The University hosted the tenth International Conference on the History of Language Sciences this weekend.

Linguists from over 20 nations visited the University to attend the conference which was held September 1-5. The conference, which is held every three years, consisted of presentations from linguists from various countries such as Brazil, China, France, Finland, Japan and Poland.

This was the first time the conference was held in Illinois and one of the few times it has been held in the United States. Some scholars from the United States embraced this opportunity.

“It’s a great opportunity for those of us who don’t have the money to fly to Europe on a regular basis,” said Katherine Arens, a professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Arens said that she felt that an international symposium, particularly one from a small discipline such as language sciences, helps establish working relations among professors in different universities.

“Particularly in an era of globalization like we have today, these international networks are becoming much more important. Linguistics is one of the fields that has always been very globalized,” Arens said.

Among the many linguists presenting was Suzy Lagazzi-Rodrigues, a professor from the University of Campinas. Lagazzi-Rodrigues’ presentation of the institutionalization process of linguistics in Brazil surrounded two books, Principios de Linguistica Geral and Historia e Estrutura da Lingua Portuguesa by Mattoso Camara.

“Mattoso is our great reference when we (Brazilians) talk about linguistics,” Lagazzi-Rodrigues said.

In her presentation she explained how Principios de Linguistica Geral brought about the emergence of the Portuguese language as a system. As Historia e Estrutura da Lingua Portuguesa, describes the position of the linguist as an analyst in Brazil.

“When I say that Historia e Estrutura da Lingua Portuguesa is really what gives for Brazilians the status of linguistics, really is the possibility of describing our language and not only reaffirming principles that comes from away,” Lagazzi-Rodrigues said.

Douglas A. Kibbee, a professor in the Department of French at the University and the organizer of this year’s conference, explained that the University itself has been “a very strong contributor” to linguistics.

Kibbee says the University has contributed to the history of linguistics by employing “very distinguished” linguists, as well as being one of the first universities to offer courses in the history of linguistics.

“So we both contributed to the history and we contributed to the history of the history, ” Kibbee said.

Kibbee also feels that some new student exchanges may result from this conference.

“In general I think it makes the University, and all the many qualities it has, better known to people from around the world and that helps us later bring those students here,” Kibbee said.