Research

I have combined theoretical and descriptive linguistic study with community-focused research, activism, and action throughout my development as a researcher and scholar. I have had the advantage of many intellectual collaborations and influences, beginning with my advisors and instructors at the University of Toronto, the University of California, San Diego, and in Behchokǫ̀: Keren Rice, Elizabeth Cowper, Sandra Chung, the late S.-Y. Kuroda, the late Vital Thomas, and the late Elizabeth Mackenzie. My early colleagues Chilin Shih, Grant Goodall, the late Carol Georgopoulos, Mary Siemens, Rosa Mantla, Lısì Lafferty, Marguerite MacKenzie, Alana Johns, and the late Philip Rabesca were important in shaping my thinking about research, and it wouldn’t have been life without them. Collaborations with a wide range of people have greatly enriched my thinking and myself as a person.

Please see the other tabs for more complete details of my research profile. Find some highlights here.

Employment as a researcher

Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1984-1991

University of Victoria, 1991-2020

At different times I have worked with researchers of the Dogrib Divisional Board of Education, Tłı̨chǫ Community Services Agency, and Dogrib Treaty 11 Council, Behchokǫ̀, NWT, and Collège nordique francophone, Yellowknife, NWT, and collaborated on research grants with colleagues in Canada and the United States.

Highlights of community research

1996     Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì Enı̨htł’è / A Dogrib Dictionary.  Edited by Leslie Saxon and Mary Siemens. Dogrib Divisional Board of Education, Rae-Edzo, NWT. Available at: http://tlichohistory.com/sites/default/files/Tlicho_Dictionary_0.pdf

2002      Keren Rice and Leslie Saxon. Issues of standardization and community in aboriginal language lexicography. In Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas, ed. by W. Frawley, K.C. Hill, and P. Munro, University of California Press, pp. 124-154.

2003    Dogrib Knowledge on Placenames, Caribou and Habitat. Researchers Leslie Saxon, Sally Anne Zoe, Georgina Chocolate, and Allice Legat, Dogrib Treaty 11 Council. Report to the West Kitikmeot Slave Study Society, Yellowknife, NWT.  [173 pp.]  Available at: http://www.enr.gov.nt.ca/_live/documents/content/WKSS_Dogrib_Knowledge_2002.pdf

2005-     (Website) Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì Multimedia Dictionary, Tłı̨chǫ Community Services Agency, Behchokǫ̀, NWT. Available at: http://tlicho.ling.uvic.ca/

2010 [2007]     Tłı̨chǫ K’ę̀ę̀ Ets’eetł’èe xè Enı̨htł’è K’e Yats’ehtıı / Reading and Writing in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì. Edited and written by Aliki Marinakis,  Mary Koyina Richardson, Leslie Saxon, and Mary Siemens, Tłı̨chǫ Community Services Agency, Behchokǫ̀, NWT.  [the copyright date of this book is 2007; it appeared in January 2010] Available at: http://tlichohistory.com/sites/default/files/reading_and_writing_manual_0_1_0.pdf

2012     Yati [Language/Words] (application issued by iTunes). Edited by Leslie Saxon with Rosa Mantla, Tammy Steinwand-Deschambeault, and others. Programmed by Christopher Coey. Released 24 May 2012. Available at: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/yati/id525154015?mt=8

Presentations [these are the presentations that I feel have had the most impact because of what I was talking about and because of the venue at which I was speaking]

2005      Jeannette Armstrong , Joy Davis, and Leslie Saxon.  UVic/En’owkin Centre’s Language Revitalizaton Certificate Program.  12^th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium.  University of Victoria, Department of Linguistics, June 2005.

2010      Goxègoahdo [Tell us Stories]: Learning and Teaching Indigenous Languages. Aboriginal Languages Symposium: Our Languages – A Shared Responsibility, Government of the Northwest Territories, Yellowknife, NWT, March 2010. Keynote address.

2011      Rosa Mantla , Mary Koyina Richardson, and Leslie Saxon. Gomǫ, Gotà Ts’ı̨lı̨ Nı̨dè, Dàanì Bebìa Ts’ǫ̀ Gots’edee [As Parents, How we Talk to Babies]: Motherese in Tłı̨chǫ [Dogrib] and the On-line Multimedia Tłı̨chǫ Dictionary. Baby Talk Symposium, History of Medicine, University of Victoria, 2 April 2011.

2013      Linguistics serving Indigenous language revitalization. Teaching Amer-Indian Languages Conference, Tsuut’ina Gunaha Institute, Tsuut’ina Nation [Alberta], 15-17 February 2013. Inited workshop presenter.

2013      Revitalizing the languages of the earth. International Symposium on Knowledge Democracy: Decolonizing the University through Community Partnerships, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria, 5 March 2013. Invited panelist.

2015      Indigenous language revitalization: Non-Indigenous allies in academia. University of Victoria Retirees Association lecture, 4 July 2015.

