Barbara Blankenship

Dept. of Linguistics
UCLA
Los Angeles CA 90095-1543

blankens@humnet.ucla.edu

Barbara Blankenship
 

Teaching

UCLA courses

    Winter 2002 Linguistics 10, "History and Structure of English Words"
    Spring 2002 Linguistics 10, "History and Structure of English Words"
  Spring 2003

Honors 98, Seminar 25, "Science of the Singing Voice"
-- taught by Dr. Patricia Keating, while I stood by with vocal examples

Teaching philosophy

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Research interests, Publications

Interests

I am completely fascinated by the variety of sounds used in languages. I like nothing better than to putter around the phonetics lab, analyzing sounds from languages that are remote from my own, and figuring out how people make and perceive them. Other passions are morphology, historical and comparative linguistics, language change, and writing systems.

Publications

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Other Linguistics Activities

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Careers Outside Linguistics

Deep in the past, I worked as a programmer and systems analyst at System Development Corporation, an early think tank where they thought up ways that computers might be useful to civilians. (Times have changed.) Since I was in the library applications department, I ended up as an expert on library systems. Later I designed data management applications for corporate libraries, records managers, and publishers, including SilverPlatter Information and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. I have worked as a technical writer, indexer, and corporate trainer, and managed bilingual acquisitions for the library of a local elementary school. I still enjoy occasional consulting on databases and web design.

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Biographical Information

Grew up in San Diego, California
B.A. from Pomona College (music: pipe organ)
M.A. and Ph.D. from UCLA (linguistics: phonetics)
Lived 5 years in Germany, one summer in France
Currently reside in Los Angeles
Married 37 years to the late Donald Blankenship (B.A. from Cal Tech (physics); M.A. and Ph.D. from UC San Diego (Psychophysics);
   and co-inventor of the digital bibliographic system that became Medline at the National Library of Medicine)
Two fabulous children -- still living with me, along with a troop of pets
Love to travel, hike, rollerblade, make music, cook, create with yarn, thread, textiles, metal
Other fields I would get involved in if I had nine lives: geology, oceanography, playing chamber music

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Secret Past
 
  Opera Singer    Opera Singer  
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Site updated:  July, 2007