Tomlin With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Russell Tomlin and his collaborators will purchase: computing equipment needed to develop animations and other video elicitation materials for cognitive research; computing equipment needed to run multiple subjects for experimental research; and video, sound and computer equipment needed for field research and data analysis. The Department of Linguistics at the University of Oregon focuses on empirical, data-oriented research in two principal inter-related areas: descriptive linguistics and cognitive linguistics. The equipment provided will permit the department to develop the infrastructure needed to expand, in a significant fashion, both empirical and experimental research. The group will develop discourse elicitation and experimental tools suitable for the field situations but also well-grounded in cognitive principles of language use which can be tested in a laboratory setting. On this basis, insights drawn from careful, cross-linguistic description can serve to develop sound cognitive theories of language and language use. Large numbers of languages in many parts of the world are on the verge of extinction as the pools of native speakers die out. The Oregon department has focussed on collecting such rapidly disappearing information and using it to develop broader language theories. The proposed equipment has a visual component which will permit investigators to present a carefully controlled scenes which can vary in specific ways and use these as elicitation devises to provide insight into grammar and discursive form. The equipment will be used not only by a number of professional linguists but also by many graduate and undergraduate students.