2015      Linguist meets geography: Documenting Tłı̨chǫ knowledge of place through place names. Department of Geography colloquium, University of Victoria, 20 November 2015.

2016     Rosa Mantla and Leslie Saxon. Consequences of working together: Research and learning in Indigenous language and culture collaborations. WSCLA 21. UQAM. 1-3 April 2016.

2016      Reconciliation in language and culture. CUVIC conference, University of Victoria. 28 April 2016. Invited panelist.

2020      Rosa Mantla and Leslie Saxon. Community and linguistics: What they mean to us. Colloquium, Department of Linguistics, UMass-Amherst. 16 October 2020.

 

Highlights of theoretical and descriptive linguistic study

1989     Lexical versus syntactic projection:  The configurationality of Slave.  In Athapaskan Linguistics: Current Perspectives on a Language Family, ed. by E.-D. Cook and Keren D. Rice, Mouton de Gruyter (State-of-the-Art Reports 15), pp. 379-406.

1990     On one’s own:  The semantics and pragmatics of reflexives. In Interdisciplinary Approaches to Language: Essays in Honor of S.-Y. Kuroda, ed. by Carol P. Georgopoulos and Roberta L. Ishihara.  Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 521-537.

1993     A personal use of Athapaskan “impersonal” ts’e-.  International Journal of American Linguistics 59: 338-350.

1996     Athabaskan Language Studies:  Essays in Honor of Robert W. Young.  Edited by Eloise Jelinek, Sally Midgette, Keren Rice, and Leslie Saxon. The University of New Mexico Press. [490 pp.]

1998     Complement Clauses in Dogrib. In Studies in American Indian Languages: Description and Theory, ed. by Leanne Hinton and Pamela Munro, University of California Publications in Linguistics. University of California Press, pp. 204-211.

2000     Head-internal relative clauses in Dogrib (Athapaskan).  In Papers in Honor of Ken Hale, ed. by Andrew Carnie, Eloise Jelinek, and Mary Willie.  MIT Working Papers on Endangered and Less Familiar Languages #1, Department of Linguistics, MIT, pp. 93-108.

2005     Keren Rice and Leslie Saxon. Comparative Athapaskan syntax:  Arguments and projections.  In The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax, ed. by G. Cinque and R. S. Kayne, Oxford University Press, pp. 698-774.

2013     Special volume: The syntax of relative clauses.  Canadian Journal of Linguistics/ Revue canadienne de linguistique 58 (2): 151-396. Edited by Martha McGinnis and Leslie Saxon.

2016     Leslie Saxon and Andrea Wilhelm. The “possessed noun suffix” and possession in two northern Dene (Athabaskan) languages. International Journal of American Linguistics 82 (1): 35-70.

2020      The Tłı̨chǫ syntactic causative and non-nominal CPs. In Contrast and Representations in Syntax, eds. Bronwyn Bjorkman and Daniel Currie Hall. Oxford University Press, pp. 141-165.

Presentations [these topics are ripe for further development, and are in development as written papers]

2011      Įdaà ts’eèhtła kò … [Once upon a time …] , or Third and ‘Fourth’ Person in Dene (Athabaskan) Languages: An Investigation of Person Features. Guest lecture in graduate syntax seminar (Ling 530A.002), Department of Linguistics, UBC, 4 March 2011. Invited guest lecture.

2011     Two types of relative clauses in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì. Department of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University, 10 March 2011. Invited lecture.

2011      Yéttanetél’s “Klintchangé kotié” and the Expression of Subjectivity. Workshop on Narrative in Athabaskan and Related Languages, Athabaskan Languages Conference, Council of Yukon First Nations, Whitehorse, Yukon, June 2011. Invited speaker.

2014      “Discourse particles” and selection by higher predicates. Workshop on Structure and Constituency in the Languages of the Americas, St John’s, Newfoundland, 25-27 April 2014.

2014      The role of third person forms in paradigms. Dene Verb Paradigm Workshop, University of Toronto, 26-28 September 2014.

2016      Place names across time. Plenary address, Dene Languages Conference. Yellowknife. 6-8 June 2016.

2018      Tłı̨chǫ discourse particle ne: what speakers say they know. Poster presented at the Annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association, University of Regina. 30 May 2018.

2019      Elizabeth Bogal-Allbritten, Rosa Mantla, Keir Moulton, and Leslie Saxon. Dene Internally-Headed Relatives: Some preliminary notes on Scope in Tłı̨chǫ Head-Internal Relatives. RelNomComp: Workshop on Relativization, Nominalization, and Complementation. University of Toronto. 19-20 June 2019.

2020      Hailey Hyekyeong Ceong and Leslie Saxon. Addressee honorifics as allocutive agreement in Japanese and Korean. To appear in Actes du congrès annuel de l’Association canadienne de linguistique 2020 / Proceedings of the 2020 the annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association.