Jack Goldberg

How did you become interested in the EASC Graduate Fellowship?

I had dual undergraduate majors in Chinese language & culture and Linguistics. Now that I am getting a PhD for linguistics, I still wanted to keep up with the Chinese parts of my studies. The EASC was a perfect bridge. I found out about the fellowship through other students in the linguistics department who had done similar work with the grant in the past.

What is your research focus?

I am a linguist focusing on theoretical phonology (the study of sound systems in language) and fieldwork. As it applies to this project, I am doing fieldwork on a young language indigenous to the northeast of Taiwan called Yilan Creole Japanese spoken by some members of the Atayal tribe. I do fieldwork through elicitations, where I sit down with a speaker of the language and ask them to translate words, and later sentences, into their native language. After the time in the field I process the language data into my computer. Once there I can do anything with it such as find patterns in the sound system, create dictionaries, and anything else that requires systematic views on a language.       

In what ways did the EASC Graduate Fellowship impact or help your research?

The EASC Graduate Fellowship was integral to the beginning of my fieldwork. As a linguistic fieldworker I need to go into societies unfamiliar to me and gain the trust of the local community to see if they are interested in working with me. While I had lived in nearby town Luodong, Taiwan in the past, I had very little interaction with the particular community, Hanxi (寒溪), that I was going to work with on this trip. EASC gave me the resources to go back to Taiwan and live nearby Hanxi for a few weeks. There I was able to form connections with the local community, allowing them to get to know me and me them. In particular I befriended a local indigenous dance teacher and singer named Yawiy. I hope to return to Taiwan this summer for longer a few months. The connections I made the past summer with Yawiy and others the EASC grant will prove integral to my ability to carry out competent linguistic research. 

Can you share any anecdotes about your fellowship experience?

The AirBnB I stayed in was on top of and run by a local curry shop called Uncle Made Curry, see photos for one of the dishes. I became friends with the boss and he was really excited to hang out with a foreigner. He would always call me downstairs to try out some new menu item he had thought up. Whether it was his take on American fried chicken (pictured) or chocolate cake, everything he made was a 10/10!