Dr. Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins
Position
Contact
Area of expertise
Theoretical phonology, Salish language research & revitalization
Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins completed her BA in linguistics at the University of British Columbia, and her MA at the University of Toronto before undertaking doctoral studies at MIT. She worked at UBC before coming to the University of Victoria in 1993.
Ewa has published theoretical work on Polish phonology and maintains an interest in the phonology of Slavic languages. Her primary language research, however, involves Salish languages of the west coast of North America. With the late M. Dale Kinkade, she co-edited the first book devoted solely to the study of Salish languages, Salish Languages and Linguistics (1998). She has also written on the phonology, morphology and syntax of Salish languages, focusing on Nxa’amxcin and North Straits, and is currently engaged in a long-term project to create a web-accessible Nxa’amxcin dictionary and database.
After 2000, Ewa’s theoretical interests in Salish evolved into a commitment to collaborative, community-based work in language and language revitalization. With UVic colleagues, members of the SENĆOŦEN and Hul’q’umi’num’ Vancouver Island Coast Salish communities, and First Peoples’ Heritage, Language and Culture Council she participated in a SSHRC CURA Grant (website) whose focus was language revitalization. In addition to being one of the initiators of the CURA partnership, Ewa served as Principal Investigator and Director of the grant (2002-2004, 2007-2009).
Her community-engaged work has included projects on ethical issues in linguistic fieldwork, on Community-Based Language Research methodology in linguistics, on policies and practices in evaluating community-engaged scholarship, and on language revitalization. Since 2003 she has been active in supporting the development and delivery of the Certificate in Aboriginal Language Revitalization and the Indigenous Language Revitalization programs at UVic.
Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins' Faces of UVic Research video
Selected Works
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. and J. Leonard (Forthcoming) The Syntax of North Straits Salish. In Kiss, T. and A. Alexiadou (Eds.). The Handbook of Syntax. Mouton de Gruyter.
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. (2009) Research Models, Community Engagement, and Linguistic Fieldwork: Reflections on Working within Canadian Indigenous Communities. Language Documentation and Conservation, vol. 3, no. 1 (June 2009): 15-50. [http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/June2009/].
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. (2009) Changing fieldwork roles in Community-Based Language Research. 1st International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation. University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii.
[https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/5961/browse?type=author&order =ASC...Czaykowska-Higgins%2C+Ewa]
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. (2006) Form and Function in the Nxa’amxcín Inchoative. WSCLA 11: UBC Working Papers in Linguistics. Fujimori, A. and M. A. Reis Silva (Eds.), 40-52.
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. (2004) The Morphological and Phonological Status of Nxa’amxcín Lexical Suffixes. In Gerdts, D. and L. Matthewson (Eds.) Studies in Salish Linguistics in Honor of M. Dale Kinkade. University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics. Missoula, Montana. 72-99.
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. and M. Dobrovolsky (2004) Phonology: The Function and Patterning of Sounds. In O’Grady, W. and J. Archibald (Eds.) Contemporary Linguistics Analysis. Fifth Edition. Toronto: Pearson Longman. 48-97.
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. and S. Urbanczyk (2001) Maintaining Contrast in Nxa'amxcín Reduplication. In K.Megerdoomian and L.A. Bar-el (Eds.) WCCFL 20 Proceedings. 101-114, Somerville; MA: Cascadilla Press.
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. and M. Dale Kinkade (Eds) (1998) Salish Languages and Linguistics: Theoretical and Descriptive Perspectives. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 107, W. Winter (Gen. Ed.). Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin/New York.
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. (1998) The Morphological and Phonological Constituent Structure of Words in Moses-Columbia Salish (Nxa’amxcín). In E. Czaykowska-Higgins and M. Dale Kinkade (Eds). Salish Languages and Linguistics: Theoretical and Descriptive Perspectives, Mouton de Gruyter.153-195.
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. (1998) Verbalizing Suffixes and the Structure of the Polish Verb. Yearbook of Morphology 1997, 25-58.
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. and M.L. Willett (1997) Simple Syllables in Nxa’amxcin. International Journal of American Linguistics 63(3), 385-411.
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. (1993) Cyclicity and Stress in Moses-Columbia Salish (Nxa’amxcin). Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 11(2), 197-278.
Recent Research Grants
| 2004-2009 | SSHRC Community-University Research Alliance Grant: Language Revitalization in Vancouver Island Salish Communities: A Multimedia Approach (Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins, Principal Investigator and Director; Tom Hukari and Suzanne Urbanczyk, Co-Investigators) |
| 2006-2007 | Internal Research Grant-SSHRC: Post-contact religious materials in Chinook Jargon and Interior Salish |
| 2008-2009 | Internal Research Grant-SSHRC: The Syntax of SENĆOŦEN, a dialect of Northern Straits Salish |
| 2010-2011 | Internal Research Grant-SSHRC: Phonological Words and Phrases in Nxa’amxcín Salish |
| 2010-2011 | Jacobs Research Funds- SENĆOŦEN Language Coffee House (Sonya Bird, Investigator, Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins and Janet Leonard, Co-Investigators) |
| 2011-2012 | Internal Research Grant-SSHRC: Phonological Structure in Salish |