Summer Schools (non-credit)
An abridged version can be found on my academic webpage.
Keith Tse
Student
On this page, I outline my educational experiences and participation at several non-degree-conferring institutions.
2019 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute,
University of California, Davis, California,
United States of America
I enrolled in the following courses:
a) Advanced Syntax and Case Theory (Professor David Pesetsky)
b) Lexicon in Linguistic Theory (Drs James Pustejovich and Olga Bat)
c) Computational Learning Theory (Dr Volve )
d) Corpus Linguistics (Dr Stefan Gries)
e) Advanced Statistics (Dr Santiago Barreda)
In addition, I audited some of Historical Linguistics (Professor Brian Joseph) and had extensive discussions with him and Professor Joan Bybee on common shared interests and related issues. Furthermore, I participated in the LSA Roundtable Discussion, as usual (please see below), and we discussed many contemporary issues in Linguistics in the USA and beyond.
2019 School of Cantonese Studies (粵語研究研習班),
Education University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, China
In this one-week course, I was lectured in the rudiments of Cantonese linguistics which included the following:
a) Sociolinguistic History of Cantonese (Professor Benjamin Tsou)
b) Sound System of Cantonese (Dr Zhang Ling)
c) Cantonese Grammar (Professor Tang Sze-Wing)
d) Cantonese as a Written Language (Drs Don Snow and Fanny Li)
e) Cantonese Worlds (Dr Clement Tong)
f) Peripheral Yue Dialects (Professors Lin Huayong and Kwok Bit-Chee)
g) Early Cantonese Texts and the Linguistic Development of Cantonese (Dr Kataoka Shin)
h) Linguistic Aspects of Canto-Opera (Dr Cheung Kwan Hin)
i) Online Resources for Cantonese Studies (Drs John Lee and Andy Chin)
Straight after this, I presented a paper at the Second Forum on Cantonese Linguistics, which also took place at Education University of Hong Kong.
2017 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute,
University of Kentucky, Kentucky,
United States of America
I enrolled in the following courses:
a) Corpus Linguistics (Drs Amir Zeldes and Nathan Schneider)
b) Quantitative Methods for Linguistic Research (Professor Natasha Warner)
c) Statistical Modelling with R (Professor Josef Freuhwald)
In addition, I audited some of Historical Linguistics (Professor Brian Joseph) and had extensive discussions with him and Professor Joan Bybee on common shared interests and related issues. Furthermore, I participated in the LSA Roundtable Discussion, as usual (please see below), and we discussed many contemporary issues in Linguistics in the USA and beyond.
2013 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
(United States of America)
I enrolled in the following courses:
a) Syntactic Typology, Syntactic Theory, and Syntactic Reconstruction (Professor Mark Hale) (A+)
b) Comparative Syntax (Professor Acrisio Pires) (A-): report downloadable here.
c) Linguistic Diversity and Language Change (Professor Lyle Campbell) (A): report downloadable here.
d) Language Typology (Professor Edward Keenan) (A): report downloadable here.
In addition, I audited Introduction to Minimalist Syntax (Professor Norbert Hornstein), Derivational Minimalism (Professor Samuel Epstein, Professor Hisatsugu Kitahara, and Professor Daniel Seely), Syntactic Variation: Sentences and Utterances (Professor Ralph Fasold), Attitudes, Ideologies, Variation and Change (Professor Dennis Preston), and Sentences and the Social (Professor Julie Boland and Dr Lauren Squires). I also participated in the Sociolinguistics Discussion Group where we combined topics and material from 'Attitudes...', 'Syntactic Variation...' and 'Sentences...' and held integrated discussions on the most cutting-edge issues in sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. I also joined the Language Typology Discussion Group where we followed up leads on our class discussions with Professor Keenan. Furthermore, I was a regular participant in the Syntax Group where we had numerous discussions on many topics in formal (Minimalist) syntax. Finally, I participated in the LSA Roundtable Discussion where we discussed contemporary issues in Linguistics in the USA as well as future directions of the LSA and ways to implement them.
2012 Leiden Summer School in Indo-European Linguistics University of Leiden (Netherlands)
In this two-week summer school, I enrolled in the following courses:
a) Historical Grammar of Greek (Dr L. C. van Beek)
b) Minor Languages of Anatolia: Phrygian and Lydian (Professor A. M. Lubotsky and Dr A. Kloekhorst)
c) Tocharian (Dr M. Peyrot)
d) Classical Armenian (Dr H. K. Martirosyan)
In addition, I audited Old Frisian (Dr Bremmer), Indo-European Dichtersprache (Professor Sadovski) and Old High German (Dr Langbroek).
