Ep. 42: Michelle Kamigaki-Baron on Pidgin & Secwepemctsín Language Research

This month's very special episode is with Michelle Kamigaki-Baron. Michelle is a PhD student in the department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia. She was born and raised in Hawai’i into a family of coffee plantation laborers from Honaunau, Hawai’i. Her research primarily involves speech production and perception, how these processes are changed in the context of bilingualism or bidialectalism of languages that exist in diglossia, and the continuous nature of language. She works primarily with the Secwepemc community in BC with speakers of the Secwepemctsín language and also with her own community in Hawai’i with speakers of Pidgin and ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i. In her free time Michelle enjoys swimming in the ocean, spending time with friends and family, eating out, thrifting, and trying to kidnap her dog frens. 

Things mentioned in this episode:

• Secwepemctsín
• ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i
• Pidgin
• Salish Languages
• Ep 22: N. Haʻalilio Solomon on Activism & Language Ideologies in ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi
• Michelle on ResearchGate