EducationAwardsConference PresentationsBibliographyEmployment |
Welcome to Grace Wiersma's home page
These pages have been designed to communicate how one person situates herself at the turn of the 21st century, relative to her own life goals and prior planning, and relative to the various communities in which she claims membership. Casting this information into the void that is the contemporary World Wide Web represents an IT experiment, an exercise in measuring the voice, and an attempt to address the issues of whether and how much a personal discourse conducted in virtual public space can "pay the freight" or claim to enhance the collective conversation of which it forms a part.
In practice the personal home page, as an instance of genre, may present any configuration of ostensible content and style ranging from the most formal curriculum vitae to slapstick "in-your-face" self-promotion or, for that matter, just plain promotion whether commercial or political. That the pornographic impulse is strongly attracted to this medium is well known. Indeed, how inviting is the prospect of a vehicle of communication with a built-in escape hatch, a long lens through which to observe, through vicarious enjoyment, the ripples of discomfort or excitement stirred at the opposite end of the circuit. Still, as an act of imagination, launching a home page resembles nothing so much as placing a message in a bottle and throwing it out to sea.
I have chosen to project a serious statement in response to the assignment, not because I believe the Web "should" only accommodate deadpan content but because I envision a particular long-term function for my home page. My plan is to rethink the content of this page and its attachments after the launch, and then to edit and maintain the site as an ongoing resource combining some functions of the curriculum vitae with those of a beta testing site for Web publication of selected research projects.
Education
- MS (Library & Information Science), Simmons College, Boston
- PhD (Oriental Languages – Chinese Linguistics), University of California, Berkeley
- MA (Oriental Languages – Chinese Literature), University of California, Berkeley
- BA (German Language & Literature), University of California, Berkeley (Phi Beta Kappa)
Awards
- 1993 (Summer) Special Fund for Exchange with China, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- Attended Bai corpus planning symposium in Kunming and conducted fieldwork in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture
- 1987-89 Graduate Research Fellowship, US Academy of Sciences (CSCPRC/CSCC)
- Conducted dissertation research on the Yunnan Bai language in Beijing and Yunnan
- 1986 (Summer) Humanities Graduate Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley
- Consulted with François Dell at Centre de Recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale in Paris
Conference Presentations
- 1998 "Mapping Text to Talk: In Search of Cantonese Literacy"
- Paper presented to the 12th Annual Research Forum of the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, December 5-6, held at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- 1997 "How to Read Chinese in Bai / How to Read Bai in Chinese"
- Paper presented to the 11th Annual Research Forum of the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, December 6-7, held at the University of Hong Kong
- 1995 "Prosodic and Linguistic Analysis of Two Bai Songs"
- Talk and video demonstration presented to the annual meeting of CHINOPERL, April 5-8, Washington, DC
- 1995b "What Is Bai Linguistics?"
- Talk presented to the Workshop on Bai Religion, sponsored by the Henry Luce Foundation and the East Asia Program of Cornell University, April 30-May 1, Ithaca
- 1994 "Writing and Identity: A Problem in Bai Ethnolinguistics"
- Paper presented to the 68th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, January 6-9, 1994, Boston
- 1994b "Colloquial and Literary Loan Strata of the Bai Language with Special Reference to Yue Dialects"
- Paper presented to the 27th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, October 12-16, Paris
- 1992 "Building Relational Dimensions into the Bai/English Dictionary and Historical Appendix Project"
- Paper presented to the 25th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, October 14-18, Berkeley; jointly authored with Zhao Yansun of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
- 1991 "Notes on Local Variation in Jianchuan Bai"
- Paper presented to the International Conference on Yi-Burmese Linguistics, August 1-5, Xichang City, Sichuan
- 1990 "Discovering the Yunnan Bai Language Through Contrasts with Mandarin"
- Talk presented in the Research Colloquium series at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Hawaii, January 1990
Bibliography
- 2003: "Yunnan Bai"
- In The Sino-Tibetan Languages, edited by Graham Thurgood and Randy LaPolla (Routledge Language Family Series), 651-673; Overview of the sociolinguistic situation, history and dialects of Bai, and survey of its grammar including phonology, word formation and syntax
- 1997: Translation of "The Life and Works of Fu Maoji," by Xu Lin
- Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 20.1: xi-xxviii; Biography of a pioneer field linguist of China who was founding editor of the journal Minzu Yuwen (
); Published with his Cambridge University doctoral dissertation, A Descriptive Grammar of Lolo - 1995: Review of South of the Clouds: Tales from Yunnan, edited by Lucien Miller
- CHINOPERL Papers 18: 136-140; Review of a collection of Chinese minority folklore in translation produced by a binational team of American and Chinese scholars
- 1990: A Study of the Bai (Minjia) Language Along Historical Lines
- Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley Abstract
Employment
- 2001- MARC Database Quality Technician, Bibliographic Access Services, MIT Libraries
- Contribute to quality control of MARC records loaded to the database through evaluation, modification and/or recoding; contribute to database quality through interpretation and resolution of system error reports and bibliographic control reports generated by system queries; create instructions and training for casual and student helpers working on related cleanup projects; profile non-Roman materials for outsourced cataloging; process and resolve changed headings and authority control reports; resolve post-cataloging bibliographic and holding problems
- 2000-01 PT Casual Asst for Chinese Materials, Cataloging Services Dept, Harvard Law School Library
- Contributed to copy cataloging of Chinese legal monographs using RLIN and Harvard cataloging database; performed cross-romanization acquisitions searching using Harvard OPAC and vendor lists; created provisional order records and encumbered funds
- 1999 (Fall) Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Slavic and Eastern Languages, Boston College
- Taught elementary and intermediate Chinese language to undergraduates; designed and administered language tests for special needs students
- 1995-98 Translator, Chadbourne and Parke LLP (Attorneys-At-Law), Hong Kong
- Translated PRC draft laws and regulations from Chinese to English; edited bilingual joint venture contracts; built in-house database of translated Chinese laws and created relevant documentation; maintained collection of published Chinese laws
- 1991-94 University Lecturer, Dept of Chinese, Translation and Interpretation, Hong Kong Polytechnic
- Taught general linguistics, intercultural communication, modern Chinese lexicology, translation; supervised thesis projects in Chinese linguistics and translation; wrote documentation for MA in Chinese linguistics
- 1990-91 Managing Editor, Korean Studies, Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawaii
- Coordinated peer review, copyediting and production for scholarly journal and monograph series
- 1989-90 Freelance Editor, University of Hawaii Press
- Copyedited Diary of a Madman and Other Stories, by Lu Xun, trans. William A. Lyell; The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry Since the Cultural Revolution, ed. Edward Morin; Chinese Earth-sheltered Dwellings, by Gideon S. Golany
- 1977-80 Instructor, Language Centre, University of Hong Kong
- Taught academic English skills to first-year college students in the Faculty of Arts
