ELAP PhD graduate - Dr Sophie Salffner

Sophie first got involved in language documentation at the University of Bielefeld (Germany), assisting in a team working in Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria. In 2004/05, She received funding from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Germany) to study Language Documentation and Description at SOAS. In 2005, Sophie started her PhD in Field Linguistics working on Ikaan, a dialect of an endangered minority language in southwestern Nigeria. Her research was supported with funding from SOAS, the AHRC, ELDP and the Gesellschaft für bedrohte Sprachen (Germany).

Sophie's thesis describes and analyses tone - the contrastive use of pitch - in the phonology, lexicon and grammar of Ikaan. In addition, Sophie discussed language endangerment and language loss issues with the community, worked out a trial orthography with the community and edited a small booklet with proverbs, riddles and a story in Ikaan with translations into Yoruba and English. She also worked together with local universities, training students at Nigerian universities in fieldwork, linguistic surveying and basic recording techniques.

Sophie is currently working as Multimedia Officer at the CETL Languages of the Wider World (SOAS/UCL), creating multimedia materials for language learning and supporting teachers who want to work with multimedia in their language classes. This March, Sophie is returning to Nigeria for one month to teach fieldwork and technology in language documentation at the universities and to reconnect with the Ikaan-speaking community in Ikakumo.

Congratulations Sophie!

For more information on Sophie's research, visit her profile page