Steven Clancy

Senior Lecturer in Russian, Slavic Linguistics, and 2nd-Language Acquisition
Academic Director, Center for the Study of Languages
Director, Slavic Language Program

[see also my page at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures]


University of Chicago
Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures
1130 East 59th Street, Foster 406
Chicago, IL 60637


Teaching Schedule and Office Hours for
Dr. Steven Clancy

Courses for 2010-2011
2nd-Year Russian through Literary Readings (RUSS 20400-20500-20600)

Office Hours: Mon 10:30-11:30, Thurs 1:30-2:30 and by appointment in Cobb 215 in the CSL.

Office: Foster 413 but find me in the CSL Cobb 215, 2nd Floor

Best point of contact is email:
email: sclancy@uchicago.edu
Department: (773) 702-8033
Fax: (773) 702-7030

NOTE: Human Being, Language, and Mind:
An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics
(LING 26700/36700=SLAV 21700/31700)

and

Corpus Linguistics
(SLAV 20500/30500=LING 27340/37340)

will not be offered in 2010-2011 or 2011-2012.


Research Interests

Steven Clancy is Senior Lecturer in Russian, Slavic Linguistics, and 2nd-Language Acquisition in the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures at the University of Chicago. He is also the Academic Director of the University of Chicago Center for the Study of Languages (CSL, Cobb Hall, 2nd Floor). His publications include the The Chain of BEING and HAVING in Slavic and “The ascent of guy” as well as two books on Slavic case semantics with Laura Janda: The Case Book for Russian (2002), winner of the 2005 AATSEEL book award for best book in language pedagogy and The Case Book for Czech (2006). The Case Book for Polish is forthcoming. His research interests include cognitive linguistics, case semantics and verbal semantics, corpus linguistics, grammaticalization, and historical linguistics. His primary languages of interest are Russian, Czech, and Polish. He is currently studying Slavic case semantics and verbal semantics utilizing various quantitative methods, including Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) and quantitative corpus linguistics. From 2007-2010 he was the president of the Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (SCLA), an international organization for Slavic Linguists, and now serves as the Past-President (2010-2013).

Curriculum Vitae

Steven Clancy's CV in PDF format. (Updated December 2010)

Select Publications

Clancy, Steven J. 2010. The Chain of Being and Having in Slavic (= Studies in Language Companion Series 122). Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Clancy, Steven J. 2006. “The Topology of Slavic Case: Semantic Maps and Multidimensional Scaling”, in Glossos, Issue 7, pp. 1-28. (R)

Clancy, Steven J. 2005. “The Conceptual Nexus of BE and HAVE: a semantic network of BE, HAVE, and their neighbors,” in Times and Cases: A View of Slavic Conceptualizations, Laura A. Janda and Tore Nesset, eds. Glossos Issue 5, pp. 1-27. (R)

Clancy, Steven J. 2001. “Semantic Maps for BE and HAVE in Slavic,” Glossos, Issue 1, Spring (Papers from the First Annual Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association Conference, November 3-4, 2000 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). (R)

Clancy, Steven J. 1999. “The Ascent of guy”, American Speech 74(3):282-97. (R)

Books with Laura A. Janda

Clancy, Steven J., and Laura A. Janda. In Progress. The Case Book for Polish (BOOK, CD-ROM, and WEBSITE).

Janda, Laura A., and Steven J. Clancy. 2006. The Case Book for Czech (BOOK, CD-ROM, and WEBSITE). Bloomington, IN: Slavica.

Janda, Laura A., and Steven J. Clancy. 2002. The Case Book for Russian (BOOK, CD-ROM, and WEBSITE). Bloomington, IN: Slavica. BOOK AWARD: 2005 AATSEEL Award for Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy.

The Case Book Series
Laura A. Janda • Steven J. Clancy

The Case Book for Russian (2002)
Laura A. Janda and Steven J. Clancy
Slavica Publishers
Enter WebsiteMore information
Sample Chapter

The Case Book for Czech (2006)
Laura A. Janda and Steven J. Clancy
Slavica Publishers
Enter WebsiteMore information
Sample Chapter

The Case Book for Polish (forthcoming)
Steven J. Clancy and Laura A. Janda
Enter Website • More information
Forthcoming

Recent Travel and Conference Planning

Over the past few years, I have organized or co-organized several international conferences for the SCLA and two masterclasses in corpus methods, experimental methods, and statistical methods.