2011 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute,
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
(United States of America)
I enrolled in the following courses:
a) Introduction to Dialectology (Professor Dennis Preston) (A): report downloadable here.
b) Introduction to Syntax (Professor Andrew Carnie) (A): report downloadable here.
c) Nativism, Learning Theory and UG (Professor Shalom Lappin and Professor Alexander Clark) (B)
d) Learning in Generative Grammar (Professor Jeffery Lidz) (A)
For 'Introduction to Syntax', I took part in all of Professor Carnie's after-class sessions in which we did some additional practice on tree-drawing and constituent tests. I also participated in the Language Acquisition Discussion Group where we integrated material from 'Nativism...' and 'Learning...' and had fierce debates on mutually incompatible approaches towards first language acquisition (!). Moreover, I took part in the LSA Roundtable Discussion in which we summed up the main practical issues in the maintenance and administration of the LSA and discussed its future directions.
LSA 2017 was a nightmare for me! Nothing to do with the academic side of things, which I greatly enjoyed. However, getting to Kentucky was a total disaster since, for some reason, my flight ticket was cancelled on the day before my originally intended departure. Not only did I have to re-arrange travel at the last minute, I also had to re-apply for student visa, which led to me auditing my courses without receiving credit. This was totally and utterly unacceptable from my travel agency/flight company. Fortunately, they gave me a handsome compensaion so it was not all bad in the end. Though I still would hav loved to receive academic credit for my time at Kentucky!
LSA 2013 happened at a funny time as July 2013 was the time when Detroit, capital of Michigan, declared its bankruptcy (!). The UoM university campus was so well guarded that there was no adverse effect at all, but it was still kind of scary studying in a place that was officially a wasteland. Other than that, LSA 2013 was a blast, as I presented my work at the North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-25), which happened just one day before the commencement of the LSA and throughout the Institute I audited loads of courses and learnt a great deal about many aspects of linguistics. The highlight for me had to be 'Derivational Minimalism given by Sam, Hisatsugu and Daniel, as their theoretical analysis was deeply controversial yet extremely thought-provoking. Norbert also sat in on the course and gave many enlightening and humorous remarks. Norbert kindly offered to sit down with me one afternoon and allowed me to discuss my work on syntax with him, and I am very grateful to him for clarifying many technical details that had been puzzling me for a long time. I shall never forget the very first day on Sam et al's course when they said, 'We pay no attention to empirical data coverage but only to theoretical elegance, assumptions and formulation. We know that this is deeply controversial and may not sit well with many of you, but this is what we will try to do.' What an opening speech! I, of course, did not (and still do not) agree with such disregard to data, but their approach of placing theory over data did give me some sleepless nights when I pondered on what they said with excitement and agitation.
The formal aspects of their proposals were
breathtaking, and I have used a lot of their ideas in my own work. I must thank them for introducing me to Phases and the formal concepts of 'simplicity', which still remain a controversial yet central issue in formal syntax. I wish I had done their course for credit but I already had my hands full. It was also an honour to meet Professor Noam Chomsky, who was our guest speaker on the penultimate day. He also gave two plenary lectures at the university hall and it was packed full. I got to meet him personally and asked him some hard and cutting questions, and his response was no less than what I had expected, namely 'ambiguous and elusive'.
Leiden was such a beautiful little town and re-visiting Indo-European (IE) there was memorable. We held many interesting discussions on many aspects of IE, though mostly in Italian as the vast majority of the participants were Italian students. I hope that they forgave my so-so Italian, which is embarrassing as compared to my Spanish...!
LSA 2011 was a fantastic experience for me, since it was the first time in decades that I had been to America, and Colorado was a beautiful state. The climate at Boulder was slightly funny, as it was mountainous and had unpredictable precipitation. Nonetheless, participating in LSA 2011 was an amazing experience as not only did I get to meet the most prominent linguists in the world but also studied some great courses with leading experts. Andrew's course on syntax was superb as he really hammered down the basics of syntax with us and that laid the foundation of my research on syntax. It was so great to see him again at the Celtic conference in 2012. I hope that our paths cross again soon.
2007 Spoken Mandarin Summer Course for Chinese Nationals from Hong Kong and Macau (港澳同胞漢語口語暑期課程),
Beijing Language and Culture University (北京語言大學), Beijing (China)
In Summer 2007, I enrolled in the Mandarin course at Beijing Language and Culture University designed for non-native Mandarin speakers in Hong Kong and Macau, and throughout this month-long course I attended daily oral sessions where we learnt the rudiments of Mandarin phonology (pinyin) and improved our spoken Mandarin diction.
It was my first time visiting the capital of our country and it was a tremendously moving experience. Not only did I manage to learn an enormous amount of Mandarin (much of it I had already learnt before at school), I also went on numerous excursions on which I visited many historical monuments that I had only read in books and seen in documentaries. My adventures in Beijing also allowed me to form important friendships with people whom I am still in touch with today. I guess for all of us Chinese people there is just no place like Beijing with its historical and cultural artifacts. I must visit the Forbidden City and live like an emperor again.