languagingHR

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 6: Creative Community: Spoken Word in Hampton Roads

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: June 30, 2024

Length: 35:59 minutes

In this sixth episode of our podcast, languagingHR, we

Each of the poets perform one of their pieces during

Spoken word poetry is the performance of original

George, who had his own hip-hop label in his teens, came to spoken word poetry through writing at a young age and journeying through music to the spoken word format. He had been the host of the open mic at The Venue on 35th Street for many years and is now artist-in-residence there.

Lacroy was encouraged to write by a high school

Tanya Cunningham was a writer early on and later took a creative writing class with Dr. Hollis Pruitt at Tidewater Community College. For the final project, the students read their work aloud. Dr. Pruitt invited

Although this podcast focused on more general language themes such as audience and language community, we did learn some new terms. We

Note: We referred to Joshua Bennett’s book Spoken

757 Perspectives, Volumes I and II, eds, J Scott Wilson and Tanya Cunningham are available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Information about the non-profit, SLAM Connection, is available online at https://slamconnection.my.canva.site/

A few local open mics (correct as of June 28, 2024):

Where: The Venue at 35th St. (@thevenueon35th), 631 W. 35th St., Norfolk

When: Regular free events throughout the week

Where: Column 15 Cafe and Roastery, 701-R Merrimac Trail, Williamsburg

When: First Fridays Open Mic Nights; doors open at 6:30 p.m. Free

Hosted by Slam Connection (@slamconnection), [email protected]

Where: Cure Coffeehouse, 503 Botetourt St., Norfolk

When: First Thursdays, 6-7:30 p.m. Free

Where: Downing Gross Cultural Arts Center (www.downinggross.org), Newport News

When: Second Tuesdays, 7 p.m. Free

Where: The Muse Writers Center, 2200 Colonial Ave, #3, Norfolk; 757-818-9880 (the-muse.org)

When: Frequent events and performances

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/languaginghr

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 5: The Sound of Virginia: Awakening the Powhatan language

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: May 28, 2024

Length: 28 minutes

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday of each month

Worldwide, languages are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. While some are working to record endangered languages, here in Hampton Roads the Powhatan Algonquian Intertribal Roundtable, or PAIR, a consortium of eight sovereign nations, is working to bring the Powhatan language (also known as Virginia Algonquian) back to life after three centuries of dormancy. 

PAIR consists of representatives from the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Mattaponi, Upper Mattaponi, Nansemond, Rappahannock, Pamunkey and Patawomeck tribes from the area between the James River and the Potomac River in Virginia, historically called Tsenocomoco and home to the Powhatan chiefdom. PAIR has secured a 3-year language preservation grant through 2026 from the Administration for Native Americans.

 This episode includes interviews with Lenora Adkins and Kayla Locklear of the Chickahominy (www.chickahominytribe.org), leaders of the language project Omisun ( waking oneself up); along with language specialists Dr. Stephanie Hasselbacher, PhD.(https://kenahconsulting.com) and Ian Custalow, both of whom are working with PAIR. Custalow, a gifted language speaker, is a member of the Mattaponi, and has been researching the Powhatan language for more than 20 years. We also tap into the expertise of Scott Dawson, a Hatteras Islander who has spent decades exploring the linguistic and archaeological heritage of Algonquian speakers.

We speak with Kole Matheson, an at-large member of the Cherokee Western Band, a Tidewater resident, and instructor at Old Dominion University, ODU. As one of four panelists at a symposium on Indigenous Language Preservation at ODU, organized by Applied Linguistics graduate student Sara Rose Hotaling, Matheson attested to the importance of preserving language in connecting to culture.  

The goals of PAIR are to create a 24-lesson curriculum for learning Powhatan, to make a dictionary of the language, and to complete a map with native place names. As Adkins says, “We want to learn it first!” And, “Check back in with us in 3 years!”

Send your comments, feedback and questions to [email protected]

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 4 : ‘How’re you doing?’: Diagnosing Health Talk

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: April 26, 2024

Length: 24:22

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday of each month

Conversations between medical providers and patients have their own special style and context-driven meaning. In this episode, co-hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky explore the ways providers in Hampton Roads  implement patient-centered care through their choice of questions, framing, and expression of empathy.

They interview Dr. Staci Defibaugh, associate professor of linguistics at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, whose research specialty is analyzing conversations between advanced practice providers – nurse practitioners, NPs, and physician’s assistants, PAs – and patients. They also talk to Temple West and Alison Schoew, educators in the simulation and standardized patient program at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in Norfolk, who give medical students the opportunity to practice their communication and diagnostic skills through role play. (According to West, who administers the program, they’re always looking for community members to participate in the standardized patient program. To learn more and to apply,  https://www.evms.edu/community/community_training/sentara_center_for_simulation_immersive_learning_a/capabilities/standardized_patients/)

 Additionally, LanguagingHR talked to Barb Morrison, a physician’s assistant at a Sentara Health internal medicine practice, who participated in Defibaugh’s most recent research project. And Dr. LaTonya Russell, MD, a pediatrician and medical director for Sentara’s community-based clinics statewide in Virginia, talked about the importance of listening to patients’ stories. 

Languaging Episode 3: Notes

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 3: What's in a Name?

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: March 22, 2024

Length: 21:19 minutes

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday of each month

In this third episode of Languaging in Hampton Roads, co-hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky explore how words get added to the English language and their discussion focuses primarily on the addition of words from the Algonquian family of languages.