In October 2010, the SCLC-2010 conference was held at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island), where I presented a paper on

In April 2010, Dagmar Divjak (University of Sheffield) and I co-organized the Experimental Methods in Linguistics (EML-2010) masterclass, held at the University of Sheffield.

In October 2009, the SCLC-2009 conference was held at Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic).

In August 2008, I traveled to Bergen, Norway for the kickoff meeting of the Indo-European Case and Argument Structure in a Typological Perspective (IECASTP) project. I am exploring the historical subject (with nominative case marking) and oblique subject (non-nominative case marking) constructions in Slavic for this project headed by Jóhanna Barðdal of the University of Bergen.

I was an instructor along with Michele Feist for the use of Multidimensional Scaling in Linguistic Research for the Fourth Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics (EMCL-4) which preceded Language, Culture, and Mind III at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark, July 7-12, 2008.

SCLC-2008 was held in conjunction with the Cognitive and Functional Perspectives on Dynamic Tendencies in Languages conference of the Estonian Cognitive Linguistics Association (ECLA) in Tartu, Estonia, May 29-June 1, 2008 as the 2008 annual conference for SCLA.

Dagmar Divjak (University of Sheffield) and I co-organized the Masterclass in Corpus Methods in Linguistics and Language Pedagogy (CMLLP-2008), held at the University of Chicago, Center for the Study of Languages, March 26-30, 2008.

SCLC-2007 was held at the University of Chicago, Center for the Study of Languages, October 12-14, 2007 as the 2007 annual conference of the Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (SCLA).

Upcoming Travel and Conference Planning

For June 2011, Prof. Michele Feist (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) and I are planning the next EMCL-5.2 to be held at the University of Chicago, Center for the Study of Languages. More details to come.

Research in Progress

Computational Construction Grammar Approaches to identifying case constructions in unannotated corpora.

Semantics maps, multidimensional scaling in the study of Slavic case systems and verbal systems. Pilot project on DESTINATION-LOCATION-SOURCE constructions in Slavic and beyond.

Quantitative corpus linguistic study of BE synonyms in Russian.

The Russian Subject: study of subject (with nominative case marking) and oblique subject (non-nominative case marking) constructions in contemporary Russian with reference to Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian.

The Slavic Subject (broader study for the Slavic languages family)

The Case Book for Polish (see above)

Course Descriptions

Corpus Linguistics (SLAV 20500/30500=LING 27340/37340)
This course introduces the use of language corpora (large-scale electronic collections of authentic written and spoken language) in linguistic research from both soft (qualitative) and hard (quantitative) perspectives. Students will receive hands-on experience in corpus processing and data analysis and will learn how to work with existing corpora for their languages of interest as well as how to construct corpora of their own. Particular attention will be paid to the role of the corpus as a source of linguistic data and to the potential of corpus methods to enrich research in other theoretical frameworks, such as usage-based linguistics, construction grammar, cognitive linguistics, and functional linguistics. S. Clancy. Spring.

Human Being, Language, and Mind: An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics (LING 26700/36700 or SLAV 21700/31700)
This course explores the relatively new framework of Cognitive Linguistics. Topics include metaphor and metonymy, prototypes, polysemy, categorization and conceptualization, blends, constructions, the embodiment of meaning, construal, grammaticalization, and language pedagogy, among others. The major ideas behind this linguistic theory are grasped quickly, affording students the opportunity to begin applying this theoretical knowledge to their own interests through classroom assignments and a research project.
Readings are drawn from the work of Croft, Janda, Fillmore, Goldberg, Haspelmath, Lakoff & Johnson, Langacker, Sweetser, Talmy, Turner, Wierzbicka, and others. Additional readings take up topics from neuroscience, philosophy (phenomenology), literature (poetic and non-poetic metaphor, structure of parable/myth/fairy tale, etc., especially as related to the work of Tolkien and the Inklings), and other disciplines. The course is of interest to students in linguistics, literature, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, music, language teaching and learning, and other fields.

Selected Research, Talks, and Publications

Course Information



Last updated: October 14, 2011.