From fieldwork to linguistic theory: A tribute to Dan Everett
About the book
This Festschrift is a collection of papers presented at a conference in my honor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. Scholars came from various institutions (Tel Aviv, University of the West of England, Ohio State University, MIT, UC Berkeley, U of Edinburgh, and many more). The conference was organized by Professor Edward Gibson of MIT and sponsored by the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.
About Daniel Everett
I came to linguistics serendipitously. Growing up in Holtville, California, near the Mexican border, I heard Spanish all around me, though I expected to become a musician rather than a scientist. On a school-band trip to Hollywood, I saw My Fair Lady and became fascinated by Henry Higgins. The film’s linguistic consultant, Peter Ladefoged, later became my friend and co-author.
A few years later, I moved to Brazil with SIL International, with which I am no longer affiliated, and earned my doctorate in linguistics at the University of Campinas. Beginning in 1977, I spent many years living and conducting field research among Indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon.
Linguist, anthropologist and author. Trustee Professor of Cognitive Sciences, Bentley University.