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Lecture by Distinguished Alumnus Rickford

On Wednesday October 22nd 2008, the department joined with Stevenson College in sponsoring a lecture by John Rickford. Rickford is an alumnus of Stevenson College and also an alumnus of the UCSC Linguistics Department. He is Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University and has done work of foundational importance on the relations among language, ethnicity, class, and style. He is one of the foremost authorities on the structure and origins of African-American Vernacular English (`Black English') as well as on the application of research in linguistics to educational problems. Professor Rickford's lecture was one of what we hope will be a series of lectures by distinguished alumni of the program.