Word origins can be murky business. Some of the earliest additions of Native American words into English came from the accounts of early settlers. Captain John Smith, the English soldier and explorer who became a colonial governor in Virginia, and Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, among many others, kept ethnographic accounts of the Native American language and culture.

The Native American language most local to us in Tidewater is Powhatan, an Eastern Algonquian language, and we learn from John Smith's accounts that words such as raccoon, possum, and persimmon entered English from that language.

To really get to the bottom of word origins, Prue and Jill go to sea to explore one word in particular, that is, the name of "the most important fish in the sea," the Atlantic menhaden.

While combing sources and knocking on the doors of experts to find out the origins of the name, they came across, as frequently happens when researching words, stories. Many stories. From the story of Roger Williams who wrote down the Narragansett name of a silver fish as munnawhatteaug to the accounts of the 19th century fish researcher G. Brown Goode, who, in addition to his scientific research, scoured the east coast for the myriad nicknames for the filter feeder. Other stories that emerged were those of the generations of the menhaden fishermen themselves and the current controversy around industrial menhaden fishing.

Nailing down the origins of the word menhaden, it turns out, is as slippery as the fish itself. They even sought out the advice of Smithsonian emeritus linguist Ives Goddard who consoled them that tracking down the origins of fish names are notoriously difficult.

While Jill and Prue had to settle for a probable origin of the word, the real lesson was in the journey. Language is constantly changing. That is part of its beauty, that it morphs with shifting demographics, cross cultural contact, and sometimes, just plain necessity.

Prue and Jill end the episode with an account of an emerging use of Native American language in archeaology, where Scott Dawson from Hatteras describes using Croatoan words for the artifacts they are excavating at their sites on the island.

Send feedback, questions, topic suggestions, etc. to [email protected]

CREDITS: Original music by Skye Zentz; Languaging logo by Patty McDonald; technical help by Michael Lusby at the Sound Studio at Slover Library in Norfolk, Va.

Languaging in Hampton Roads is written and produced by Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

In this episode of Languaging in Hampton Roads, co-hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky look into communication in the deaf community. They explore sign language, its history and variations. In particular they focus on the development of BASL, Black American Sign Language and American Sign Language in the southern U.S. 

Through an interview with a nationally certified interpreter for the deaf, his interview of a deaf woman in Virginia Beach, and conversations with local and national experts, including NC State Prof. Walt Wolfram, on signing, they reveal the complexities of the language and pressures within the deaf community. 

--Jubal Metzger-Smith’s full interview,  its audio recording and transcript is available at 

https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/tidewatervoices/  or find it by searching Tidewater Voices in your browser

--The Chesapeake campus of Tidewater Community College offers a 2-year associate’s degree in ASL and interpretation for the deaf. 757-822-1111

--The Hearing Loss Association of America, Virginia Beach chapter, includes all the cities in Hampton Roads. It conducts monthly hybrid meetings on the second Saturday of the month at Fortis College, 6300 Center Drive, Norfolk, Va. Find it at www.hearingloss.org

--The Virginia Hearing Loss Support Network meets in Virginia Beach on the fourth Saturday of each month. On Facebook or [email protected].

--The Wells Theatre, 108 E. Tazewell St, Norfolk, Va. 23510 includes a signing interpreter for at least one show per production. (757) 627-1234.

--Find the videos and vignettes for the Language and Life Project at North Carolina State University on YouTube. 

Send feedback, questions, topic suggestions, etc. to [email protected]

CREDITS: Original music by Skye Zentz; Languaging logo by Patty McDonald; technical help by Michael Lusby at the Sound Studio at Slover Library in Norfolk, Va.

Languaging Hampton Roads is written and produced by Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

In this first episode of Languaging Hampton Roads, co-hosts Jill Winkowski, a Tidewater native, and Prue Salasky, a UK native, introduce themselves, describe their background in linguistic studies, and explain their interest in the region’s life and language. 

Note: For the most part they use the terms Hampton Roads (a political designation) and Tidewater (a geographical designation) interchangeably to denote this corner of Southeastern Virginia that extends around the Chesapeake Bay and is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean.

This episode focuses on the identifying characteristics of a Tidewater dialect and Tidewater Voices, an online archival collection of 300-plus stories collected from residents throughout the region. Students in the sociolinguistics classes of professor Dr. Bridget Anderson at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., have been collecting these stories since 2005. Thanks to a years-long effort by Languaging co-host Jill Winkowski and a team at the ODU library, the audio recordings and their transcripts became available to the public in late 2023 at 

https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/tidewatervoices/  or find it by searching Tidewater Voices in your browser. Soon, members of the community will be able to submit their own stories for review and publication.

In this episode Prue and Jill interview two ODU linguistics students who conducted interviews with their families for the Tidewater Voices project. One, Jennifer Williams, interviewed her grandmother who grew up during segregation; the other, Pettie Perkins, talked to her three children to illustrate contemporary and future issues, such as the role of social media and technology in their lives. Both paint a vivid picture of the area in their personal stories and both indicate how the study of linguistics expanded their understanding of their family history and identity. 

Finally, Jill poses a challenge to listeners: Explain the English present perfect and give an example to illustrate its use. Send it in an email to [email protected] and the winning entry will be featured in an upcoming episode of Languaging.

Send feedback, questions, topic suggestions, etc. to [email protected]

CREDITS: Original music by Skye Zentz; Languaging logo by Patty McDonald; technical help by Michael Lusby at the Sound Studio at Slover Library in Norfolk, Va.

Languaging Hampton Roads is written and produced by Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky