Dr Candide Simard

Discipline: Linguistics

 

Biography:

I joined USP in 2018, I was previously a senior Teaching Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London (UK). My research interests include prosody and language documentation. Prosody refers to the tunes and rhythm of speech: every language has its own melodies and I am interested in describing their forms and the role they play in expressing meaning. My research has focused on integrating prosody in the grammatical descriptions of languages. My other interest is language documentation which aims to ‘capture’ and preserve languages and dialects through audio and video recording, transcription, and annotation. I have been working with speakers of Jaminjung/Ngaliwurru and Ngarinyman in the Northern Territory of Australia since 2005 to document their languages. I am particularly interested in the documentation of traditional knowledge and in encouraging community involvement in research. See the Navigating the Weather project (NaWa) below for a more local project.

Research projects

1. Comparative prosody modelling across languages (led by Dr Kwing Lok Albert Lee, the Education University of Hong Kong, funded by the Hong Kong Research Council): co- investigator. This project will collect Fijian language samples that will be used in developing prosody modelling tools. Starting 2022.
2. Navigating the Weather (with Dr Apolonia Tamata, and Colin Philp of Uto ni Yalo Trust, as principal investigators; and associate researchers Andrea Deri (anthropologist, climate change specialist, UK) and Caroline Giraud (expert in communication and community engagement, Belgium, funded by SLAM). This is a collaborative project that focuses on revitalising the language used in knowledge transmission of the traditional navigation in Fiji.
3. Naijasyncorproject (led by Dr Bernard Caron, Laboratoire LLacan CNRS, France, funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche):  associate researcher. I contribute to the analysis of  prosody in Naija, a language widely spoken in Nigeria, in this project that is creating an extensive documentation and description of the language.
4. Digital Documentation of the Botanical Knowledge of the Northern Khmer (led by Prof Julia Sallabank (SOAS, UK) and Dr Siripen Ungsitipoonporn (RILCA, Mahidol University, Thailand, funded by the Newton Fund, British Academy): associate researcher. We work with villagers in the province of Surin (Thailand) to document what they know of the plants and trees in the neighbouring forest and to understand how this knowledge is passed on to their children.
5. Discourse and prosody across language family boundaries (led by Prof Eva Schultze-Berndt, University of Manchester, UK, funded by DOBES):  Doctoral and post-doctoral researcher. This project investigated the effect of extensive contact in the grammars of four endangered languages, particularly in the domain of information structure, i.e. the use of intonation, word order, and grammatical marking to indicate the status of referents in discourse.

Qualifications

PhD Linguistics, The prosodic contours of Jaminjung, a language of Northern Australia, University of Manchester, UK (2010). MA Linguistics – Language Documentation and Description, School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), London, UK (2004)

 

Public/media

Interview-Podcast in Québec-Science : « au chevet d’une langue »

Québec Science Website : http://www.quebecscience.qc.ca/podcast/Au-chevet-de-la-langue

BBC Science in Action: Plants.Animals.Words

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p045103p – starting about 19:15.

Selected publications

The Sylheti Language. Language Documentation and Description. Vol. 18. Editor. Endangered Languages Publishing (http://www.elpublishing.org/, July  2020).

Simard, Candide, Sarah M. Dopierala & E. Marie Thaut. 2020. Introducing the Sylheti language and its speakers, and the SOAS Sylheti project. In Candide Simard, Sarah M. Dopierala & E. Marie Thaut (eds.) Language Documentation and Description 18, 1-22. London: EL Publishing. Link to this article: http://www.elpublishing.org/PID/196

Simard, Candide, Anne Lacheret-Dujour , Oyelere S. ABiola.  2019. Broad and Narrow focus marking in Naija (Nigerian Pidgin): the role of prosody. In Sasha Calhoun, Paola Escudero, Marija Tabain & Paul Warren (eds.) Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia 2019 (pp.3907-3911). Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c515/7eae7efa52fefa8cf00f6c0a7c487ce7f784.pdf

Simard, Candide. 2018. On being first. In Information Structure in Lesser-described Languages. Studies in prosody and syntax, Evangelia Adamou, Katharina Haude, Martine Vanhove (Eds). John Benjamins. (https://benjamins.com/catalog/slcs.199)

Simard, C., Wegener, C.  2017. Fronted NPs in a verb-initial language — clause-internal or external? Prosodic cues to the rescue! Glossa special volume: Exploring the Interfaces 3 Prosody and Constituent Structure.

