
- Patricia A. Shaw. 1980. Theoretical Issues in Dakota Phonology and Morphology. This book is about the sounds and word parts of the Dakota language.
- Kaisse, E., & Shaw, P. 1985. On the theory of Lexical Phonology. This paper explores how sounds change in words.
- Patricia A. Shaw. 1991. CONSONANT HARMONY SYSTEMS: THE SPECIAL STATUS OF CORONAL HARMONY. This article looks at how certain sounds in a word can influence other sounds.
- Shaw, Patricia A.. 2011. Non-adjacency in Reduplication. This paper discusses how words are formed by repeating parts of them.
- Gordon, Matthew, Ghushchyan, Edita, McDonnell, Bradley, Rosenblum, Daisy and Shaw, Patricia A.. 2012. Sonority and central vowels: A cross-linguistic phonetic study. This article studies how different vowel sounds are made in various languages.
