The Language Science Station at Planet Word: a language research and engagement laboratory at a language museum
-
Charlotte Vaughn
,
Hannah Mechtenberg
and
Jessica Orozco Contreras
Abstract
The Language Science Station (LSS) is a research and engagement laboratory operating at the Planet Word museum in Washington, DC, representing a unique partnership between language researchers and a museum dedicated to language. The LSS invites Planet Word guests – ranging from local to international visitors – to participate in research studies and engage in educational activities with student language scientists from diverse academic backgrounds. In doing so, we broaden participation in the language sciences among both the researchers and the participant population. This paper outlines the goals, values, and structure of the LSS, highlighting our dual emphases on research and engagement. We focus on several aspects of the project. These include our novel multi-university researcher-museum partnership, the different considerations that we find are necessary for conducting research in a museum setting compared to the laboratory, and our training of researchers and student research assistants. The paper also provides reflections from students on their interactions with museum visitors. We share our experiences with the broader scholarly community in an effort to lower barriers for other behavioral scientists interested in combining research and engagement in public venues.
Funding source: National Science Foundation
Award Identifier / Grant number: BCS-2116959
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant BCS-2116959 to CV. The authors would like to acknowledge the critical contributions of all the LSS team members (listed here from the LSS’s inception through spring 2024), including Ge (Stella) Huang, Deanna Gagne, Yi Ting Huang, Patrick Plummer, Colin Phillips, Rochelle Newman, Laura Wagner, Jan Edwards, Caitlin Eaves, Julie Cohen, Marjorie Bates, Sofia Bendaña, Lillian Berggoetz, Deja Bulluck, Jen Chesney, London Dixon, Sophie Domanski, Chelsea Fuller, Tessa Goldlust, Liam Graff, James Harvey, Katherine Howitt, Ivy Huang, Minsol Kim, Yuri Kim, Desirée Kirst, Bethany Kuo, Eun-Kyoung (Rosa) Lee, Jocelyn Martinez, Sarah Nam, Tal Ness, Skylar Norton, Rebecca Roberts, Lauren Salig, Thomas Sims, Craig Thorburn, Stacey Torbeso, Nichole Tramel, Melissa Stockbridge, Maya Younes, Valquiria Zango, and Andrea Zukowski. We also gratefully acknowledge the support of Planet Word leadership and staff past and present, including Ann Friedman, Patty Isacson Sabee, Rebecca Roberts, Emily Gref, Caitlin Miller, Keith Stipes, Adriana Licon, Talya Mackell, and Nikki DeJesus Sertsu. Finally, we thank all of the Planet Word visitors who have shared their time and insights with us.
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© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Introduction to the special collection on public outreach in linguistics
- To go big, we have to go home: building foundations for the future of community-engaged and public-facing research in linguistics
- Towards a theory of linguistic curiosity: applying linguistic frameworks to lingcomm and scicomm
- Linguistic discrimination and diversity: the pivotal role of linguistics in the University of Pennsylvania’s writing program
- Using constructed languages to introduce and teach linguistics
- “Science is in everything, whether we realize it or not”: using the IPA to encourage interest in the scientific study of language
- Bridging linguistics and high school students: the example of Noorlingvistide keeleklubi in Estonia
- The Linguistics Roadshow
- The Language Science Station at Planet Word: a language research and engagement laboratory at a language museum
- The moving project: exploring language, migration, and identity using participatory podcasting during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Talk about testimony: courtroom dialogue as racialized interactions
- Language science outreach through schools and social media: critical considerations
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Introduction to the special collection on public outreach in linguistics
- To go big, we have to go home: building foundations for the future of community-engaged and public-facing research in linguistics
- Towards a theory of linguistic curiosity: applying linguistic frameworks to lingcomm and scicomm
- Linguistic discrimination and diversity: the pivotal role of linguistics in the University of Pennsylvania’s writing program
- Using constructed languages to introduce and teach linguistics
- “Science is in everything, whether we realize it or not”: using the IPA to encourage interest in the scientific study of language
- Bridging linguistics and high school students: the example of Noorlingvistide keeleklubi in Estonia
- The Linguistics Roadshow
- The Language Science Station at Planet Word: a language research and engagement laboratory at a language museum
- The moving project: exploring language, migration, and identity using participatory podcasting during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Talk about testimony: courtroom dialogue as racialized interactions
- Language science outreach through schools and social media: critical considerations