Simard, C., Wegener, C. U., Lee, A., Chiu, F., & Youngberg, C. 2014. Savosavo word stress: A quantitative analysis. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Speech Prosody (SP2014) (pp. 512-514). Dublin.

Simard, Candide. 2014. Another look at… right detached NPs. In Aicha Belkadi, Kakia Chatsiou and Kirsty Rowan (eds.) Proceedings of Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory 4. London: SOAS. www.hrelp.org/eprints/ldlt4_00.pdf

Simard, Candide. 2013. Prosodic encoding of declarative, interrogative and imperative sentences in Jaminjung, a language of Australia. INTERSPEECH 2013, 14^th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Lyon, France, August 25-29, 2013, ed. by F. Bimbot, C. Cerisara, C. Fougeron, G. Gravier, L. Lamel, F. Pellegrino, and P. Perrier: 793-797 ISCA Archive, http://www.isca-speech.org/archive/interspeech_2013

Simard, Candide. 2013. Marking boundaries: intonation units and prosodic sentences. Prosody-Discourse Interface (IDP 2013). September 11-13, 2013. University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/franitalco/idp2013/papers/Mertens_Simon_2013_Proceedings_IDP2013.pdf

Simard, Candide. 2013. Prosody and function of “iconic lengthening” in Jaminjung. SOAS working papers in Linguistics. Vol.16.

http://www.soas.ac.uk/linguistics/research/workingpapers/volume-16/

Schultze-Berndt, Eva and Simard, Candide. 2012. Constraints on noun phrase discontinuity in an Australian language: the role of prosody and information structure. Linguistics. 2012;50(5):1015-1058.

Simard, Candide and Schultze-Berndt Eva. 2011. Documentary linguistics and prosodic evidence for the syntax of spoken language. In Documentating Endangered Languages: achievements and challenges. Haig, Geoffrey; Nau, Nicole; Schnell, Stefan eds. Trends in Linguistics: Documentation series. Mouton de Gruyter.

Ethnobiology publications

Marchant Jones, Judy; Bardbariya, Dolly; Raymond, Eileen; Roberts, Doris; McDonald, Duncan; McDonald, Dinah; McDonald Margaret; Simard, Candide; Moerkerken, Colleen; Wightman, Glenn, (2011). Jaminjung, Ngaliwurru and Nungali plants and animals: Aboriginal flora and fauna knowledge from the Bradshaw and Judbarra/Gregory National Park area, north Australia. Darwin: Dept. of Natural Resources, Environment, The Arts and Sport & Diwurruwurru-Jaru Aboriginal Corporation: Northern Territory Botanical Bulletin, no 38.

Community resources

Sylheti  – Faruk Miah and Farhana Ferdous, members of the Sylheti project: Sylheti storybook (https://sylhetiproject.wordpress.com/storybook/)

Jaminjung/Ngaliwurru – Doris Roberts Nanagu, Judy Marchant Jones, Candide Simard (2007). Posters: Parts of the body, Jaminjung-Ngaliwurru/ Ngarinyman (for the Timber Creek Health Centre).

Marchant Jones, Judy; Bardbariya, Dolly; Raymond, Eileen; Roberts, Doris; Wightman, Glenn, Simard, Candide (2007); illustrated (photos) booklet Plants, Animals, Birds, Fish, with accompanying CD. Jaminjung/Ngaliwurru.

