Gillian Elizabeth Sankoff (born March 6, 1943) (pronounced ) is a Canadian-American

sociolinguist Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of l ...

, and professor emerita of linguistics at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

. Sankoff's notable former students include Miriam Meyerhoff.

Biography

She earned her PhD in 1968 from

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Univer ...

, with a dissertation entitled, "Social aspects of multilingualism in New Guinea." She is known for her work on Montréal French, on

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

and

creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...

s (in particular,

Tok Pisin Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...

), and on how speakers' use of language changes over the course of their lifespans. Her contributions to the development of the variationist approach to sociolinguistics are documented in interviews featured in Tagliamonte's (2015) history of the field. She was married to Canadian mathematician

David Sankoff David Sankoff (born December 31, 1942) is a Canadian mathematician, bioinformatician, computer scientist and linguist. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Genomics in the Mathematics and Statistics Department at the University o ...

, then to Canadian-American sociologist

Erving Goffman Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century". In 2007 '' The Times Higher Ed ...

from 1981 to his death in 1982, and subsequently married American sociolinguist

William Labov William Labov ( ; born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of ...

in 1993. She is the mother of sociologist Alice Goffman.

Honors

In 1986 she received a

Guggenheim fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

. A

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the ...

in her honor, ''Social Lives in Language'', appeared in 2008. A special panel in her honor was organized as part of the NWAV 41 (2012) conference held at Indiana University. She was named a

fellow of the Linguistic Society of America Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is an honor accorded by the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) to distinguished members of the society. LSA Fellows are "members of the Society who have made distinguished contributions to the dis ...

(LSA) in 2018.

Selected publications

* Gillian Sankoff. 2001. Linguistic outcomes of language contact. In J.K. Chambers, P. Trudgill & Natalie Schilling-Estes (eds.), ''Handbook of Sociolinguistics''. Oxford: Blackwell, 638-668. * Gillian Sankoff. 2004. Adolescents, young adults and the critical period: two case studies from "Seven Up". In C. Fought (ed.), ''Sociolinguistic Variation: Critical Reflections''. Oxford University Press, 121-139. * Gillian Sankoff and Suzanne Laberge. 1973. On the acquisition of native speakers by a language. ''Kivung'' 6, 32-47. * Gillian Sankoff and Penelope Brown. 1976. The origins of syntax in discourse: a case study of Tok Pisin relatives. ''Language'' 52, 631-666. * Gillian Sankoff et al. 1997. Variation in the use of discourse markers in a language contact situation. ''Language Variation and Change'' 9, 191-217. * Gillian Sankoff and Hélène Blondeau. 2007. Language change across the lifespan: /r/ in Montreal French. ''Language'' 83, 560-588.

References

External links

Gillian Sankoff lecture, York University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sankoff, Gillian 1943 births Living people Linguists from Canada Linguists from the United States Canadian emigrants to the United States McGill University alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty Place of birth missing (living people) Sociolinguists Women linguists Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America