Doris Roberts Nanagu, Laurie Roberts, Candide Simard (2006). Posters: Animals, Birds, and Fish Jaminjung-Ngaliwurru/Ngarinyman.

Selected Presentations

2020     Simard, Candide, Apolonia Tamata, Andrea Deri, Caroline Giraud, Bill Lockwood. “Navigating Methodological Challenges of Transdisciplinary Research”. Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future, ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE (UK. 14 – 18 September 2020)

2020     Simard, Candide, Julia Sallabank. “How children learn traditional ethnobotanical knowledge in Surin province, Thailand”. FEL24 – Teaching and Learning Resources for Endangered Languages. [23-25 September 2020 online conference].

2020     “Représenter la structure informationnelle dans les langues peu décrites: quelles étiquettes? “Workshop on Annotation pragmatique de corpus oraux : actes de langage et structure informationnelle. (Laboratoire Modyco, UMR7114, Université Paris-Nanterre, January 2020)

2019      Simard, Candide, Anne Lacheret-Dujour , Oyelere S. ABiola. “Broad and Narrow focus marking in Naija (Nigerian Pidgin): the role of prosody”. ICPHS (Melbourne, Australia, August 2019)

2019      Simard, Candide, Siripen Ungsitipoonporn. “Flexibility in collaboration: Community training in documenting the ethnobotanical knowledge of Northern-Khmer speakers of Surin province, Thailand”. International Conference Language Documentation and Conservation (6). (University of Hawaiiat Manoa, February 2019).

2018      Simard, Candide, Aicha Beldaki. “Are you by any chance a new referent NP in this narrative?” Proslang. (Auckland, November 2018).

2018      Abiola Oyelere, Anne Lacheret-Dujour, Candide Simard. “Prominence in the Identification of the Focus Elements in Naija (Nigerian Pidgin)”. Proslang. (Auckland, November 2018).

2017      Simard, Candide, Aicha Beldaki. “Topics, activation and cohesion in Jaminjung narratives”. Societas Linguistica Europea (University of Zurich, Switzerland, 10-13 September 2017).

2017      Simard, Candide. “Prosody: Broadening perspectives”. DLAP-2  2nd International Conference on Documentary Linguistics – Asian Perspectives: Transformations and sustainability (The University of Hong Kong, 25-27 May 2017).

2016      Simard, Candide, Aicha Beldaki. “Second position cliticization and topichood in Ngarinyman”. Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory 5 (SOAS, 2-5 December).

2016      Simard, Candide. “Requesting information or mobilizing response: the prosody of sentence final tags in Jaminjung.” 8^th Australianist in London Workshop (SOAS, 24-25 September).

2016      Simard, Candide. “interesting tag, init”. 7^th conference Tone and intonation in Europe. Satellite workshop: The role of prosody in conveying epistemic and evidential meaning. (University of Kent, 31 August-3 September)

2016      Simard, Candide, Robbie Penman.  “Of language, land and people.” Anthropology, Weather & Climate Change conference. Royal Institute of Anthropology and British Museum (27-29 May)

2015      Simard, Candide. “On being first”. Guest speaker, ISSLAC 2 (CNRS, Paris, 3-4 December).

2015      Simard, Candide and Eva Schultze-Berndt. “On the topic of insubordinate clauses”. 48th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, SLE 2015 (Leiden University, the Netherlands, 2-5 September).

2015      Simard, Candide and Eva Schultze-Berndt. “Topics: what does prosody have to say?”
Claudia Wegener and Candide Simard.  “Information structure in Gela: with special attention to word order variation”. Information structure in Endangered Languages (SOAS, London, 8-9 May).

2015      Simard, Candide. “Prosody in linguistic description: making sense of TOPICS in Ngarinyman”. Invited speaker (University of Dusseldorf, Germany, 22 January).

2015      Simard, Candide. “Phonetics in language documentation and revitalization”. Researcher Links Workshop on Documenting and Preserving Indigenous Languages: Principles, Practices and Tools. (Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, 9-13 February).

2014      Simard, Candide. “Language(s) in Context”.  PAW 2014 Workshop, (University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, 3- 5 October).

2014      Simard, Candide. “The prosody of TOPICS in Ngarinyman”. Mirima Linguistic Forum (Kununurra, Australia).

2014      Simard, Candide; Faith, Chiu and Eva Schultze-Berndt. “A study of the prosodic encoding of TOPICS as a category of information structure in Ngarinyman, a language of Australia. Poster presentation at Labphon 2014 (Tokyo, Japan, 24-28 July).

2014      Simard, Candide and Claudia Wegener. “Fronted NPs in a verb-initial language — clause-internal or external? Prosodic cues to the rescue!”. Exploring the Interfaces 3 Prosody and Constituent Structure (Montreal, Canada,8-10 May).

2014      Simard, Candide. “Instrumental approaches to prosodic description: stress in Savosavo”. University of Bielefeld Coloquium (Bielefeld, Germany, 16 April).

2014      Simard, C., Wegener, C. U., Lee, A., Chiu, F., & Youngberg, C. . “Savosavo word stress: A quantitative analysis”. Speech Prosody (SP2014 Dublin).

2014     Simard, Candide. “La description de la prosodie avec le modèle PENTA: exemples du Jaminjung et du Savosavo”. Invited speaker at CNRS (Paris, France,28 January).

2013      Simard, Candide. “Another look at… right detached NPs”. Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory conference (SOAS, London, 3-5 December)

2013      Schultze-Berndt, Eva and Candide Simard. “Subtypes of Topics in Jaminjung”. Australian Linguistics Society meeting (Melbourne, Australia October 2013).

2013     Simard,Candide. Planning and designing a project with ethical issues in mind”. PAW 2013 Workshop (SOAS, London, 17-19 September).

2013     Schultze-Berndt, Eva; Wegener, Claudia and Candide Simard. “The expression of argument focus in Ngarinyman, Jaminjung, Savosavo and Gela”.  Workshop on Information Structure in Spoken Language Corpora (ISSLaC) (University of Bielefeld, Germany, 10-12 June).

2013     Wegener, Claudia and Candide Simard Cross-Corpus “Research: Information structure in four languages: Arguments in focus”. Language Documentation: Past–Present–Future (Hanover, University of Bielefeld, Germany, 5-7June).

2012      Simard, Candide. “The prosodic encoding of topics and foci in Jaminjung”.  University of Bielefeld Coloquium (University of Bielefeld, Germany, 10 May).

2012      Eva Schultze-Berndt, Marie-Eve Ritz & Candide Simard.  “And NOW, for something completely different!” 7th European Australianists Workshop (SOAS, London, UK, 3-4 April).

2011      Simard, Candide.” Iconic lengthening in Jaminjung: when prosody, grammar and discourse intersect”  Prosody-Discourse Interface (IDP 2011) (Salford, UK, 12-14 September).

2010      Simard, Candide. “Describing the prosody of Jaminjung with the PENTA model” Humanities of the Lesser-Known 2010 (Lund, Sweden, 10-11 September,).

2009      Simard, Candide. “Prosodic contours related to tense-aspect marking in Jaminjung”. 6th European Australianist workshop (KU Leuven, Belgium,20-22 November).

2009      Simard, Candide. “The joy of doing prosodic research in a lesser-known language”.  International Summer School on Language Documentation and Description, 3L Student Conference on Language Documentation and Description (SOAS London, UK, 3 July).

2008      Simard, Candide. “The prosodic correlates characterizing the prosodic units of Jaminjung”. 5th European Australianist workshop (University of Manchester, UK, 12-13 December).

2008      Simard, Candide. “Technology: using ELAN for prosodic analysis”. DOBES Workshop 2008 Language Documentation Methods in Focus, MPI (Nijmegen, Netherlands, 12-13 June).